Disclaimer: See Part 1 Chapter 1

SHADOWED SOULS Part 4

Chapter 2

Startled, the Dark Slayer instinctively dropped into a combat stance herself, drawing up the twin dirks she now customarily carried in her boots, balancing on the balls of her feet ready for instant action as Angel glided forward with the menacing, total silent grace of a shark from the left, Spike doing likewise from the right. Never had the two been more dangerous – their pre-soul psychopathic partnership that had lasted nearly forty human years enabled them to move and think – and act - as one being.

Robin Wood snatched a battle-axe from the lobby's weapon cabinet; his dark gaze immediately fixed on Spike, as Slayers and assorted others likewise scrambled for weaponry even in their shock – Grey Miller, prudently eschewing conventional weaponry on this mission, pulled out an impressive looking James Black Bowie knife and quiet Olivia pulled a genuine antique but still sharp glaive-guisarme from her purse – designed to be fitted to the end of a spear shaft, the long blade even had a wicked little hook on the reverse side – ideal for disabling cavalry riders – or disembowelling an unfortunate victim.

Hands like steel grabbed Harmony and she found Kennedy one side and Willow on the other, grim determination on each face, so she subsided. Gru' drew his sword, while Lorne and Gunn snatched up clubs and Fred's figure began to take on a spreading powder-blue tinge while at the same time her skin started to erupt with a hard substance like a beetle's chitin shell that also spread across her flesh to form a sort of organic armour.

But then the Slayer Queen covered the distance in a single bound, landing precisely in the gap between the two vampires and her dark sister as they closed in. "Have you both gone nuts?"

"It's not Faith!" snarled Angel, his eyes fixed on the creature behind Buffy who wore the Dark Slayer's visage.

"Yes I am!" contradicted Faith, bewildered and not a little hurt by Angel's reaction.

"She's Faith!" Buffy reinforced, shifting her bodyweight in readiness, even though a genuine battle against Angel and Spike was a feature of her nightmares, and one she was pretty sure she wouldn't win.

Angel hesitated uncertainly at the ringing conviction in Buffy's voice and the undeniable Faith-ness of…her?…its..?…body-scent; his face wavered between human and demon - had Faith been possessed by a demon host like Cordy…?

"No!" Spike extended his fangs impossibly further as he tried to edge around the blonde Slayer. "It's there, can't you hear it? Something's there, inside, not Faith…"

Angel's wavering vampire face solidified again as his enhanced vampire sensory abilities picked up what humans couldn't detect, his voice dropping into an animalistic snarl. "Can hear it, smell it, feel it. Not Faith..."

Edging towards real panic, Buffy's jaw, like the penny, dropped as she suddenly figured it out at Angel's growled words. She looked at them – and laughed. Peals of merriment echoed around the room as the Slayer-Queen giggled, with more than a hint of hysteria. "Guys…of course its Faith, you idiots. She's a woman."

Both vampires paused and looked at her, along with everyone else, clearly not getting it. "Guys…it's how people make more people...?"

Nothing. The clue-bus sailed on by. Trying to get a grip on her fear-tinged hysterical mirth, Buffy drew in a steadying breath –

Fred Burkle stepped forward into the gap so she was beside Buffy and also in the two vampires' 'line of fire', the blue colouration fading and her skin reabsorbing the armour to leave normal, warm pink flesh.

Her face woodenly devoid of expression and her voice emotionlessly flat but curiously threaded with an inflexion of sorrow, Fred said plainly: "Faith is pregnant."

Angel and Spike looked at each other. "Eh?"

"Pregnant; with child; gravid; in the club; up the duff; eating for two -" Andrew Wells babbled.

"Okay, grasping the concept!" rapped out Gunn.

"Is it normal?" blurted out Angel.

Giles visibly winced and the dark vampire found himself pinned by the furious glares of every female present.

"Hey!" Buffy glared at Team Angel. "You guys not helping here!"

"Faith, I'm sorry, that came out wrong –" began Angel.

"No it did not." Wesley slammed the heavy book down on the reception counter with considerable force – making everyone jump nervously again - before spitting out, "No offence, Faith, but last year Cordelia Chase was taken over by a demon so it could give birth to itself through her mystical pregnancy." He gestured towards the other members of Team Angel – Angel, Gunn, Lorne and Fred. "Therefore, since our last experience with 'pregnancy' resulted in the death of one of my dearest friends after she spent months in a brain-dead coma, you'll just have to tolerate Team Angel's current lack of rejoicing!"

