Fic: Geometry of Chance (6/7) {BtVS}
Title: Geometry of Chance (6/7)
Fandom: Buffy
Author: Rummi (sharelle)
Pairings / Characters: Gen / Giles, Ethan Rayne, Willow, OC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language and violent content (Trigger warning for violence involving children)
Word Count: 3,534
Summary: After escaping from the Initiative, Ethan Rayne goes to the Cleveland Hellmouth for a new start and a chance at real power. What he finds is a lot more than he bargained for. (Set a few weeks post-Chosen.)
Complete work can be found here: LJ Memories / FFN / AO3 / DW
Author’s Notes: The end of the fight turned out much differently than I had originally intended eight years ago. However, the basic premise remains the same. Once again, it just shows the sort of different perspective a few years will give to one’s writing. See the end for a quick note on my mental soundtrack - particularly for this chapter.
I hope my readers have been enjoying the story. One part left after this.
VI.
“Ethan!”
The brief weightless sensation of flight ended abruptly as the ground rushed up solidly to meet him. He heard Frankie scream his name. She sounded so far away all of a sudden. Strangely that thought gave him some comfort, because Ethan knew she was with Giles now.
Rupert Giles may have grown a massive stick up his arse, but Ethan couldn’t deny the bloke was a straight-arrow. He’d take care of the girl. He was a real Watcher, after all. He’d get her out of here. Get her the training she really needed, and show her what a Slayer was actually capable of. The two men may have stopped being friends years ago, but at least Ethan knew Giles’ intentions were honorable where the girl was concerned - certainly more honorable than Ethan’s had been.
Rupert would get Frankie safely away from here - keep her from getting hurt. And all Ethan had to do in the meantime was keep the demon’s focus on him instead.
Using the few traces of magic he could scrounge around himself, Ethan pushed the pain away as much as possible. He shoved himself quickly back to his feet, as fluidly as he could manage. He couldn’t let Frankie think he was hurt, after all. He already knew that she wouldn’t willingly leave him if she was worried for him. And Giles had to get her out of here.
Ethan would have to put on a convincing show.
He gathered as much strength as he could and spun immediately to face the demon with a confident sneer.
The M’fashnik’s waiting fist closed instantly around his throat.
Oh, bloody hell.
Ethan’s defiant sneer tapered off into an ineffectual gurgle. The M’fashnik’s lips curled into a predatory grin as it growled directly into his face.
Well. This was not going to plan.
The M’fashnik continued to leer at him ferociously for another moment, then the creature abruptly turned its head and reached out in the opposite direction with its other arm. It almost seemed to pluck Frankie out of thin air as she charged toward them in a blind fury.
The girl must have gotten away from Giles. The M’fashnik seemed to have predicted she would.
Ethan’s chest constricted painfully.
He struggled madly against the iron grip that held him. Searing panic began to color his vision. He wanted to snarl at the demon to let the girl go, but he couldn’t force any sound past its fierce grip on his throat.
The M’fashnik turned back to him briefly with a grin, then wound its arm back, dragging Ethan along effortlessly. The demon tossed him away once again, like a discarded toy. Ethan collided bodily with Giles, who had begun to rush forward. The two men crashed to the ground in a tangled heap.
Frankie screamed furiously and Ethan raised his head from where he had fallen to see the M’fashnik dragging her toward it again. She dug her heels ineffectually into the grass; her boots cut parallel ruts along the earth as the demon pulled her forward. She struck out fiercely at the creature, but the M’fashnik caught her by the other forearm as well.
Trapping both arms tightly against her sides, the M’fashnik held her up, ramrod-straight, directly in front of it. It snarled ravenously at her.
“Puny,” it sneered, “for a Slayer.”
Frankie scowled indignantly. For the first time since the fight had started, she genuinely looked more furious than frightened. As the M’fashnik leered triumphantly into her face, Frankie quickly wound her head back and snapped it forward, bashing her forehead against the delicate bridge of the demon’s scaly nose.
Frankie smirked smugly as the M’fashnik howled in pain, but it did not release her as she had probably hoped. Instead, it turned on her again, snarling ferociously, its eyes flashing with rage. The demon hauled Frankie forward until she was flush against the broad barrel of its chest. It wrapped its hulking arms fully around her body, pinning her arms to her sides, and spread its legs to avoid her kicking feet.
Frankie struggled as the creature began to squeeze.
Ethan disentangled himself from Giles and struggled to get up. He saw Frankie trapped in the M’fashnik’s tightening grip. The girl’s screams were little more than breathy, rapid gasps as the demon’s crushing arms constricted like a vice around her small ribcage. Her legs had stopped swinging and her body was as rigid as a dry twig before it snapped.
“Oh, God,” Ethan choked as he attempted to crawl forward. “Rupert, damn you, do something!” he called out desperately.
Giles was on his feet and running before Ethan could even drag himself to his knees again. Clearly the Watcher hadn’t come here expecting a fight with anything more formidable than Ethan, himself, because he hadn’t brought much by way of weapons. But he did draw a stake from his jacket pocket as he reached the M’fashnik and threw himself onto the demon’s shoulders from behind.
Ethan had to hand it to Giles; he was one stupidly brave bloke.
Giles drove the wooden point of the stake into the meaty muscle where the M’fashnik’s back met its neck, and held tightly around the creature’s throat with the other arm. The M’fashnik snarled in rage and shook its body back and forth, attempting to dislodge the human anchor from its back.
“Let go . . . of the girl,” Giles growled in the demon’s ear, stubbornly hanging on.
