Big eyes shining with adoration zeroed in on Faith as a young woman rushed down the boardwalk. Her long, brown hair flipped in the breeze behind her, drawing the attentions of several young men. She had made as if to go back into the saloon with her mother and sister, but when they had been looking the other way, she had beat a hasty retreat and came instead to get close to her idol.
She marveled at Faith every time she saw the female gunslinger. The woman was everything she wanted to be, and everything she dared not be. She could hear her family scolding her already and knew she'd get a beating for leaving without permission, but she didn't care. She had to tell Faith just how great she was, while she got the chance!
Bustling pass, and almost into, a blonde man who was scribbling something on a pad, Dawn exclaimed the moment she was near Faith, "Faith, you were amazing!"
Faith looked up from where she had been chatting with Hansel and rather ignoring the other two who stood with him to see the young girl bounding her way. She quirked a brow at her, then looked away and refocused on Hansel, who promptly suggested they return to the inn.
"Yeah, it's about time!" Derek commented. "You need to get in there before your latest lover gives one of our customers the vapors!"
"My latest lover?" Hansel questioned, giving Derek the raised-brow look he'd picked up from his sister.
"Yeah, you know, the Gypsy you left naked upstairs."
"I didn't -- "
"Yeah, yeah," Derek muttered dismissingly, waving him off. "I neither need nor want to hear about the sordid details of your messed up lovelife, Hansel, but what I need even less is a naked man wandering about, claiming not to know how he got here! Honestly, just how inebriated was he when you picked him up?"
Dawn's eyes had been darting back and forth between the men, but she shrugged the strange remarks off and began to follow into the line, hoping to get closer to Faith until she heard a low growl that took her by surprise. She stopped in place, her brown eyes wide. Was her hero growling at her? But no, Faith wasn't even looking at her. She was glaring holes into the back of Derek's head.
Hansel placed a gentle hand on Faith's elbow, a silent request that she leave Derek to him, and she whispered venomously to him. She'd let him have a go, but if Derek continued to slander her brother, he'd fare worse than the gunslinger the town undertaker was even then hauling away.
Hansel looked at Derek with innocent, blue eyes that batted ever so slightly. "My, my, Derek, who shoved a carrot up your ass instead of the sausage you wanted there?"
Dawson was following behind the group, trying hard not to give himself away. At that comment, he almost burst out laughing and had to cover his mouth with both hands, causing him to drop his notebook and his pencil. Stooping down, he quickly and quietly recovered his items.
Dawn did stop at those words and was even more surprised when Faith and Hansel grinned devilishly and the pale-skinned woman she knew only as Elvira burst out laughing, her strange, black eyes sparkling in delight. She'd never heard people talk such as this!
Derek whirled on Hansel, his eyes flashing and his face a considerably lighter shade. "Well, I never!"
Hansel's grin grew, his white teeth shining. "You know you should," he crooned to which Derek huffed and, blushing a deep crimson, returned wordlessly to the inn.
Only when Derek was gone did Hansel join in Elvira's laughter, but even then, with Dawn's and another's eyes completely focused upon her, Faith did not laugh. She grinned, clearly pleased with Hansel's handling of the situation, but not even the shortest chuckle escaped her dark lips.
Dawn found the others' laughter contagious and was just beginning to grin when a shrill voice cut through her ears and made her grimace, "Dawn!" Before she could move to hide, she heard hurried footsteps approaching and her sister's voice called out again, this time more demanding and full of accusation, "Dawn Summers!"
Hansel's laughter died in his throat; Faith looked up with eyes that were almost as black as Elvira's. Without a word, Faith's hands moved to rest on the hilts of her guns. Hansel gulped, his eyes darting between Faith and the swiftly approaching blonde. "Maybe we should go in now?" he suggested.
Elvira, sensing the building tension, finally stopped laughing. "Yeah, honey, you know, that's probably a good idea," she quickly agreed with Hansel, although uncertain of what was going on. "I need to get ready for my show."
"Go get ready for your show," Faith growled low, "and you find your man, Hansel. I'm just gonna watch."
"I think I'll stay," Hansel put in softly as the blonde harlot came up beside Dawn.
"There you are, Dawn! What are you doing out here?" the older woman questioned her sister. Then she saw Hansel and shook her head, her long, blonde hair tumbling down her back in waves that glimmered in the noon-day sunlight. "If I've told you once, Dawnie, I've told you a thousand times. Hansel's not interested in you. You need to find yourself a good boy and give up on him. He's looking for a woman."
Hansel's jaw set. His blue eyes glared, but before he could speak, Dawn protested. "But I'm not -- "
"Yes, yes, dear, I know. He's incredibly handsome, but he needs a woman, not a girl." Buffy shoved her way in front of Dawn and gave her a push that sent her tumbling.
Faith stepped up, placing herself between Buffy and Hansel, as Elvira caught Dawn and helped her recover her balance. "He doesn't want a woman," Faith snarled, her eyes flashing, "let alone a whore."
"Such language!" Buffy exclaimed, seemingly shocked. Her fingers hovered over her gasping mouth. When Faith continued to glare at her and none in the gathering seemed at all fazed by her exclamation, Buffy tossed the charade away. "Better a whore," she spoke softly with a smile, "than a murdering thief."
Half of Faith's mouth lifted into a depreciating smirk. "Want, take, have," she shot back. "Isn't that the motto you only wish you could live by?"
"I do do what I want and take what I want," Buffy replied, reaching a hand beyond Faith to touch Hansel's chest.
