FIC: Faith The Series Season 7 Episode 18
FIC: Faith The Series Season 7 Episode 18
Izzerial whistled happily as he stalked up the drive leading to his mansion, darkness swirling around it as the welcoming lights of his luxurious home beckoned him. It was portentous times, exciting times, the sort of times that changed the world forever.
Why he couldn’t remember being this excited since the Russian Revolution, and then he’d just been a demon working\killing his way up the ranks, now he was in one of the driving seats, moving the pieces on the chess board.
Izzerial halted, brow furrowing as a shadow seemed to shift in the darkness behind the pines lining his wide driveway. Even as his mouth opened in a challenge, a ski-masked figure stepped out of the blackness, silenced gun coming up.
Even as Izzerial lunged at the man, his gun let out a muffled phfft forcing him to twist away from the gun, his eyes widening as a dart hissed past his left eye. His hand reached for the man’s throat, the man flinching back and firing another dart at him, this one buzzing past his left hip. His hands closed on the man’s throat and twisted, crimson fountaining out of the man’s neck as his head tore off.
And then three darts thudded into his back, a great lethargy filling him as he spun to face the trio behind him.
* * *
“Brother Antonie is dead!” Brother Jacob exclaimed angrily.
Brother Jacob grimaced. “Brother Antonie was a fool, a clumsy fool. This was supposed to be a reconnaissance, the snatch wasn’t planned until tomorrow. But thanks to him we were forced to act ahead of schedule, our plane isn’t even here until tomorrow night.” Jacob shook his head before glancing at his companion. This mission was a complete and utter mess, but it was his responsibility to see it through. “You two, secure the prisoner. The rest of you, clean up Brother Antoine’s body, leave not a drop of blood behind!”
* * *
Faith yawned and stretched as she dropped into her seat behind her desk and glanced at the mail her new secretary had sorted for her. “Damn it.” Faith grunted as she stared at the mail, new secretary, it wasn’t like Cordy could ‘xactly do the job anymore.
Her throat tightened and eyes stung at the thought of her lost friend. Tears threatened to spill out. “We have an emergency!”
Faith started, hurriedly gathering herself as Hamilton stormed into her office, the liaison’s usual smug air shaken. “What?” Faith swung her feet up onto her desk and pretended utter indifference. “Lost a cufflink or somethin’?”
Hamilton shot her a distracted glare. “As of last night, Izzerial has gone missing.”
Faith raised an impudent eyebrow. “And this concerns me how?”
If anything Hamilton’s glare intensified. “It concerns me because Izzerial is a major, major client of this firm, and it should concern you too.”
“’Kay,” Faith nodded reluctantly. If nothin’ else she was playin’ a role, a role of the willing, eager helper. “What ‘bout the Archduke or Cyvus Vail? If anyone’s gonna go after Izzerial, his running buddies might be targets too?”
“No,” Hamilton shook his head, ”I’ve already checked them both and they’re fine. Besides, the Archduke has his legions to protect him and Vail his magics. Of the three, Izzerial is the most vulnerable, although hardly an easy target.”
“’Kay,” Faith rose and nodded. “Where was he taken from?”
“His mansion.”
“You better head there, I’ll put a message through to Red to meet us there for forensics, and get G to come with me.”
“As you wish,” Hamilton nodded before spinning around and striding off.
* * *
“If Hamilton’s right, and he’s not running some sort of swindle,” Giles kept his eyes firmly ahead, determinedly keeping his gaze on the road and not thinking about his charge’s terrifyingly reckless driving, “this could be another chance to insinuate us further with the Circle of the Black Thorn.”
“Maybe so.” Giles bit back a moan as the midnight-black Impala shrieked around a corner on two wheels, blue lights sparking beneath them. “But I’m gettin’ pretty damn tired of constantly doin’ these assholes’ biddin’, I wanna be closin’ them down hard, not running their freakin’ errands.”
“Quite,” Giles shot his adopted daughter a worried glance. The last few months, the move to W&H, the loss of Cordelia, and the often questionable morality of many of their duties had taken a toll on her. “It’s unfortunate, but although we know the names of some of the Black Thorns, we can’t be sure we know them all. We have to get on the inside.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Faith scowled as she stamped down on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching, rubber-burning halt. “Anyhow we’re here.”
