BEFORE THE WIND

"Beautiful night to go slaying isn't it B?"

"If by beautiful you mean slightly rainy with a chance of monsters, then yes." It was Saturday night, slightly after midnight. Normal girls are beginning to drag themselves out to clubs at this time, but I'm out here, slaying the ugly bumpy things the night tends to bring out.

And such is the life of a Slayer.

At least she's here with me, at least I can feel her presence close by, thumping like the steady beat of a bass drum, thrumming in my veins, humming in my heart. That's my girl. That's my Faith.

Faith's strides are long as she paces about the cemetery, looking for something dead to kill. "B, I gotta say, beautiful night and all, yet not seeing many beautiful things to slay."

She was right, the cemetery seemed particularly void of demons tonight. May sound like a good thing, but a lack of things of the monstrous variety to kill troubles me. "Something big's coming," I respond to her. She nods back at me, a little worry evident in her eyes.

The dread hit me full force, a split second after uttering that statement of impending doom.

Something was coming, something big.

"You feel it B? Like something rotting has crawled into your mind?" I did. My mind felt dirty, and no not the naughty kind of dirty, or even the germy kind of dirty. My mind felt evil.

"If by it you mean nasty rotten thoughts permeating my brain then yes," I respond.

"I don't like it," she states, her jaw set firmly.

"There isn't much that you do like Faith," I tease her trying to ease the mood. "But I do have to agree with you on this one.

Faith turns and stares me straight in the eyes. "I like you," she replies. "In fact, I kinda like you a lot." She moves up beside me and grabs me in her arms. "Maybe we should stop by and check with Giles, see if there's any impending doom. Maybe take a detour, like to your bedroom."

Oh goddess, and she teases right back. "Or maybe just skip straight to the detour," I suggest. Oh things are really heating up in this beautiful night.

Faith looks around, scanning the cemetery for any movement. "Or you know, wouldn't want to shirk our duty or anything. Could just get hot 'n' heavy right here. Vampires be damned."

And what an appealing thought that is. I grind my body up closer to Faith's, making sure to graze my hand over that sensitive spot under her arm. Faith shudders beneath my touch, and suddenly the dread and cold feelings leave me. It's just me and her in this world. She's all that matters.

"I love you B," she whispers quietly in my ear. I love hearing her say that. Perhaps my most favorite thing to hear in the whole entire world. Aside from her quiet moans when we are doing the deed.

"Love you too Fai," I whisper back, gently nibbling on her ear lobe as I retract my head.

We pull apart and continue our walk through the cemetery, hand in hand. Just feeling the soft touch of her warm fingers wrapped around my own is enough to send shivers down my spine with every step we take. It's so wonderful to be dating a walking, talking, piece of perfection.

We continue making strides to the center of the cemetery, normally a cesspool of demons and vampires, seeing as it's the farthest from the streets and literally a focal point of the dead. As we approach the monuments in the center of the graveyard, that horrible feeling of a cold slimy icky being made its way back into my head. Faith squeezed my hand in reassurance. She must have felt the trepidation and fear making its way into my head.

It was then that we saw it. A perfectly black robed figure sitting atop a gray stone monument. He was at least a football field length away from us, and he just appeared out of nowhere. Apparating demons are never a good thing.

"What do you think B?" Faith whispered to me, never taking her eyes off the lone outline of something big and scary. "Should we rush it, sneak up on it, or jet?"

She posed a really great question. "Not sure we really have the whole element of surprise thing going for us at this point. And I don't really want to turn my back on this guy. I kinda feel like it would just ensure the entrance of a mortal wound if we lost him in our sight," I tried to reason.

Faith considers what I said and responds. "Suppose your right. Smart girl, knew I wasn't just into you for your ass." Only Faith would joke at a time like this. Which just scares me more. Normally when its slay time, Faith buckles up and takes our power for a ride. The quipping is natural, but she's all serious about her slayage.

She only jokes when she's scared.

"Tell you what," I begin, trying to reassure her. "We get out of this tonight and you can have all the ass you want."

"Ohhh I like the sound of that girlfriend," Faith purrs back at me. "Let's get this guy dead. Count of three?" Faith asks.

"One..."

"…Two"

"…Three!"

With that we rush in on the black cad super creep. We're running as fast as our legs will take us. I let Faith take the lead. We've coordinated this blitz style before; it always works better when she steps up front.

