We Could Be Heroes (15/?)
“Hmm.”
Athan looked up from his book at the noise and asked, “What is it, Dev?”
The dark-haired man across the room bent over a map spread over a aged table turned to look at him curiously.
“That teenager Alex is back here in Houston.”
“I thought you said he was just in Atlanta not a week ago,” said Athan, rising to come stand next to him. He then frowned and asked, “Where’s the girl’s mark?”
“That’s just it,” replied Dev with a frown. “It’s disappeared. No trace.”
“There’s more powerful magic blocking it?”
The mage shook his head at that, explaining, “Tracking spells aren’t powerful magic anyway, Athan. I could concoct one to trace her trail but I’m not sure it would even be able to do so with such a weak spell.”
Sighing, Athan ran a hand back through his graying brown hair then asked, “Where’s the boy now?”
Dev leaned over the map again, mumbling something as he laid his hand on it then pressed it to a close up map of Houston he pulled out from under the larger one. As the tracking spell reset itself to the new map, he frowned.
“He’s heading for the bar.”
“Shawn’s bar?”
“That’s the one.”
Athan scratched his head then closed his book, setting it aside. “Call ahead to the bar and give him a warning,” he said as he turned to head upstairs.
“What are you going to do?” called Dev after him.
“I’m going to call Nix and get her to meet me there. And we’ll hope that kid hasn’t found out we tracked him and pissed off about it.”
“What if he’s here for another reason?” asked Dev, moving to the base of the stairs. “What if something’s happened to the girl?”
Athan paused halfway up and turned to reply, “Then we’ll help him. You know I can’t stand it when kids get hurt. Now call Shawn, will you?”
Dev nodded and moved towards the phone sitting on the desk Athan had been at, lifting it as he dialed the number he knew by memory. He just hoped Shawn wasn’t currently drunk…
* * *
When Xander strode up to the bar, he found Rey standing outside calmly smoking. He strode on through the surprise he felt and lunged at the man, shoving him hard against the wall he was leaning against.
“How’d you know I was coming?” he demanded.
Rey lifted both hands and replied, “Hey, man, look, I’ve got a friend that helps kids. You came in here wanting two fake ID’s and I figured you might need the help but I didn’t want to force it on you.”
Xander’s eyes narrowed at that. “You were tracking us by magic. There’s no other way for you to have known I was coming.”
“Wasn’t mine.”
“Another friend?”
“Indeed,” replied a new voice and Xander spun, letting go of Rey to face the two people coming up the street, who he hadn’t figured for being involved in this so he’d ignored them. One was an older man at least three decades older than him with graying brown hair, some tattoo on his cheek, and an eye patch whilst the other was an olive skinned woman somewhere around the same age with bleached blonde hair and hazel eyes that were an alligator sort of cold.
“Who the hell are you people?” he demanded.
The man sighed then replied, “I’m Athanasius Delaney, this is my wife Phoenix, and I think you already know Shawn there.”
“Who tracked me?”
“A mage that’s a friend of ours,” replied Shawn, rubbing his throat. “Devin.”
Xander nodded slowly, calculating, then he turned to Athan since he seemed to be the leader of this group. “You’re all fighters, right? And you know at least enough to have a mage on your side.”
The woman Phoenix shrugged and spat, “We take down the bloodsuckers, demons, and what-not when they come into town.”
“Fair enough. Do you know about the Slayer?”
“Been hearing rumors there were two,” replied Athan, “though its said one’s gone rogue. And…” His one eye widened and he stared at Xander, who slowly nodded. “The girl with you. She was the other Slayer.”
“The Council took her,” snarled Xander. “I don’t know what they do to Slayers who’ve gone rogue or what they’ve done to her for the past week it took me to get back here. But they took her to get to me.”
“Why?” asked Shawn curiously.
“I know things they want to know,” replied Xander. “Things I don’t want them or anyone else to know. So I need help getting her back from the Council - from their headquarters themselves in London.”
Athan frowned then glanced aside at his wife, who was grinning ferally. She turned to look up at him and purred, “Oh, you know I love anything that’s bound to turn into a fight. I say we go.”
“I agree,” said Athan, “for the sake of the girl. I’ve heard enough about the Council to know that I don’t like them - letting a child, even an empowered one, do that is cruel.”
“Not for all of them,” said Xander. “Being a Slayer’s the best thing that happened to Faith. And they’ve probably taken that away from her by now.”
Athan nodded slowly since he’d heard a few nasty rumors about the Council’s point of ‘retiring’ their Slayer’s. “We’ll help you, kid. And I thought her name was Di.”
“She’s Faith. I’m Xander. And I have help coming here.”
“Who?” asked Shawn.