“Yes, and in one piece too,” Giles muttered as he climbed out of the car and looked up to see a walled gothic-style mansion in one of Sunnydale’s most exclusive suburbs. “That looks like quite a place.”
“Yeah,” Faith mused as she started up the driveway, “how much do you figure a place like this costs?”
“At least two million,” Giles replied.
“Huh,” Faith pouted. “A little outta mine and Xan’s price range for a crib.”
“Yes well,” Giles sniffed. “Perhaps just a tad.”
* * *
Izzerial awoke with a groan, muscles tensing vainly as he attempted to fling himself upright. His eyes shot left and right as he first struggled to pierce the dark veil encompassing his prison and then looked down to inspect himself.
Shock filled him as he noted the pentagram etched into the ground beneath him, intricate Enochian runes scripted between the Pentagram’s painted white lines and within the accursed blessed sigils of primeval, long-dead civilisations adorning the pentagram. Around his torso and limbs, restraining him to a chair, were bound chains of what he guessed were blessed silver, meaning his flesh bubbled as he rubbed against them.
If he strained against them, attempted to snap them, the chains’ blessed silver would rip through him like a demonic buzz saw, his mind shrinking away from the unimaginable pain.
Izzerial blinked as yellow light suddenly encompassed the chamber, illuminating what had to be an abandoned church. “Our guest is awake I see.”
Izzerial tried but failed to push against the chains only to collapse with the searing pain as a robed, cowled figure strode into sight. “I’ll see you burn!”
“Oh I doubt that,” the monk strode fearlessly into the pentagram. Izzerial’s back arched when the man thrust a jewelled crucifix into his mouth, steam erupting as Izzerial thrashed and gurgled. “You on the other hand will be doing little else but for the rest of your very short existence.”
* * *
“Kay,” Faith crouched down in the drive, eyes scanning the chipped stone pathway. “So according to the keypad on the front door, Izzerial never got home last night. And yet,” Faith nodded towards a tinted-windowed limousine sat in the drive, “his car’s here.”
“This seems like a very exclusive neighbourhood,” Giles mused. “Surely there must be some CCTV lining the streets?”
Hamilton stared at the Watcher for a second. “I’ll look into it.”
“Don’t bother,” a newly arrived Willow commented. “I can hack into any system back at work. No need for anyone to know there’s been any trouble.” Willow’s eyes narrowed and she hurried over to the ferns lining the left side of the drive. “Huh,” Willow pulled out a plastic forensics bag, “I’ve got a blood stain here.”
“Great,” Faith hurried over to the witch. “Maybe you can get a match.”
“There’s no maybe about it.” Willow smirked at her as she cut off the blood-stained ferns and dropped them into the plastic bag. “I’ve managed to create an expanded and indexed database with the resources of the Science Department that includes DNA of every familial line.”
“So you’ll have a name for us? How soon?”
“Back off, Dilbert.” Faith glared up at the office liaison suddenly looming over them. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready, dig?”
Hamilton scowled down at Faith. “There is a time component on this. Whoever has him will be torturing him for information about the firm.”
Faith scowled right back at Hamilton. “Then he’ll have to freakin’ hold on!”
* * *
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Izzerial’s scream through the abandoned church. Sweat poured down his shaking frame, pain pumping through him as the monk injected him with yet more holy water. Izzerial forced a ragged laugh as he stared defiantly at his torturer. “You think,” he gasped, “that anything you could do to me would compare with what my associates would do if I betrayed them?”
“Perhaps not.” Malice glittered in the priest’s eyes. “But this is only a warm-up for when our Inquisitors get our hands on you and they’ll have a very, very long time to work on you.”
* * *
“Good news!” Willow squealed as she rushed into Faith’s office. “I’ve got a match on the blood. It belongs or belonged to a Brother Antonie.” Willow pursed her lips. “But there’s bad news too. I did a search on him, and found he’s a member of the Brotherhood of St. Longinus.”
Faith looked towards Giles, eyebrow raising in a silent plea for clarification. “Legend has it that St. Longinus is the Roman centurion who pierced the side of Christ as he laid upon the cross.”
“And the Brotherhood of St. Longinus?” queried Xander. “I’m guessing they’re not so much into the good works?”
“Not so much,” Giles agreed. “They’re an eight century old Vatican order of former special forces soldiers who’ve devoted themselves to fighting the supernatural wherever they find it.”
“Swell,” Faith groaned.
