A/N: Behold! A year in the making... THE NEXT CHAPTER!
I'm sorry, everyone who was waiting on this. I swear I will finish this soon. I just got... sidetracked. When I wasn't dealing with Life (and yes, it deserves a capital) I was being all excited about my A Monster By Any Other Name series and getting distracted by a ton of other ideas. BUT I think this fic only has one chapter left after this one before I wrap it up.
I hope you enjoy!
Cordelia felt found herself gaping at the strange kid in front of her. While he looked like an ordinary teenager, dressed in dark goth-like jeans and t-shirt, he was very much not one. He didn't make any sense. He had turned an obscene number of vampires to dust—wielding that mysterious black sword like it was a part of him—only to promptly… fade? And what the hell was up with that? Bodies did not do that. Period. And then there was also the worrying fact that he kept… zoning out. He just stood there like some kind of ghost when Wesley was helping Gunn, and then it was like he was in some sort of slow-motion time warp digging around in that bag of his when Cordelia was ripping Angel a new one. He was so out of touch with the world, and whenever he did display some semblance of awareness it was to glare at someone (usually whoever was the closest).
Alright, maybe she was being a little unfair. Mr Mini-Dark-and-Mysterious did seem a little better now that he'd eaten that weird sugar cube thing. His hand was still gone though. And he had graduated to muttering strange things under his breath. A large portion of which was definitely not English.
After the boy's dramatic declaration of not being lost, but having missed, Cordelia was temporarily dumbstruck. This gave Fred the opportunity to lean forward, from where she still knelt next to the boy and his pack, and ask gently, "What do you mean you missed?"
"I'm not human," he shrugged as though that was a suitable explanation, even though they'd already established that little tidbit. (That was another big thing about this strange boy that Cordelia was decidedly not ok with, but she was ignoring that for now. Along with the fact that he somehow knew Mr Dark-and-Mysterious Sr was dead.)
Fred seemed as taken aback as Cordelia because she simply looked over her shoulder at Angel with a lost expression on her face.
Angel frowned and took a small step closer to the boy, "So you have… magic, then?"
The boy snorted, "That's one way to put it."
"What's the other way?" Gunn asked curiously from somewhere behind Cordelia.
The boy hesitated and looked down at his hands—rather, his hand holding his flask and the arm that would normally be attached to his other hand. After a moment he shrugged, as though going 'what the hell'. He looked up at the motley group that surrounded him and gave them a strange smile that was a cross between a nervous flash of teeth and a mischievous smirk, "I'm the son of Hades, Lord of the Underworld, and I've inherited a fair number of his powers." Something primal and terrifying lit up in the boy's eyes, and for a moment Cordelia forgot that he was fading from existence. "They call me the King of Ghosts."
"That's a, uh," Wesley's voice took a step up in pitch, "interesting title."
The kid shrugged and took another swig from his flask. He seemed absolutely unconcerned.
"How'd you get it?" Fred asked curiously.
He gave her a very unimpressed look, "How do you think?"
"But," Cordelia ventured, "Wouldn't, um, Hades be the King of Ghosts?"
"No," he snorted, "My dad is the King of the Underworld."
For a moment, they all stared in silence as the strange boy drank from his flask. Cordelia, for one, was absolutely befuddled and was still trying to process everything she'd heard so far. Just… what? He was the son of a god? How was that possible? A god?
The only person who didn't seem to be affected was Angel. Because, you know, it was Angel. Said vampire was the one to break the silence, "Alright, kid. I'm still not sure how or why you're here but you clearly need help and we can't stay here. I'm Angel," the vampire started gesturing to each occupant of the warehouse, "This is my team; Gunn, Wes—"
"Wesley, Cordelia, and Fred," the boy finished a little impatiently, gesturing just like Angel had. "I'm perfectly capable of listening, even when I'm fading from existence," he snarked, "But since you're finally sharing, maybe you can tell me what in the name of Hades those," he gestured to the piles of dust, "things are. Because, whatever they were, they were like you, Angel. Dead, but… not like one of my zombies. And they… they felt empty. You feel more complete, like an actual ghost."