The M’fashnik stopped thrashing and released one crushing arm from around Frankie’s body, but it didn’t release her completely. Instead it wound forward and jammed its massive elbow sharply back into Giles’ gut.
Giles reflexively let go and staggered unsteadily in the grass, drawing in harsh gasps to replace the air that had been driven from his lungs. The M’fashnik gripped a fistful of the front of his shirt and jacket, hauled Giles off the ground, and hurled him backwards through the air.
Then it turned its attention back to Frankie.
The M’fashnik wrapped both arms around her again with a feral sneer and gave one last jerking squeeze. Frankie’s small body jolted as though something inside her had suddenly snapped. Her eyes blew wide and her face went abruptly from rigid tension to a sudden soft expression of surprise. Then her body sagged, her eyelids closed, and the demon allowed the young Slayer’s body to drop bonelessly to its feet.
She didn’t move again.
Ethan didn’t cry out at first. At first, he just stared. Pain, rage, and disbelief all vied for dominance of his expression the moment he saw Frankie’s limp form sprawled beneath the gloating M’fashnik. But he simply couldn’t give voice to any of the torment that the horrifying tableau had triggered in him. Not at first.
When he finally did, his cry was something terrible. Something visceral. Suffused with a sort of anguish that Ethan Rayne never would have believed himself capable.
Oh, God.
What had he done?
Ethan fought against the damage to his own body and tried, one final time, to stand. He had to do something. He didn’t know what, but he had to do something. He reached as far down as he could, groping and scraping desperately for whatever remaining vestiges of the darkest magics he might still have hidden in the deepest places inside himself. Something . . . something left to throw at the demon.
His body was drained; there wasn’t much left to tap into.
So he mustered his remaining strength and threw something he did have left.
The thick money pouch slapped sharply against the side of the M’fashnik’s head as the creature glared smugly down at Frankie’s fallen form. The Velcro burst open and dozens of bills exploded out, fluttering to the grass and getting caught up in the light breeze that blew softly through the park. The demon cocked its head irritably in the direction from which the projectile had come. Ethan was back on his feet, swaying unsteadily, but scowling dangerously amidst the gentle swirl of scattering dollar bills.
The M’fashnik snarled at Ethan as though his interference was nothing more than an annoyance at this point. Ethan’s fists clenched murderously at his sides. He glanced from the demon to Frankie’s still body lying in a crumpled heap in the grass. She wasn’t moving; Ethan couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. White-hot fury lanced through his brain as he turned his furious eyes back on the M’fashnik.
The M’fashnik grinned casually at Ethan as it straightened and squared its shoulders toward him, completely disregarding the downed Slayer at its feet.
“Mr. Carter said I could kill you, too, if I want,” the demon drawled indifferently. It twisted its neck to one side, slowly and deliberately, and Ethan could hear the distinct and ominous crack of vertebrae. The demon straightened its neck and its shark-toothed smile widened. “I think I do.”
Ethan’s scowl deepened. His eyes darkened. “You got one thing right, mate,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Only one of us is walking out of here tonight.”
The M’fashnik grinned, snorting like an angry bull. Then it charged him.
Ethan didn’t move as the demon closed the distance. His hands twitched at his sides like an impatient gunslinger, but he stood his ground while the M’fashnik stampeded toward him. Even as the beast leapt forward to bear him bodily to the ground, Ethan remained unflinchingly on his feet.
Only when the M’fashnik’s arms closed around him in a crushing tackle did the illusion of Ethan Rayne wink out of existence, leaving the creature grasping at nothing as it drove itself headlong into the dirt.
A moment later, Ethan’s corporeal form reappeared - still slumped weakly in the grass. The final traces of magic he had managed to harness drained away from him as the projection of his double vanished and the veil that had concealed his physical body lifted. His magic was depleted, but at least now, with the M’fashnik face-down beside him, Ethan had a fighting chance.
The M’fashnik crashed to the ground with the force of a downed tree. Ethan sprang at it as quickly as his damaged body would allow. He threw one leg over the creature’s back and sat astride its torso. Ethan wrapped his fist around the stake that Giles had driven into the demon’s thick muscle and yanked it free. The M’fashnik roared viciously and Ethan raised the stake again.
Rupert’s Slayer probably would have inserted a cleverly-timed, pop culture quip at this particular moment, but Ethan didn’t have the energy left to be witty. He plunged the stake deep into the side of the M’fashnik’s throat, burying it until his fist met with the resistance of the demon’s scaly flesh.
The creature let out a gurgling howl and bucked rigidly beneath him. For one moment Ethan sagged with relief, but in the next instant the M’fashnik flung an arm out and twisted its body violently from underneath. It thrashed Ethan off its back and rolled them both over so their positions were now reversed - with the demon’s crushing weight straddling Ethan’s stomach.
The M’fashnik curled both hands around Ethan’s throat and bore down on him, snarling. Ethan groped desperately to pry its grip away from his neck, but it was like attempting to force open a vice with his bare hands. As the M’fashnik loomed over him, Ethan watched as viscous black ichor drained from where the stake was protruding from the side of the demon’s throat. The blood ran down the length of its arm in grisly, sticky rivulets. Its breath wheezed - heavy and gutteral. The creature was weakening; it was dying.
Granted, it probably still had just enough strength left to choke the life out of Ethan in the process, but that was only a technicality.
Ethan smiled weakly, even as the demon constricted his windpipe. If he was going to die, at least he knew he was taking the monstrous son of a bitch with him.
It was almost funny, too: using a wooden stake to take down a huge bloody M’fashnik. Ethan’s vision blurred and darkened at the edges as he thought wistfully about how he wished Frankie could have seen that.