"Cordelia was our friend too." Buffy responded quietly into the uncomfortable pause as everyone found the floor suddenly fascinating.

"Cordelia wasn't our friend," Charles Gunn retorted, "she was family. We –" He indicated the LA group the same as Wesley had just done, "- are each one all the family we've got. Look, Faith, we're happy for you 'n'all, or we will be when we've thought 'bout it a bit more, but we're not really up to balloons and party streamers right now."

Dropping the defensive fight stance, the Dark Slayer rolled her eyes. "Everyone lighten up. I get where you're coming from and I understand it. I mean, what are the odds that any one of us would manage to do something normal without getting whacked upside the head with the big mystical whammy. But honestly…that's what this is." She waved a hand at Robin Wood. "There was a boy, there was a girl, there was the horizontal mamba…sperm met egg and voila, the next Miss Lehane is ruining my waistline as we speak. No mysticism or portents involved…"

"Except she's a Slayer." Dawn said chirpily before subsiding as a dozen glares were turned her way.

"Already…I thought that was a...you know…sweet sixteen kinda deal?" Spike asked, his gaze having been fixed on Faith's stomach for the past few minutes with a sort of fascinated horror, as if he expected her to go into labour any second.

"It appears the "one slayer dies a new slayer is called" theme has undergone some modifications since, or more likely because, we turned all the Potentials into Slayers." Giles answered. "It seems that a girl destined to be a Slayer will be a Slayer regardless of how old she is when a previous one dies. There are several Slayers that are minors, who are currently still living with their families. Mr Zubuto, Kendra's Watcher, is overseeing their training."

"Wait…" Lorne frowned. "Friday night when you were attacked by the Gra'ak…that power that helped Faith kill it even though her Slayerness hadn't returned…that was your internal tadpole flexing her mystical muscles?"

Buffy threw out a hand towards Solange, who had been sitting serenely on one of the lobby banquettes like a queen, totally unfazed by the drama around her. "So it seems, and I quote our new BFF over there: "'In the instant of her Calling, the Slayer gave to her mother her power that she could triumph.'""

Fred, having been looking at Faith with a strangely bitter expression, frowned at this statement. "Not Fallon Mady then?"

Wesley couldn't help himself from flinching slightly, but was saved by, of all people, Andrew Wells, whose long Spikesque trench coat actually suited him as he moved forward and waggled his arm slightly to attract their attention. "No. Actually it was Kerry Lansing. That's what I found out from my Internet search, only about ten minutes before Xander called me to come back home and pick up the girls to drive down here, which I'm thinking, probably not a coincidence."

The apprentice Watcher smiled at the several knowing looks most people in the room exchanged. Nobody here believed in coincidences, or accidents, or happenstance, or serendipity – those were things that happened to other people. "Kerry Louise Lansing, ten-year-old living at 32 MacLeod Terrace, Glasgow, Scotland, with mom, dad, brother and sister. Completely average family, completely unremarkable girl, except for…?" Andrew gestured with both arms, the palms of his hands outwards, towards the crowd, like a game-show host directing the camera to the contestant in the spotlight.

"…A history of insomnia and nightmares." Xander obligingly recited.

"Exactly!" Andrew declared. "Kerry Lansing had a history of night-terrors, but it was the only blip in an otherwise normal life, until…?"

"Last year when she suddenly underwent some major changes." Willow said this time. "We know where this story's going, Andrew. She was one of the Slayers I created with the Scythe."

"Right again." Andrew shrugged. "All of a sudden last winter, Kerry Lansing went from being an indifferent athlete to the darling of her school's PT department. Track, gym, team sports, it was like someone amped up her reflexes and coordination by a factor of ten."

"We get it!" Faith's harsh interjection made everybody jump slightly. "So…" Faith's dark eyes were eloquent in their pain, "…how did Kerry Lansing…?"

Nobody moved or spoke; this was the one thing nobody wanted to acknowledge – instead of being gutted by the Gra'ak, Faith instead was only alive because a ten-year-old girl had died and, in doing so, turned the foetus Faith hadn't even known she was carrying into a Slayer.

Andrew shrugged, losing his 'oracle' attitude. "On Friday night, Kerry Lansing, her brother and sister were being minded by their grandparents while their parents went out to a work function or something…a fire broke out in the house next door, which was empty because the family were on vacation and spread unchecked to the Lansing's house. With, and I quote: 'Superhuman strength', Kerry Lansing 'somehow' managed to save her brother, sister, grandfather and wheelchair bound grandmother from the blaze. The firemen couldn't understand how she'd managed to get through the smoke and heat without breathing apparatus as long as she did. The house collapsed while she was still inside…"

"Another compelling reason to get this show on the road, no pun intended," announced Wesley abruptly, "because the Oligarchs' next victim may be a Slayer whom we don't yet know about, like we didn't know about Kerry Lansing."