Cordelia was speechless. She noticed Fred's jaw was hanging a little loose and Wesley looked like someone had slapped him. Gunn looked suspicious. Angel himself, however, looked taken aback… and rather intrigued as well. "You've never seen a vampire before?"
"Vampires?" he nearly hissed, "Seriously? I was sure I was mistaken…"
"Nope," Cordelia jumped in, popping the 'p', "They were your average, soulless, bloodsucking undead. Angel here, though, he's fully ensouled. Still quite dead, but at least he has a conscience."
"I've only ever seen empousai before…" the boy murmured, "I'm going to have to swear on the Styx to get everyone to believe me."
"What are empousai?" Fred forgot her shock in favor of curiousity.
The boy shrugged, "They're daughters of Hecate, and are hybrids of a sort. Human, donkey, and mechanics. They drink the blood of men they seduce. "
"Donkey?" Wesley asked incredulously.
Gunn, however, shook his head at his friend, "No… that I can get… but mechanics? What does that even mean?"
"They only have one leg, a donkey's leg, so they're given a celestial bronze prosthetic. I've heard that they're melded together with black magic."
"Celestial bronze," Wesley murmured quietly, but Cordelia was fairly certain that only she had heard it.
Gunn frowned deeply, "And you mistook them for vampires?" Unlike Wesley's musing, his incredulous question was heard by everyone.
The son of Hades (and Cordelia was still very much not ok with that) gave the experienced demon hunter a murderous look, "They basically are vampires—they drink blood! I'm sorry that I've never seen your type of vampire before."
Gunn scowled back at the feisty not-quite-human, and opened his mouth to say something that would no doubt inflame the situation. The boy obviously knew this too, because his expression was darkening rapidly and he hadn't even heard what Gunn was about to say.
Cordelia felt obligated to jump in before anyone exchanged blows, "Whoa there, cowboys. Take it easy. We already know the world is a big scary place; so what if it's a little scarier?" Once both boys redirected their glares to her she addressed the kid, "You know ours', bucko, so what's your name?"
His glare subsided to a heavy smolder, and he looked down at his hands. Well, hand-with-flask and arm-without-hand. (Another thing Cordelia was still very much not ok with.) "Nico," he muttered reluctantly.
"Alright, Nico," Cordelia continued, "Like Angel said, we can't stay here. Why don't we relocate to our command center, and then you can tell us how exactly we can help you."
Around her, Cordelia's teammates murmured agreement and began to efficiently gather weapons and medical supplies and pack them away. The boy—Nico—watched for a moment before giving a disgusted huff and shoving his own supplies back into his pack (one-handed).
"You could help by getting me to San Francisco," he muttered, swinging his pack over his shoulders and sliding his sword into its sheaf, still seated. He took a deep breath and braced his working hand against the floor. Cordelia had a flash of anxiety a moment before the son of Hades heaved himself to his feet. For a precarious moment, he swayed forward, and everyone started towards him but Fred, who was still the closest, reached out hurriedly to steady him. He, in return, glared at her and continued his griping, "I would've thought that'd be obvious since I said I was headed there."
It took Cordelia a long moment to remember what he had been talking about. As such, Angel beat her to the punch.
"You're not going anywhere until you can walk straight," Dark-and-Mysterious (original trademarked edition) scolded the teenager severely.
"And your hand stops pulling a Houdini on us," Cordelia added, mimicking Angel's 'I-am-not-kidding' face perfectly.
Nico huffed at them, "You know, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself." They all gave him incredulous looks, so he scowled and murmured, probably to himself, "It's not like I saved the world, or survived Tartarus, or visit the Underworld for kicks or anything. No… I'm obviously completely helpless. That horde of vampires nearly massacred me."
"Try not to drown us in your sarcasm," Wesley told Nico wisely as he passed him, still supported by Fred. "You wouldn't want to kill the kind souls that are trying to help you."
Hanging back as everyone filed out of the dank warehouse towards the cars, Cordelia rolled her eyes. This was going to be a very very long day. And that wasn't even counting the nest of vampires they'd just killed!
A/N: Please let me know what you think!