A sharp crack, like a quick smack of thunder, rent the quiet that was swallowing Ethan whole. The M’fashnik’s grip abruptly loosened and Ethan felt a rush of cool night air flood back into his lungs. He gasped in greedy gulps of oxygen for a reflexive moment as awareness returned to him. Blinking spots out of his vision, he looked up blearily at the M’fashnik.
A small grisly hole had opened up nearly in the center of the demon’s forehead. A thin line of more black blood seeped from the fresh wound and trickled slowly down the side of its nose to its chin. Ethan looked at the glassy expression in the creature’s sunken eyes, the slackening of its face-
The M’fashnik was dead.
Ethan twisted his head quickly to peer beneath the demon’s arm. He caught a glimpse of Frankie, still lying where she had fallen, but now propped up on one elbow and gripping Ethan’s Ruger in her other quivering fist. Her teeth were as tightly clenched as her grip as she clutched the pistol. Smoke from its barrel curled up and wafted softly in the gentle night breeze. She released a strained-looking breath in a heavy expulsion, her tense arm shuddered, and the weapon slipped from her nerveless fingers.
Ethan croaked thickly in an attempt to call out to the girl. As Frankie dropped the gun, the M’fashnik’s body collapsed forward on top of him and he lost sight of her again.
Ethan pawed at the dead weight holding him down, shoving futilely with arms that had all the strength of limp noodles lifting an elephant. He struggled for a moment, then the M’fashnik’s lifeless carcass was suddenly being dragged to the side and rolled off him. Ethan welcomed the sensation of freedom as the demon’s crushing weight was removed from his body. Then he blinked blearily up toward the sky to see Giles hovering above him.
The Watcher was looking much the worse for wear, himself. He dropped to one knee beside Ethan and removed his glasses, using his sleeve to staunch a stream of blood coming from a deep gash in his forehead before it could reach his eyes. Ethan was already shoving himself into an upright position. To Giles’ credit, he didn’t insist that Ethan stay down. Instead he reached forward with his other hand to help pull Ethan up the rest of the way, and together they stumbled the few feet it took to reach Frankie’s side.
The girl had collapsed forward onto her stomach after dropping the gun. Ethan wondered distantly when Frankie could have possibly snatched the weapon again, but he decided quickly that it wasn’t important. He probably should have been surprised at how effectively she had managed to use it, even though he hadn’t had the opportunity to teach her. But he wasn’t. One thing about Slayers: they seemed to have an uncanny knack just about any weapon at their disposal.
And, Ethan thought, sparing a quick glance back at the dead M’fashnik, they had notoriously good aim.
Ethan brushed the Ruger aside and pulled himself level with Frankie as he and Giles reached her. He smoothed away the short curtain of Frankie’s hair, which had fallen across her face when she had collapsed forward, and gripped her gently by the shoulder to turn her over.
Ethan didn’t have much left by way of strength, so he was surprised at how easily he managed to move her. The young Slayer’s small body seemed very strangely light in his arms. He winced, however, at the distinct whimper of pain she’d been unable to stifle as he shifted her position.
“Frankie?” he said with soft encouragement. He smoothed her hair aside again now that she was facing him. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
Frankie’s pale face clenched into a pained grimace before she managed to blink her eyes open and look up at him. She regarded him for a moment, then her brow furrowed. “Did I do okay?” she asked. Her voice was small and childlike, searching for approval.
Ethan smiled wearily, emitting a small huff of breath that could have been a laugh. “You were brilliant,” he assured her. “Couldn’t have asked for a better bodyguard.”
For as battered as the girl looked, Frankie’s returning smile was positively radiant. “I told you I wasn’t gonna let that thing hurt you,” she reminded him proudly, punctuating her smile with a weak little laugh of her own.
It tapered off abruptly as her body convulsed into a reflexive fit of coughing, causing strident, mottled splatters of crimson to suddenly fleck across her pale lips and chin.
“Oh.” Ethan blanched. “What-”
He stiffened. He felt his heart twist and constrict alarmingly as his own smile vanished from his face. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Frankie?” he prodded, giving her a gentle shake as her shuddering coughs died off. “Hey. Hey, sweets, look at me, okay?”
He became vaguely aware of Giles crouching at the girl’s other side to tend to her. Ethan frantically but inexpertly scanned Frankie’s body up and down for any sign of injury. He knew the M’fashnik must have hurt her, but he couldn’t see any visible wounds. And if she had internal injuries, Ethan had no idea what to even look for.
Ethan shifted his grip on the girl, causing one hand to slide across her back. As it did, he suddenly froze. His palm had grazed a noticeably heavy wetness clinging to her sweater. Ethan’s stomach abruptly felt as though it had just turned over.
On reflex, he muttered, quietly and helplessly: “. . . Giles?”
Giles was already moving. He had pressed his hand against the back of Frankie’s shoulder and shifted the girl gently forward to get a better view of the injury. Ethan could hear her gasp slightly at the movement and his stomach churned violently a second time.
Giles murmured a distinctly concerned, “good Lord,” but didn’t waste any time. The shoulder of his jacket had been split at the seam during the fight, so the Watcher sank his fingers into the separation and, with a few strong tugs, ripped it the rest of the way free. He yanked the fabric down his arm, rolled it into a compress, and pressed it securely against Frankie’s back.
“Ethan,” he said firmly.
Ethan was barely aware that Giles had said his name. In fact, he didn’t truly register it at all until the other man had roughly grabbed him by the wrist, forcing his hand tightly against the compress at Frankie’s back.