"I agree." Giles seconded. "The Oligarchs' first two attempts were on Fallon and Faith, and though Fallon died, both attacks failed to work as they intended, so I think we have assume it was unintentional on the Oligarchs' part that both Slayers were already part of our Sunnydale group. We caught a huge break, and we need to capitalise on it."

In silence, everyone backed up off the lobby floor as Wesley and Willow shook the powder around to form a large circle, while in the centre, Giles and Fred placed the appropriate objects in the large ceramic bowl placed over the low fire that they had lit with scant regard for the lobby floor. On the floor next to the fire, close enough to warm the metal but not make it too hot, Giles placed a huge curved silver dagger, the hilt decorated with gems, which uncomfortably resembled the weapons of the First Evil's Bringers, before he and Fred exited the circle.

Wesley moved to the centre where the bowl's contents were simmering over the fire; the staircases that curved up from the lobby to the second floor were now thronged with Slayers who sat or stood looking down at him with faces that showed they seemed incredibly to be more nervous that he was. Not really expecting anything else, Wesley wasn't surprised when instead of seeking even that minimally safe distance, Team Angel and the Scooby Gang instead gathered around on the lobby floor itself, their feet just brushing the outer side of the powder circumference of the circle. Trying to look like he actually knew what he was doing, Wesley dropped to his haunches and picked up the ceremonial dagger before rising to his feet again. The hilt was warm in his grasp, and he didn't need to test the blade – this was a functional ceremonial dagger used in rituals where sacrifices didn't consist of flowers and grain, but flesh and blood.

Angel stepped over the powder line into the circle, to stand the other side of the fire. "Everyone stay frosty while we're gone."

"Angel…" Wesley met the dark vampire's eyes.

"I've travelled the Ghost Roads before." Spike offered to his grandsire. "I could…"

"I need you ready to fight here." Angel cut him off, but there was appeal not hostility in his tone as he gave his grandson an encouraging smile. Turning slightly he ordered Buffy, "Be ready."

The slayer-Queen nodded, and they exchanged faint smiles. Angel had given her the order without self-consciousness or apology – he was no longer one of her Scoobies, he was the General in his own right now. "I get it."

Addressing everyone Buffy's voice automatically took on the same tone of command that Angel's own just – and just as unconsciously – had, "I want everyone on alert. If the Oligarchs have found out that we know about their little plan and figure we might try and stop them, some of their mystical muscle could be headed our way right now. Even if not, some other bad guys might have decided to jump on the Oligarchy bandwagon and help out in their own right. Spike, you, Faith and Dawn watch the front doors. Gru, you and Lorne and Olivia take the doors in from the garden. Willow and Kennedy with Harmony, you take the top of the left staircase, Fred and Gunn take the top of the right staircase. Have I missed anything?"

Wesley and Angel looked at each other. "Basement."

Angel pointed at the door that led up from the basement into the lobby and Buffy nodded. "Giles and Grey, please – go, Xander."

Xander saluted them all. "I'll be back before sunrise – remember – no apocalypses whilst the Xan-Man is gone," and he hurried out of the front doors past Spike, Faith and Dawn.

Giles and Grey moved into position either side the basement access door, leaving Buffy alone on the lobby floor, apart from Solange, who appeared content to merely watch proceedings with regal composure. Nobody bothered to ask what the slayer-Queen intended doing because they already knew – Buffy had taken the most dangerous task of all, that of monitoring the portal to the Ghost Roads and dealing with anything nasty that might emerge while Angel and Wesley traversed the Ghost Roads.

Gripping the dagger in his right hand, Wesley held his left hand over the bowl, fingers outspread, and sliced a shallow groove down his palm, handing the knife to Angel as a thin ribbon of blood welled from the stinging cut and dripped down into the bowl, where it sizzled and hissed ominously.

As the insect-like creature whose world had originally worshipped Jasmine before 'she' came to this dimension had so rightly said to Wesley, the most potent offering of all was blood. That any creature seeking to travel the Ghost Roads had to offer something of his, her or its body was what made them so dangerous, from the awesome power of each such profound offering, made uncountable times in an infinite number of dimensions. As Spike had explained to the Scooby Gang back when Glory intended to kill Dawn: "'Blood is life.'"