“I trust Hamilton’s being kept out of the loop?” Wesley commented.
“Yes, I can just seeing that particular gem of information sending Hamilton over the edge quicker than Axl Rose at a Guns ‘n’ Roses’ concert,” Lorne commented.
“We don’t need him complicating matters,” Faith agreed before looking towards Willow. “Any way tracking any Vatican assets or any friends he has in the area?”
Willow beamed. “Tara’s building up a profile as we speak.”
“Can I say Road Trip down to the Science Department to see how Tara’s doing?”
“A good idea,” Faith grinned at her boyfriend. “Let’s hustle.”
* * *
“Hey Tar, got anything for us!”
Tara glanced over her shoulder and smiled at her friend leading most of the gang into her lab, a trailing Wood closing the door behind him and leaning against it, barring any entrance. “Something, something very interesting. A plane with Vatican diplomatic plates landed and a team of ten monks disembarked.”
“Ten monks would take up a lot of rooms at a local hotel,” Giles commented. “A booking of that size will have to be made in advance. There has to be some sort of record.”
Tara shook her head. “I’ve checked all the local motels, there’s no one booking over four people.”
“Perhaps they’re keeping everything out of town?” Gunn suggested.
“No, I checked,” Tara shook her head again. “There’s another Vatican plane booked in to Sunnydale Airport tomorrow night. It doesn’t make sense that they’ll arrive in the town, leave the town, and then come back into town to leave again.”
“No it doesn’t, however.” Wesley stared down blankly at the computer. “Can you type ‘St. Vincent Of The Generous’?” Tara’s fingers jumped nimbly at the computer’s keyboard, a newspaper article springing up on the screen. “Ah yes, I thought so.”
“Thought what?” Gunn queried.
“The church was closed as of six months ago, too many churches in Sunnydale. However, it’s not been deconsecrated, so it’s free from minor demons and vampires. A perfect place for a group of monks to temporarily decamp.”
“An abandoned church?” Faith wrinkled her nose. “That’s roughing it a bit ain’t it?”
Wesley shot her a withering look. “You recall Giles saying these were an order of former soldiers.”
“Oh,” Faith took that in then smiled winningly. “Church it is then.”
“Is there any way to check this theory?” Giles queried. “Personally, I’m convinced, but I’d like a little more information?”
“Yeah,” Tara’s fingers were dancing over the keyboard. “I’m checking the local car rental records. A Brother Jacob had a pair of tinted-windowed, metal-grilled SUVs delivered to the airport for pick-up yesterday.”
“What are the registrations?” Willow queried. “I’ll check for them on the city’s traffic cameras.” Willow nodded as Tara replied. “Okay, opening a hack, now.” Willow paused. “We have them turning onto Kingdom Crescent three hours ago, there’s no cameras on Kingdom Crescent, but there’s no sign of them leaving.”
Wesley smirked. “The church is on Kingdom Crescent.”
* * *
“I’m convinced,” Faith glanced at her watch. “It’s just turned three, we need to move on this fast and now.”
“Wait,” Giles raised a hand. “Let’s consider this action beforehand.”
“Yeah, I don’t see why we’re risking our asses rescuing a demon,” Gunn glanced at Lorne. “No offence, Lorne.”
“Hey no offence necessary Chocolate Cake,” Lorne raised a hand. “You’re not alone in thinking these Wolfram & Hart demons are the slimiest of the slimy.”
“Nevertheless,” Giles replied. “We have our duty. However, our duty shouldn’t stretch to actually killing Vatican operatives.”
“Look whose getting qualms all of a sudden,” Gunn groused.
Faith ignored the black’s grunt in favour of nodding. “So we go in hard, take them out, grab Izzerial and book, and hope that they don’t recognise us?”
“That would be my suggestion,” Giles nodded between glares at Gunn.
“Finally a battle,” Illyria rose with a flick of her long blue mane. “I tire of all this talking and look forward to smite any fool who gets in my way.”
“Huh, with all this talk of smiting,” Rona grunted, “I’m guessing Illyria’s not down with the non-lethal part of the evening.”
Faith shook her head and sighed. “She better get down.”
“When are we leaving?”
Faith’s heart sunk at Xander’s query. “We’re not.” Faith raised a hand at Xan’s outraged expression and opening mouth. “Look hon, we’re gonna be goin’ in not willin’ to kill, they might not be so restrained. We need a physical edge that you and Gunn don’t have, but we do.”