“Ethan, are you with me?” Giles asked, staring Ethan intently in the eye.
Ethan shook slightly, then looked back at Giles and managed a mute nod.
“Good,” Giles replied, this time giving Ethan’s wrist an encouraging squeeze. “Keep pressure there. Tight as you can manage.”
Ethan nodded again in comprehension as Giles stood and stepped away, but his mind was in a veritable tailspin. With his hand against the compress, he could now feel that the back of Frankie’s t-shirt was soaked and sticky. He hadn’t noticed at first - not until the blood had seeped all the way through to the outer layer of her sweater.
The M’fashnik, he thought. The demon’s limbs were armored with large, sharp spines. One of them must have sliced into her when the creature had squeezed her body - slid up under the girl’s ribs like a blade.
But that wasn’t right . . .
She’s a Slayer, Ethan’s mind insisted stubbornly, as though that fact alone would be enough to affect what was happening. Slayers can handle almost anything. Couldn’t they?
Ethan turned searching, desperate eyes up toward Giles.
Couldn’t they?
“Rupert?” he murmured. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet and pleading.
Frankie’s slight body began to shiver in his grasp. She curled inward on herself against the obvious pain and her jaw quivered as though her teeth were chattering. She had never seemed so small to Ethan before - and for all her Slayer strength, she suddenly felt inexorably fragile.
“Rupert?” he repeated urgently, tightening his grip on the girl.
But Giles was no longer in front of him. He was already up and on his mobile. Ethan was vaguely aware of hearing him give their location to the emergency dispatch. Ethan’s own mind simply couldn’t focus; the world around him was a dizzying haze of chaos. He felt like he was caught in a horrible turmoil - swept up in the disorienting effects of the Rwasundi talisman.
If only he could shut it off as quickly.
Oh, God. He had no idea what to do.
“. . . Ethan?”
The small, soft voice cut through the frenzied miasma in his mind and Ethan turned his head back down. Frankie was finally looking at him again. There was noticeably more blood on her lips, but they still curved upward into a warm smile.
Ethan stared down at her for a moment, and the world grew quiet around him, the chaos dissipating. He blinked.
Frankie’s smile brightened, a happy twinkle reaching all the way to her eyes, even through the noticeable pain.
“I love you,” she said softly.
Ethan’s chest seemed to jolt, abruptly and painfully. His body stiffened at her words and he felt a sudden icy panic race through his veins. “No, no,” was his automatic reply. He smoothed her hair back again and shook his head vigorously. He managed a feeble smile. “No, sweet girl, you shouldn’t say that.”
Frankie cocked her head at him in youthful challenge. It reminded Ethan sharply of her appearance in his room last night.
“Why not?” she asked impishly. A sharp, rattling sound accompanied each of her quick breaths. Her skin was very pale.
Ethan’s jaw clenched.
(Because it sounded too much like a fucking goodbye, and he wouldn’t stand for it.)
“Because you need to save up your energy, love. So you can get better,” he answered plainly. “Slayers heal very quickly.”
That was true; Ethan knew it was. So why did it feel as if he was lying?
Ethan noticed for the first time that his eyes and cheeks felt damp. He wasn’t sure when that had happened, and his first impulse was to look away. Ethan cast his gaze about for a moment, before focusing on a random spot in the grass just to the side of Frankie’s shoulder, with his eyes directed stubbornly away from her.
His concentration was broken when he felt Frankie’s small fingers creep insistently into his hand. She pressed something solid against his skin. Ethan broke his intent focus on the grass and glanced reflexively down to where their hands were now joined.
Frankie’s metal cross was poking out of his palm.
Ethan’s eyes widened and his heart lurched. He shook his head again adamantly. “No,” he insisted. “No, sweetheart, this is yours. You should hold on to it.” He tried to transfer it back into her possession. “For good luck, remember?”
Frankie shrugged minutely, even as her body shivered. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Found you, right?”
Ethan made a choked, broken sound that he never would have consciously imagined himself capable of. In an instant he had swept Frankie up and against him, clutching her tighter until his fingertips pressed shallow, possessive indentations into her skin. The compress against her back was wet and heavy in his other hand.
Ethan felt the young Slayer’s arms wrap around him in response, though not as strongly as before. Ethan shuddered as he held his face against the dampness of Frankie’s cold cheek. His own body began to tremble involuntarily.
“You listen to me, Frankie,” he whispered fiercely into her hair. “I love you.” He swallowed hard to force the words past the sudden crippling thickness in his throat. “You turn a man’s whole ruddy life upside down, but you are my Slayer, and I love you. Do you hear me?”
Frankie managed a girlish giggle beside his ear and Ethan couldn’t help but feel a brief, familiar stab of indignation that, at the same time, broke his shuddering heart. He gripped the young Slayer tighter and, on reflex, pressed his lips, firmly and possessively, against her skin.
He held her against him until he felt her grip slacken and her arms slide limply away from his back.
Ethan’s heart twisted painfully in his chest. A rush of cold spread through him and he curled himself even more securely around Frankie’s small, still form with a soft groan, holding her desperately to his chest.
He was only distantly aware of Giles’ hand coming to rest firmly on his shoulder as he cradled his broken Slayer in his arms.
And he was only distantly aware that the crushing, shattered cries of sorrow which had begun echoing through the darkness of the otherwise quiet park were actually his own.
Concluded in Part 7.
Endnotes: The music of Sting has been greatly influential to this story. And while the primary song in my head has always been “Shape of My Heart” (due to the fanart that originally inspired this story), the song that I feel really speaks to the end of this particular chapter is Sting’s 1988 single “Fragile”.