We're nearing the demon, maybe twenty yards off when he spreads his hands and a blast forces itself from the center of his palms.

I can see Faith trying to brace herself for the impact, but it doesn't do her much good. The blast knocks us back hard; it feels like the equivalent of being hit with a wrecking ball, and believe me, it sure did wreck us. Faith took the brunt of the hit, but the force of it lifted her off her feet and into me. We both tumbled to the ground in a heap, a tangled mess of limbs. We unravel ourselves quickly and I turn to see Faith lying on her side, gasping for air.

I chance a look back to the top of the monument, and he's still there.

I rub my hand across Faith's back, trying to get her to calm down. She slowly regains her breath, but her eyes are still closed tight. The demon in black isn't going anywhere, so I help Faith to a sitting up position; my body is protesting as well.

Faith's breaths finally even out, and with a low grunt she raises herself to her feet. We both turn to face the demon again. Faith's features are set and I can see the defiance and strength in her eyes.

We start to walk towards him, trying to emanate power and strength, and not let our fear of his own power show through.

Within seconds we are driven to our knees as the demon stands, raises his hands again, and enters our heads. It starts to try to fill our mind with devastation, dread, and anxiety.

It's working.

Slayerssss… It hisses in our heads. About time you came. Allow me to introduce myself, it says as it walks towards us. We both lift our heads to see what kinda ugly we are taking on.

We could barely see his face, but from what we could see, I know for sure I didn't like, and judging by Faith's gasp, it was safe to say she didn't either. We're slayers, not really the gasping type.

His face was a mottled blue color, with ugly lemon colored pus-filled sores. His teeth were jagged and black, his nose pushed against his face. His eyes were narrow slits, but abyss like slits. That is one ugly bitch.

I am Eramthgin. And you…you are my puppets. It suddenly occurred to me what exactly he was. Giles warned me about this kind of demon a few years back. He has the ability to go into anyone's mind and control them. Giles was pretty sure that Slayers were immune to it, but something tells me the wires got crossed in his dusty old books.

This is so not good.

Ready to play? it asked. Chills went up my spine. Faith looked over at me, a distraught look in her eyes. I was right there with her.

With those last words I felt a pull on my mind and a disconnection happened. It felt like his hand was clenched around my mind, my thoughts were his, and his actions were mine.

He turned my head towards Faith, who was standing completely erect, but not moving. She looked so scared.

She is yours? he questioned. Will hurting her hurt you?

Oh God no.

Faith's eyes went wide as Eramthgin pulled a sword from behind his back. He placed the sword in my hand.

My dread weighed as heavy as the sword. It was a thick metal, about two feet long in length. It was one hell of a sword. I tried desperately to un-pry my fingers from around the handle, but was having no luck on that frontier. Sweat was breaking out on my forehead as I worked my will to release my grip.

No use Slayer, he taunted. You're going to make her as good as dead.

No. I raised the sword up chest level and aimed it at Faith's chest. No. A primal scream escaped from my throat and I don't know if it was from trying to release him from my mind or from him as his bloodlust grew stronger. Faith closed her eyes. Our bond was pulsating in my veins. I could have almost sworn that I heard her utter a soft "I love you."

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's stabbing. I've been trained to find that special place between bones, through muscles. That special place where the heart lives.

I wish I wasn't so good at it.

I put everything I had into moving the sword and away from her. Away from my angel. The sword jerked back and remained aimed at her chest. In one quick motion, the sword was plunging deep into her chest and out the other side. But I managed to move it just the fraction it needed to stop itself from impaling her in the heart.

Something tells me this was a deathblow anyway.

Her eyes opened wide, shock setting into her system. I cried inside. I could hear the demon laughing, relishing in his deed.

I dropped the sword. I dropped the sword. I dropped it. Not him. In another swift movement I whipped the sword around and cleaved the head off of Eramthgin. A breeze picked up and whipped my hair all over my face.

Another demon dead.

Faith dropped to her knees.

I lurched forward to catch her before she fell face first to the ground. I cradled her in my arms and gently held her against me.

I killed her.

I killed my Faith.

AN: Alright, so it looks like this thing does have a couple of chapters left in it :] I have decided to give it a before, and if people care enough, I'm pretty sure I could write an after. If there was an after, I'm curious to know what direction you guys think I should take. I have something in mind already, but this could be interesting :]

Thanks for reading!