Hansel jumped away from her touch as Faith grasped Buffy's hand and squeezed hard. Buffy screamed as the bones in her hand first popped and then broke. The blonde's hand grasped firmly in her own, Faith twisted Buffy's arm around her back, kicked her in the butt, and finally released her. When Buffy went sprawling, no one moved to help her. Instead she fell off the boardwalk and landed hard on the ground, her face splattering into a pile of horse manure.
Buffy was shrieking when she lifted her head, and Faith glared down at her. "Touch my brother again, bitch, and you're dead." She turned around, her eyes meeting, for a moment, with the blue orbs of a blonde-headed stranger who she knew had watched the whole play down.
Hansel shook his head. He'd told Buffy to hobble her lip and that he wasn't interested so many times before that it was pure ridiculous that the woman kept moving on him! Then he grinned. This should at last put an end to that. He followed Faith into the inn as Elvira looked, with concern, over Dawn.
She sensed that the girl was weaker than she should be and, from the way she had cringed when Buffy had come squalling her name, she suspected why but would not ask her. Instead, with a friendly hand clasped lightly around her shoulders, she suggested, "Why don't you come in and have a drink, chile?"
Dawn looked up into the eyes of the strange woman. She was unlike any one she'd ever known, even Faith, but she smiled at her and her touch was gentle. Still she had to refuse her offer. "I . . . I don't have any money."
"No one said anything about paying for it, sweetheart. You just come with me and leave your sister to rile -- "
"DAWN," Buffy, now returned to her feet, blasted through their soft conversation, "IF YOU GO WITH THAT HARLOT, I'LL TELL MOM!"
Elvira glared at the blonde over the girl's head and felt Dawn's shoulders, and her hope, sink. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't."
Still sputtering about what Faith had done to her and holding her hand, Buffy clambered back onto the boardwalk. Snatching Dawn's arm with her good hand, she glared at Elvira. "Stay away from my sister, you . . . " Her blue eyes darted up and down Elvira's strange clothes and even stranger body before she spat out, in lack of another word to come to her mind, " . . . vermin!" She'd never seen any one as strange as this woman and knew she could not possibly be human but had no idea what she was.
"I'm sorry," Dawn mouthed silently, then pulled free of Buffy's hold and stomped down the boardwalk.
The moment Dawn turned her back to Elvira, the woman chose to give the blonde a piece of her mind as fully, if not as eloquently, as Faith had moments before. Her eyes locked with Buffy's, and her black lips pulled away from deadly fangs. One hiss was it all took to make the woman blanch, scream, and run for her life.
Elvira quickly hid her fangs, patted her lips to make sure her make up had remained intact, and glanced around the boardwalk. No one else had seen for the townspeople knew well of the hatred between Faith and Buffy and tended to make themselves scarce whether than risk being caught up in it. No one had seen, or, at least, that's what she believed until she turned around and saw a blonde man, with notepad in hand, watching her. "Whatcha looking at, stranger?" she drawled innocently.
"Not really sure, ma'am, but it seems the women in this town are crazy. I'm glad none of them has latched onto me yet! I'm a reporter looking for a story." He scarce could believe what he had seen with his own two eyes and would not dare to tell any one what he had seen, because they would surely think he was crazy.
"I'm hoping to get a story on the lady gunslinger." Dawson gave her one of his best smiles. "Do you think you could help me to get closer to her?" he asked hopefully.
Her eyes searched his, and she wondered if, perhaps, he was so green that he had not seen her fangs. Those who chose not to believe often managed to overlook what was even directly in their faces. At last, she grinned. "From what Hansel's told me about that girl, I'd say she's probably itching right now. Go get her a tequila, and maybe you'll get something even better than a story."
She started to sashay pass him, her black, slitted skirt swirling about her long legs, but then paused and looked back at him. "But I'd be careful with that pen, sir. You think the women around these parts are crazy? You ain't seen nothing 'til you try to write about 'em without permission." She smiled dangerously. "Do that, and you really will find yourself eaten up before you even know what hit you."
Elvira continued on into the inn, still smiling. If he had seen her, that might well hobble his lip permanently, but what she did not realize was that there had been another man watching her from the shadows on the other side of Main Street, a man who was even then fighting with his tail.
His skin itched, his tail twitched, and his hands clenched as he watched the stranger talk to his mate. Not that she would even acknowledge him the time of day. It was as though he didn't exist for her unless she was singing, but he knew she was his true soul mate. If that man laid one paw upon her, he would bound across the road as fast as lightning and tear into him. He would never touch his mate, or any one else's, ever again.
The full moon was coming. He could feel it, and he could hardly contain the wolf. His eyes continued to shift back and forth between his normal shade and the yellow eyes of the predator within as he watched the interaction between his mate, Elvira, and the stranger. If he touched her, he'd rip him limb from limb with great relish and enjoy gnawing upon his bones!
He continued watching the pair talking, listening to their words despite the distance that separated them, and was extremely relieved that the man was interested in the gunslinger known only as Faith. He grinned, his mouth full of gleaming, lethal fangs. He knew that Faith would have her legendary way with the reporter before the night was out. He had nothing to worry about except whether or not he could make it through his beloved's performance before wolfing.
Dawson felt a chill run up his spine at Elvira's words. He had no intention of writing anything about her until he had looked further into her. Hers might be a whole 'nother story, but first he had to tell the tale of the Lady Gunslinger. He knew it would be a sure-fire winner! Slowly he trailed behind the woman into the saloon.
To Be Continued . . .