Both are awesome and poignant. Definitely give them a listen!
Fandom: Buffy
Author: Rummi (sharelle)
Pairings / Characters: Gen / Giles, Ethan Rayne, Willow, OC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language and violent content (Trigger warning for violence involving children)
Word Count: 3,534
Summary: After escaping from the Initiative, Ethan Rayne goes to the Cleveland Hellmouth for a new start and a chance at real power. What he finds is a lot more than he bargained for. (Set a few weeks post-Chosen.)
Complete work can be found here: LJ Memories / FFN / AO3 / DW
Author’s Notes: The end of the fight turned out much differently than I had originally intended eight years ago. However, the basic premise remains the same. Once again, it just shows the sort of different perspective a few years will give to one’s writing. See the end for a quick note on my mental soundtrack - particularly for this chapter.
I hope my readers have been enjoying the story. One part left after this.
VI.
“Ethan!”
The brief weightless sensation of flight ended abruptly as the ground rushed up solidly to meet him. He heard Frankie scream his name. She sounded so far away all of a sudden. Strangely that thought gave him some comfort, because Ethan knew she was with Giles now.
Rupert Giles may have grown a massive stick up his arse, but Ethan couldn’t deny the bloke was a straight-arrow. He’d take care of the girl. He was a real Watcher, after all. He’d get her out of here. Get her the training she really needed, and show her what a Slayer was actually capable of. The two men may have stopped being friends years ago, but at least Ethan knew Giles’ intentions were honorable where the girl was concerned - certainly more honorable than Ethan’s had been.
Rupert would get Frankie safely away from here - keep her from getting hurt. And all Ethan had to do in the meantime was keep the demon’s focus on him instead.
Using the few traces of magic he could scrounge around himself, Ethan pushed the pain away as much as possible. He shoved himself quickly back to his feet, as fluidly as he could manage. He couldn’t let Frankie think he was hurt, after all. He already knew that she wouldn’t willingly leave him if she was worried for him. And Giles had to get her out of here.
Ethan would have to put on a convincing show.
He gathered as much strength as he could and spun immediately to face the demon with a confident sneer.
The M’fashnik’s waiting fist closed instantly around his throat.
Oh, bloody hell.
Ethan’s defiant sneer tapered off into an ineffectual gurgle. The M’fashnik’s lips curled into a predatory grin as it growled directly into his face.
Well. This was not going to plan.
The M’fashnik continued to leer at him ferociously for another moment, then the creature abruptly turned its head and reached out in the opposite direction with its other arm. It almost seemed to pluck Frankie out of thin air as she charged toward them in a blind fury.
The girl must have gotten away from Giles. The M’fashnik seemed to have predicted she would.
Ethan’s chest constricted painfully.
He struggled madly against the iron grip that held him. Searing panic began to color his vision. He wanted to snarl at the demon to let the girl go, but he couldn’t force any sound past its fierce grip on his throat.
The M’fashnik turned back to him briefly with a grin, then wound its arm back, dragging Ethan along effortlessly. The demon tossed him away once again, like a discarded toy. Ethan collided bodily with Giles, who had begun to rush forward. The two men crashed to the ground in a tangled heap.
Frankie screamed furiously and Ethan raised his head from where he had fallen to see the M’fashnik dragging her toward it again. She dug her heels ineffectually into the grass; her boots cut parallel ruts along the earth as the demon pulled her forward. She struck out fiercely at the creature, but the M’fashnik caught her by the other forearm as well.
Trapping both arms tightly against her sides, the M’fashnik held her up, ramrod-straight, directly in front of it. It snarled ravenously at her.
“Puny,” it sneered, “for a Slayer.”
Frankie scowled indignantly. For the first time since the fight had started, she genuinely looked more furious than frightened. As the M’fashnik leered triumphantly into her face, Frankie quickly wound her head back and snapped it forward, bashing her forehead against the delicate bridge of the demon’s scaly nose.
Frankie smirked smugly as the M’fashnik howled in pain, but it did not release her as she had probably hoped. Instead, it turned on her again, snarling ferociously, its eyes flashing with rage. The demon hauled Frankie forward until she was flush against the broad barrel of its chest. It wrapped its hulking arms fully around her body, pinning her arms to her sides, and spread its legs to avoid her kicking feet.
Frankie struggled as the creature began to squeeze.
Ethan disentangled himself from Giles and struggled to get up. He saw Frankie trapped in the M’fashnik’s tightening grip. The girl’s screams were little more than breathy, rapid gasps as the demon’s crushing arms constricted like a vice around her small ribcage. Her legs had stopped swinging and her body was as rigid as a dry twig before it snapped.
“Oh, God,” Ethan choked as he attempted to crawl forward. “Rupert, damn you, do something!” he called out desperately.
Giles was on his feet and running before Ethan could even drag himself to his knees again. Clearly the Watcher hadn’t come here expecting a fight with anything more formidable than Ethan, himself, because he hadn’t brought much by way of weapons. But he did draw a stake from his jacket pocket as he reached the M’fashnik and threw himself onto the demon’s shoulders from behind.
Ethan had to hand it to Giles; he was one stupidly brave bloke.
Giles drove the wooden point of the stake into the meaty muscle where the M’fashnik’s back met its neck, and held tightly around the creature’s throat with the other arm. The M’fashnik snarled in rage and shook its body back and forth, attempting to dislodge the human anchor from its back.
“Let go . . . of the girl,” Giles growled in the demon’s ear, stubbornly hanging on.
The M’fashnik stopped thrashing and released one crushing arm from around Frankie’s body, but it didn’t release her completely. Instead it wound forward and jammed its massive elbow sharply back into Giles’ gut.