Xander shook his head. “Xander, she’s making sense,” Giles interrupted. “They won’t be able to go all out, and that’s an intensely dangerous way to fight an enemy who has no such qualms-.”
“Fillin’ me with confidence there, G,” Faith muttered before looking around. “Look guys, if you wanna wait in a van outside the church to run interference in case they bolt or in case reinforcements come, I’m down with that.”
“Backup,” Xander scowled. “Great.”
“Bet you’re feeling like Pete Best just after Ringo Starr replaced him in the Beatles.” Lorne gulped at Xander’s glare. “Forget I spoke.”
Xander turned back to her. “We have some top-level non-lethal weaponry in the armoury.”
Faith grinned. “Oh toys, goody.”
“Can you get things out without them showing on the network?” Giles queried.
“We run security,” Gunn replied. “We can circumvent anything.”
* * *
Brother Jacob stepped back from the crumpled, twitching body of the demon, his thin lips pursed in angry disdain. The demon was proving most uncooperative. Still, Jacob mollified himself with the thought that the main thrust of his mission had been completed when he’d snatched Izzerial.
It was just unfortunate that that clumsy fool Brother Antonie had gotten himself killed in the process.
Just thinking of Antonie was enough to get Jacob striding towards his wheeled trolley of torture instruments.
And then the world ignited to a blindingly intense white light, his balance stolen from him via a pulsating roar that popped his eardrums and set his teeth humming with its power. Jacob looked up through blurred eyes as the church’s doors exploded open and a slight, blue-haired figure strode in. Jacob saw his fellow downed priests try and fail to rise to face her, only to be contemptuously brushed aside, he himself had barely risen to one knee when the woman caught him with a backhanded slap that flung him into the nearest pillar. Ribs cracked with the impact as Jacob slumped to the ground, but he managed to stay conscious long enough to see the intruder pick up Izzerial and casually sling him over her shoulder, before turning and striding out of the church.
* * *
“What are you going to do about the Vatican?”
Faith raised an eyebrow as Hamilton burst into her office without knocking. Twice in a day, this was gettin’ to be a habit.
One she’d have to stomp on hard.
“How’s Izzerial?” Faith pretended interest.
“The doctors,” Hamilton began pacing her office’s plush carpeting, “say he’ll be fine.” Hamilton spun to face her. “So what are you doing about the Vatican?”
Faith fought to hold onto her temper at the liaison’s demanding, entitled tone. “Giles is gonna get the paperwork up to have their diplomatic immunity revoked and them added to a watch list so they can’t get back in the country.”
“Revoked their diplomatic immunity?” Hamilton shook his head. “We want more than their diplomatic immunity revoking, we want-.”
“Fuck off.” Faith halted Hamilton’s tirade with a curt curse, rising off her seat. “I save your man’s life, but do I hear the slightest fucking gratitude? No, more and more fucking demands? You wanna for me to go to war with the freakin’ Vatican, but you keep me on the outside? Fuck that!”
“What do you mean?”
Faith was unmoved by Hamilton’s glare. Here it was, the chance, the opening she and Giles had been looking for. She just had to play it right and reel him in. “You want me to go into play ‘gainst a big dog like the Vatican? Fine, but I want in.”
“In?”
“I know Izzerial, the Archduke, and Cyvus Vail have some sorta cabal goin’ on,” Faith replied. “That’s where the power is. And if you want me to fight this war for you, I want a place at the table with the big dawgs.”
* * *
Wild winds roared, blowing up dust from the bones underfoot, Drogyn kept his eyes focussed forwards, secure in the knowledge that his brother knights would protect him until he’d completed the incantation. Blue energy shimmered and expanded into a seven foot high oval portal, white lightning flashing diagonally across it. After a second, Drogyn stepped through the entrance, his brother knights following behind.
They came out of the swirling hells of the Ghost Roads and into a deserted parking lot with wire meshed fences all around it. A quiet dullness that concealed the evil that seeped from the town’s every pore.
“So this is Sunnydale?” Alith grunted. “And now we are here how do you intend we move against this Slayer that has wronged you?”
Drogyn pursed his lips. “It will not be easy. This Slayer is not merely a Slayer, she is far more fearsome than the normal Slayer. We need to be circumspect before attacking.”