Consciously directing the blood in his own body to his left hand, and suddenly acutely self-conscious of it, Wesley having allowed both himself and Spike to feed before Buffy et al arrived at Wolfram & Hart, Angel likewise sliced his palm with the dagger, deeper to reach the blood he had and secure in the knowledge that within the next twenty minutes, his palm wound, unlike Wesley's, would have healed as if it had never existed. His blood – Wesley's blood originally – hit the bowl in meagre drops and it hissed and sizzled even more intensely. Angel tried to maintain his super-cool façade of mysterious élan, though her faint, amused smirk told him that Buffy was seeing right through to the nervousness underneath, but then Buffy had always seen what he was…which made the fact that she loved him all the more incredible.

Andrew let out a loud yelp on the left staircase as something diaphanous and white fluttered in front of him before disappearing. The translucent image of a woman dressed in the garb of a Roaring Twenties flapper, her features similar to those of Jodie Foster in Bugsy Malone, hovered on the outer edges of the circle. Buffy raised an eyebrow towards Wesley, who shrugged helplessly to indicate he was clueless. That some amongst the hotel's plethora of resident spooks might manifest themselves had always been something that swung more towards the 'certainty' rather than 'possibility' side of the pendulum. Unfortunately, other than Roaring Twenties lady, nothing was happening on the all-important portal front.

"Maybe I should cut my hand again?" whispered Angel to Wesley, acutely aware of how perilously close the pair of them were to looking stupid in front of a whole battalion of Slayers.

"Ohhhh." Buffy's exclamation, in a tone of sudden comprehension, made them look up.

The flapper's form had solidified somewhat the closer she got to the circle. There were deep rents in her ghostly white dress from which started long grey blotchy stains. For anyone not yet on the clue bus her pearlescent arms and face likewise had deep gashes that were dark grey against the white; the flapper had been stabbed to death. In fact, considering the number and depth of the spectral wounds, 'frenziedly hacked' would have been a more accurate description.

As if she had been some sort of advance scout, more see-through apparitions coalesced in the vicinity of the circle. Wesley noted with academic interest that while some were indeed 'snow white', others ranged from old ivory through cream to perilously close to beige in hue, and some managed to be so solid you couldn't see through them, while others retained near total translucence. They were elderly, middle-aged and youthful, of both Caucasian, Asian and Negroid ethnicity. Automatically Wesley noted the difference in styles that indicated different eras. A trio wore the heavy garb of 1920s workmen, presumably the three construction workers who had leaped to their deaths from the hotel's roof in 1928. Several of the spooks, wearing 1970s type flares and platform shoes, also sported gaping holes in their forms, some big enough to stick an arm through and waggle it about; doubtless victims of the last manager's 12-gauge wake-up call.

Buffy suddenly hissed, causing both Angel and Wesley to look behind them. Just a few inches away, a tiny glittering dot floating about a foot above the floor suddenly began to expand until it formed an opening in the shape of a church's arched window, a doorway with no door, the lintel and doorposts glowing gold; the base of the portal levitated about two inches of the marble of the lobby floor.

Wesley and Angel exchanged nervous glances; through the portal was an opaque swirling mist – pearl-white with sparkling glitter scattered through it – like thick fog. Angel narrowed his eyes but then shook his head – not even his vampiric eyesight could penetrate the mist.

Xander Harris suddenly uttered a swear word so vile that even Spike jerked his head around to give him a disapproving glare. Wesley saw and sucked air between his clenched teeth in reaction; right on the powder edge of the circle stood two extremely short ghosts, faded like old sepia photographs. Both in pre-World War II clothing, the little girl was no more than four years old; the little boy firmly holding her hand and bearing an equally solemn expression was barely a toddler. For a moment they could only gaze upon these silent witnesses to a far more terrible crime. The ghostly toddler craned his neck to look around Wesley's lower legs, which was the sum total of his height, looking at the portal with faint curiosity.

"Will some of them follow us through the portal?" Angel asked, eyeing the gathered spectres that nearly outnumbered the living crowd, and feeling ridiculously upset over the idea of these two tiny apparitions wandering the Ghost Roads.

"I believe some will." Wesley affirmed, looking at the waiting spectres. "But I don't think they can until we do..."

The moment of truth; Buffy gave them that special smile she gave when she was pretending that she wasn't worried about a friend in trouble. Side by side, Angel and Wesley stepped through into the mist.

To be continued in Chapter 3…

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