Giles reflexively let go and staggered unsteadily in the grass, drawing in harsh gasps to replace the air that had been driven from his lungs. The M’fashnik gripped a fistful of the front of his shirt and jacket, hauled Giles off the ground, and hurled him backwards through the air.
Then it turned its attention back to Frankie.
The M’fashnik wrapped both arms around her again with a feral sneer and gave one last jerking squeeze. Frankie’s small body jolted as though something inside her had suddenly snapped. Her eyes blew wide and her face went abruptly from rigid tension to a sudden soft expression of surprise. Then her body sagged, her eyelids closed, and the demon allowed the young Slayer’s body to drop bonelessly to its feet.
She didn’t move again.
Ethan didn’t cry out at first. At first, he just stared. Pain, rage, and disbelief all vied for dominance of his expression the moment he saw Frankie’s limp form sprawled beneath the gloating M’fashnik. But he simply couldn’t give voice to any of the torment that the horrifying tableau had triggered in him. Not at first.
When he finally did, his cry was something terrible. Something visceral. Suffused with a sort of anguish that Ethan Rayne never would have believed himself capable.
Oh, God.
What had he done?
Ethan fought against the damage to his own body and tried, one final time, to stand. He had to do something. He didn’t know what, but he had to do something. He reached as far down as he could, groping and scraping desperately for whatever remaining vestiges of the darkest magics he might still have hidden in the deepest places inside himself. Something . . . something left to throw at the demon.
His body was drained; there wasn’t much left to tap into.
So he mustered his remaining strength and threw something he did have left.
The thick money pouch slapped sharply against the side of the M’fashnik’s head as the creature glared smugly down at Frankie’s fallen form. The Velcro burst open and dozens of bills exploded out, fluttering to the grass and getting caught up in the light breeze that blew softly through the park. The demon cocked its head irritably in the direction from which the projectile had come. Ethan was back on his feet, swaying unsteadily, but scowling dangerously amidst the gentle swirl of scattering dollar bills.
The M’fashnik snarled at Ethan as though his interference was nothing more than an annoyance at this point. Ethan’s fists clenched murderously at his sides. He glanced from the demon to Frankie’s still body lying in a crumpled heap in the grass. She wasn’t moving; Ethan couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. White-hot fury lanced through his brain as he turned his furious eyes back on the M’fashnik.
The M’fashnik grinned casually at Ethan as it straightened and squared its shoulders toward him, completely disregarding the downed Slayer at its feet.
“Mr. Carter said I could kill you, too, if I want,” the demon drawled indifferently. It twisted its neck to one side, slowly and deliberately, and Ethan could hear the distinct and ominous crack of vertebrae. The demon straightened its neck and its shark-toothed smile widened. “I think I do.”
Ethan’s scowl deepened. His eyes darkened. “You got one thing right, mate,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Only one of us is walking out of here tonight.”
The M’fashnik grinned, snorting like an angry bull. Then it charged him.
Ethan didn’t move as the demon closed the distance. His hands twitched at his sides like an impatient gunslinger, but he stood his ground while the M’fashnik stampeded toward him. Even as the beast leapt forward to bear him bodily to the ground, Ethan remained unflinchingly on his feet.
Only when the M’fashnik’s arms closed around him in a crushing tackle did the illusion of Ethan Rayne wink out of existence, leaving the creature grasping at nothing as it drove itself headlong into the dirt.
A moment later, Ethan’s corporeal form reappeared - still slumped weakly in the grass. The final traces of magic he had managed to harness drained away from him as the projection of his double vanished and the veil that had concealed his physical body lifted. His magic was depleted, but at least now, with the M’fashnik face-down beside him, Ethan had a fighting chance.
The M’fashnik crashed to the ground with the force of a downed tree. Ethan sprang at it as quickly as his damaged body would allow. He threw one leg over the creature’s back and sat astride its torso. Ethan wrapped his fist around the stake that Giles had driven into the demon’s thick muscle and yanked it free. The M’fashnik roared viciously and Ethan raised the stake again.
Rupert’s Slayer probably would have inserted a cleverly-timed, pop culture quip at this particular moment, but Ethan didn’t have the energy left to be witty. He plunged the stake deep into the side of the M’fashnik’s throat, burying it until his fist met with the resistance of the demon’s scaly flesh.
The creature let out a gurgling howl and bucked rigidly beneath him. For one moment Ethan sagged with relief, but in the next instant the M’fashnik flung an arm out and twisted its body violently from underneath. It thrashed Ethan off its back and rolled them both over so their positions were now reversed - with the demon’s crushing weight straddling Ethan’s stomach.
The M’fashnik curled both hands around Ethan’s throat and bore down on him, snarling. Ethan groped desperately to pry its grip away from his neck, but it was like attempting to force open a vice with his bare hands. As the M’fashnik loomed over him, Ethan watched as viscous black ichor drained from where the stake was protruding from the side of the demon’s throat. The blood ran down the length of its arm in grisly, sticky rivulets. Its breath wheezed - heavy and gutteral. The creature was weakening; it was dying.
Granted, it probably still had just enough strength left to choke the life out of Ethan in the process, but that was only a technicality.
Ethan smiled weakly, even as the demon constricted his windpipe. If he was going to die, at least he knew he was taking the monstrous son of a bitch with him.
It was almost funny, too: using a wooden stake to take down a huge bloody M’fashnik. Ethan’s vision blurred and darkened at the edges as he thought wistfully about how he wished Frankie could have seen that.