“A former Watcher,” replied Xander with a cold smile that made Phoenix’s eyes light up. “He’s going to help us get in.”
Athan nodded then took a step towards the teenager, asking in a low voice, “And what do we do when we get there with the Council?”
Hazel eyes went cold and the man was surprised when Xander’s voice suddenly changed, becoming tinged with an almost foreign accent.
“We kill them,” he replied harshly. “We kill every single one of them.”
* * *
“Put the girl through her Cruciamentum!”
“No!” exploded Travers, rising from his chair to bang a fist against the table. “We wait until the boy arrives for her, until we capture him. I want him to watch her struggle through it and die.”
“And until then?” asked another voice in the room.
“Until then let her torment continue. Its nothing more than the little whore deserves.”
* * *
“So,” observed a voice behind Giles and he turned to see the man Athan standing there, “you were a Watcher.”
“Formerly, yes. I was stripped of my duties because I apparently became too close with my Slayer.”
“Faith?”
“No,” replied Giles wearily. With all he had dealt with since her leaving Sunnydale, he almost wished she had been. “Buffy.”
Athan nodded and then moved to stand at the window near his desk where the other man sat. They were both downstairs in the book store he ran between hunting and keeping a group of young magic practitioners in line with the rest of his group and Xander asleep upstairs in his apartment.
“So you condoned all this once?” he asked as he looked out the window. “The training of teenage girls and then the ‘retirement’ of them.”
“I have never agreed with the bloody Cruciamentum,” hissed Giles. “Not with Buffy and certainly not with Faith.”
“Hmm.”
Giles frowned at the man’s back then rose, asking, “Is this some sort of interrogation, Mister Delaney?”
“Not at all, Mister Giles. I’m simply curious about these two children.”
“Faith is a Slayer.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of that,” replied Athan. He turned away from the window then and said, “Its more Xander I am curious about. The way he fights and moves - like an assassin. I’m curious as to how a child came to learn that.”
Giles stiffened then demanded, “Why?”
“I was taken as a child by a group of demons, my mother killed by one because she made a deal that saved me when I was looking forward to a comatose life. They were looking to collect earlier than when specified in said deal so I was taken, stripped of my memories, and have only recently gotten them back but that’s not the matter. They trained me as an assassin so I know just what I am talking about. Now…do tell me, were there some left after I killed every one for taking one of the children I look after or is there another explanation?”
Giles frowned, not wanting to reveal this without Xander’s say, but they needed the help. They needed this man to trust them.
Sighing, he began the story of that Halloween, telling of his old friend Ethan and then moved on to the day he’d found out. He explained what he knew of the details of the memories that remained from Xander’s possession and found Athan nodding.
“The Hashshashin I’ve heard of,” said the man. “Even learned a few things of them from demons that had studied them and taken a few human methods for their own.”
“Demons taking human methods?” breathed Giles in surprise.
“They took every advantage they could, even if humans thought of it first,” replied Athan. He then ran a hand back through his hair and nodded, saying, “You’ve got our help for certain.”
“You just needed to ask that.”
“I needed to know if someone was out there kidnapping children and turning them into monsters again.”
Giles nodded slowly then asked, “How did you escape?”
Athan smiled and turned back to the window as he replied, “Escape? You never really escape from demons, Mister Giles.” He ran his fingers along his left cheek and mournfully continued, “Even if you get away from them, start a new life, and kill every single one that took all you had and made you a killer. You never get away from them.”
Slowly Giles moved to stand next to the man and said softly, “You can never escape from black magic either. And bloody well just call me Giles.”
Athan stiffened then asked, “You noticed Devin. And it’s Athan.”
“I became rebellious in my youth - I never wanted to be a Watcher at all. The group I fell in with practiced it and it wasn’t until we summoned a demon and it killed one of us that I abandoned it. It still tempts however. And, yes, I did notice the feel of it around him.”
“He lost his arm to black magic,” explained Athan. “Sometimes he falls under it again but…he tries.”
“That is the important thing,” said Giles. He then closed his eyes and continued, “We should get some sleep ourselves if we intend to leave in the morning.”
Athan nodded and as the former Watcher turned away, he asked, “Do you think she’s still alive?”
Giles paused and was silent for a long moment before he replied, “I hope to God that she is. If she’s not I am rather afraid of what Xander will do.”
“And who will protect them from the wrath of the law? I have my own contacts I’ve had to gather to keep Nix out of jail but I don’t think they’d be too fond of me piling two more people onto them.”
“If things go as I hope,” answered Giles wearily as he paused on the stairs, “a wiser Council can offer them protection from the law on this score.”
Athan nodded slowly then murmured, “I certainly hope so.”
“As do I, Athan. As do I.”