A sharp crack, like a quick smack of thunder, rent the quiet that was swallowing Ethan whole. The M’fashnik’s grip abruptly loosened and Ethan felt a rush of cool night air flood back into his lungs. He gasped in greedy gulps of oxygen for a reflexive moment as awareness returned to him. Blinking spots out of his vision, he looked up blearily at the M’fashnik.
A small grisly hole had opened up nearly in the center of the demon’s forehead. A thin line of more black blood seeped from the fresh wound and trickled slowly down the side of its nose to its chin. Ethan looked at the glassy expression in the creature’s sunken eyes, the slackening of its face-
The M’fashnik was dead.
Ethan twisted his head quickly to peer beneath the demon’s arm. He caught a glimpse of Frankie, still lying where she had fallen, but now propped up on one elbow and gripping Ethan’s Ruger in her other quivering fist. Her teeth were as tightly clenched as her grip as she clutched the pistol. Smoke from its barrel curled up and wafted softly in the gentle night breeze. She released a strained-looking breath in a heavy expulsion, her tense arm shuddered, and the weapon slipped from her nerveless fingers.
Ethan croaked thickly in an attempt to call out to the girl. As Frankie dropped the gun, the M’fashnik’s body collapsed forward on top of him and he lost sight of her again.
Ethan pawed at the dead weight holding him down, shoving futilely with arms that had all the strength of limp noodles lifting an elephant. He struggled for a moment, then the M’fashnik’s lifeless carcass was suddenly being dragged to the side and rolled off him. Ethan welcomed the sensation of freedom as the demon’s crushing weight was removed from his body. Then he blinked blearily up toward the sky to see Giles hovering above him.
The Watcher was looking much the worse for wear, himself. He dropped to one knee beside Ethan and removed his glasses, using his sleeve to staunch a stream of blood coming from a deep gash in his forehead before it could reach his eyes. Ethan was already shoving himself into an upright position. To Giles’ credit, he didn’t insist that Ethan stay down. Instead he reached forward with his other hand to help pull Ethan up the rest of the way, and together they stumbled the few feet it took to reach Frankie’s side.
The girl had collapsed forward onto her stomach after dropping the gun. Ethan wondered distantly when Frankie could have possibly snatched the weapon again, but he decided quickly that it wasn’t important. He probably should have been surprised at how effectively she had managed to use it, even though he hadn’t had the opportunity to teach her. But he wasn’t. One thing about Slayers: they seemed to have an uncanny knack just about any weapon at their disposal.
And, Ethan thought, sparing a quick glance back at the dead M’fashnik, they had notoriously good aim.
Ethan brushed the Ruger aside and pulled himself level with Frankie as he and Giles reached her. He smoothed away the short curtain of Frankie’s hair, which had fallen across her face when she had collapsed forward, and gripped her gently by the shoulder to turn her over.
Ethan didn’t have much left by way of strength, so he was surprised at how easily he managed to move her. The young Slayer’s small body seemed very strangely light in his arms. He winced, however, at the distinct whimper of pain she’d been unable to stifle as he shifted her position.
“Frankie?” he said with soft encouragement. He smoothed her hair aside again now that she was facing him. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
Frankie’s pale face clenched into a pained grimace before she managed to blink her eyes open and look up at him. She regarded him for a moment, then her brow furrowed. “Did I do okay?” she asked. Her voice was small and childlike, searching for approval.
Ethan smiled wearily, emitting a small huff of breath that could have been a laugh. “You were brilliant,” he assured her. “Couldn’t have asked for a better bodyguard.”
For as battered as the girl looked, Frankie’s returning smile was positively radiant. “I told you I wasn’t gonna let that thing hurt you,” she reminded him proudly, punctuating her smile with a weak little laugh of her own.
It tapered off abruptly as her body convulsed into a reflexive fit of coughing, causing strident, mottled splatters of crimson to suddenly fleck across her pale lips and chin.
“Oh.” Ethan blanched. “What-”
He stiffened. He felt his heart twist and constrict alarmingly as his own smile vanished from his face. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Frankie?” he prodded, giving her a gentle shake as her shuddering coughs died off. “Hey. Hey, sweets, look at me, okay?”
He became vaguely aware of Giles crouching at the girl’s other side to tend to her. Ethan frantically but inexpertly scanned Frankie’s body up and down for any sign of injury. He knew the M’fashnik must have hurt her, but he couldn’t see any visible wounds. And if she had internal injuries, Ethan had no idea what to even look for.
Ethan shifted his grip on the girl, causing one hand to slide across her back. As it did, he suddenly froze. His palm had grazed a noticeably heavy wetness clinging to her sweater. Ethan’s stomach abruptly felt as though it had just turned over.
On reflex, he muttered, quietly and helplessly: “. . . Giles?”
Giles was already moving. He had pressed his hand against the back of Frankie’s shoulder and shifted the girl gently forward to get a better view of the injury. Ethan could hear her gasp slightly at the movement and his stomach churned violently a second time.
Giles murmured a distinctly concerned, “good Lord,” but didn’t waste any time. The shoulder of his jacket had been split at the seam during the fight, so the Watcher sank his fingers into the separation and, with a few strong tugs, ripped it the rest of the way free. He yanked the fabric down his arm, rolled it into a compress, and pressed it securely against Frankie’s back.
“Ethan,” he said firmly.
Ethan was barely aware that Giles had said his name. In fact, he didn’t truly register it at all until the other man had roughly grabbed him by the wrist, forcing his hand tightly against the compress at Frankie’s back.
“Ethan, are you with me?” Giles asked, staring Ethan intently in the eye.
Ethan shook slightly, then looked back at Giles and managed a mute nod.
“Good,” Giles replied, this time giving Ethan’s wrist an encouraging squeeze. “Keep pressure there. Tight as you can manage.”
Ethan nodded again in comprehension as Giles stood and stepped away, but his mind was in a veritable tailspin. With his hand against the compress, he could now feel that the back of Frankie’s t-shirt was soaked and sticky. He hadn’t noticed at first - not until the blood had seeped all the way through to the outer layer of her sweater.
The M’fashnik, he thought. The demon’s limbs were armored with large, sharp spines. One of them must have sliced into her when the creature had squeezed her body - slid up under the girl’s ribs like a blade.
But that wasn’t right . . .
She’s a Slayer, Ethan’s mind insisted stubbornly, as though that fact alone would be enough to affect what was happening. Slayers can handle almost anything. Couldn’t they?
Ethan turned searching, desperate eyes up toward Giles.
Couldn’t they?
“Rupert?” he murmured. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet and pleading.
Frankie’s slight body began to shiver in his grasp. She curled inward on herself against the obvious pain and her jaw quivered as though her teeth were chattering. She had never seemed so small to Ethan before - and for all her Slayer strength, she suddenly felt inexorably fragile.
“Rupert?” he repeated urgently, tightening his grip on the girl.
But Giles was no longer in front of him. He was already up and on his mobile. Ethan was vaguely aware of hearing him give their location to the emergency dispatch. Ethan’s own mind simply couldn’t focus; the world around him was a dizzying haze of chaos. He felt like he was caught in a horrible turmoil - swept up in the disorienting effects of the Rwasundi talisman.
If only he could shut it off as quickly.
Oh, God. He had no idea what to do.
“. . . Ethan?”
The small, soft voice cut through the frenzied miasma in his mind and Ethan turned his head back down. Frankie was finally looking at him again. There was noticeably more blood on her lips, but they still curved upward into a warm smile.
Ethan stared down at her for a moment, and the world grew quiet around him, the chaos dissipating. He blinked.
Frankie’s smile brightened, a happy twinkle reaching all the way to her eyes, even through the noticeable pain.
“I love you,” she said softly.
Ethan’s chest seemed to jolt, abruptly and painfully. His body stiffened at her words and he felt a sudden icy panic race through his veins. “No, no,” was his automatic reply. He smoothed her hair back again and shook his head vigorously. He managed a feeble smile. “No, sweet girl, you shouldn’t say that.”
Frankie cocked her head at him in youthful challenge. It reminded Ethan sharply of her appearance in his room last night.
“Why not?” she asked impishly. A sharp, rattling sound accompanied each of her quick breaths. Her skin was very pale.
Ethan’s jaw clenched.
(Because it sounded too much like a fucking goodbye, and he wouldn’t stand for it.)
“Because you need to save up your energy, love. So you can get better,” he answered plainly. “Slayers heal very quickly.”
That was true; Ethan knew it was. So why did it feel as if he was lying?
Ethan noticed for the first time that his eyes and cheeks felt damp. He wasn’t sure when that had happened, and his first impulse was to look away. Ethan cast his gaze about for a moment, before focusing on a random spot in the grass just to the side of Frankie’s shoulder, with his eyes directed stubbornly away from her.
His concentration was broken when he felt Frankie’s small fingers creep insistently into his hand. She pressed something solid against his skin. Ethan broke his intent focus on the grass and glanced reflexively down to where their hands were now joined.
Frankie’s metal cross was poking out of his palm.
Ethan’s eyes widened and his heart lurched. He shook his head again adamantly. “No,” he insisted. “No, sweetheart, this is yours. You should hold on to it.” He tried to transfer it back into her possession. “For good luck, remember?”
Frankie shrugged minutely, even as her body shivered. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Found you, right?”
Ethan made a choked, broken sound that he never would have consciously imagined himself capable of. In an instant he had swept Frankie up and against him, clutching her tighter until his fingertips pressed shallow, possessive indentations into her skin. The compress against her back was wet and heavy in his other hand.
Ethan felt the young Slayer’s arms wrap around him in response, though not as strongly as before. Ethan shuddered as he held his face against the dampness of Frankie’s cold cheek. His own body began to tremble involuntarily.
“You listen to me, Frankie,” he whispered fiercely into her hair. “I love you.” He swallowed hard to force the words past the sudden crippling thickness in his throat. “You turn a man’s whole ruddy life upside down, but you are my Slayer, and I love you. Do you hear me?”
Frankie managed a girlish giggle beside his ear and Ethan couldn’t help but feel a brief, familiar stab of indignation that, at the same time, broke his shuddering heart. He gripped the young Slayer tighter and, on reflex, pressed his lips, firmly and possessively, against her skin.
He held her against him until he felt her grip slacken and her arms slide limply away from his back.
Ethan’s heart twisted painfully in his chest. A rush of cold spread through him and he curled himself even more securely around Frankie’s small, still form with a soft groan, holding her desperately to his chest.
He was only distantly aware of Giles’ hand coming to rest firmly on his shoulder as he cradled his broken Slayer in his arms.
And he was only distantly aware that the crushing, shattered cries of sorrow which had begun echoing through the darkness of the otherwise quiet park were actually his own.
Concluded in Part 7.
Endnotes: The music of Sting has been greatly influential to this story. And while the primary song in my head has always been “Shape of My Heart” (due to the fanart that originally inspired this story), the song that I feel really speaks to the end of this particular chapter is Sting’s 1988 single “Fragile”.
Both are awesome and poignant. Definitely give them a listen!