Chapter 8: "Hellgates and demons and pits that are rifting"

She remembered to call in on the way, got the all clear, and waved off any Q&A with a yawning 'tomorrow, ok?' on the way to shower and bed. Fell into a boneless sleep as soon as her body hit the sheets.

Her footsteps echoed in the vaulted spaces. The air was musty with a feeling of time and age and smelling of old books and cheddar. Rows and rows of heavy wooden shelves stretched away in all directions, as far as her eyes could see. Ladders and tomes, tomes and ladders, and never a thing to read.

"Shhhhhhhhhh!!" The librarian gave her a frowning look from one of those rolling ladder thingys, and stuck a thick volume back in place. "Quiet!" She jumped down to land lightly with a swirl of blonde hair and tweed, and she saw then that it was B.

Or not-B: the ghost of Buffy left in her head. She couldn't explain how she could tell the difference, ever, just that she knew.

Not-B stamped a foot, pouting. "It's not here, dammit!"

"What's not?"

"You know." Not-B glared at her like it was Faith's fault that 'It' wasn't there. Hell, maybe it was.

She let the glare bounce off with a shrug, gazing around. "So, what happened to the usual place, Echo?"

"Different sitch, different place. Times called to the reasons, reasons call to the spaces. But you know that."

"If I did, I wouldn't ask." She shook her head and wandered off through the shelves, looking at titles and not recognizing any. Hell, she couldn't even recognize the languages.

"It's not here. I've looked through all the stacks and it's not here!"

"Either say something worth hearing, or quit following me around, dingy." Faith crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the rows. There had to be something about this... something niggled at her mind.

"Aha!" Not-B stepped in front of her, head cocked and green eyes fixed on Faith with a peculiar intensity. "Maybe it's in here!" She reached her hand into Faith's forehead and began rummaging around while the watch continued to melt and the echoes laughed.

"Hey! Getcher hand the fuck outta my mind!" Faith stepped back, swatting Not-B's arm to one side.

She got an exasperated look in exchange. "No, not in there either, dammit. What did you do with it?"

"Me?!" Faith glared. "I didn't do nuthin' - you're supposed to clue me!"

She stepped back again, about to launch into an exasperated pissed off rant about freaking Idiots That Be and useless bleached blonde ghost-slayer half wits, but when she opened her mouth, something else entirely came out:

"If you could read my mind love,

What a tale my thoughts could tell.

Just like a paperback novel,

You know the kind that the drugstores sell.

A tale of heroes and magic...

Of shattered dreams and a broken spell -

And when you reach the part

Where the heartaches start

The Hero would be me.

And Heroes often fail...

And you won't read that book again

Because the ending's just too hard to take.

Never thought it would be this way and I have to say

That I just don't get it -

Didn't know it could end this way,

and I've got to say -

That I just won't let it pass."

She heard a giggle from behind her and spun, jaw dropped.

"That's nice, dear." Not-B said sitting on a wooden table, legs kicking slowly. "I knew you brought it with you!"

"Riiiiiiiiiiiggggghhhhhhttttt," Faith said, as she fell awake.

Faith groaned and pulled the pillows over her head. "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh!!"

It wasn't nearly long enough later that Faith heard a soft knock at the door, and finally gave up all hopes of getting back to sleep.

Stake and knife to hand, check. But if anything was this far in, lack of invite wasn't an issue no more. Course, bad guy wouldn't of knocked... She sat up, shrugged. "Yeah?"

"Umm.. you up?" Abby's voice, hesitant.

"Yah. Come on in." Faith slid the weapons under the pillows.

She opened the door, edged around, flattened on this side of it to lean. Perched like a nervous bird: something had her spooked. "I err... heard you bellow. Thought you might be."

"snicker Sound of frustrated rage at the Universe, girl." She yawned, stretched. "What's up?"

"Can we talk?" Hesitant. Uh oh. 'Here we go,' Faith thought.

"Sure. Just let me... " She made a vague motion towards the bathroom and got up without waiting for an acknowledgment.

"Want me to bring us some coffee while you're in there?"

"You could do that thing and I wouldn't gripe."

Faith took care of morning issues, washed her face and splashed cold water in her eyes. Toweled off, still yawning. Damned Powers. Idiot dreams. Gods damned life. Still muttering under her breath she headed back into the other room to find a carafe and a hot mug already poured, Abby sitting cross legged in the straight chair that was the only other furnishing.

She drained about half the mug in three gulps, "S'good. Ko - shoot."

The girl looked about as uncertain as Faith'd seen her in the past couple of days. Come to think of it, she'd never seen Abby uncertain. She sighed internally as Abby started off with, "What you said the other night... about the Slayer story?"

Faith nodded, watching her.

"Is it true?"

"Yeah." Faith nodded again, looked at her nails. "I don't make stuff like that up just to yank people's chains." Met the girl's eyes, straight up.

"I... "

Faith continued giving her a calm gaze. "Sure you wouldn't rather continue this with Blade here, Whistler?"

"Abby," Faith nodded as she went on. "No. Just us. I want to know."

Faith nodded again. "Not just us, any more, but... Ok. Your call." She took a deep breath, let it out. "Let me guess: a few months ago, you suddenly found you were faster, a lot stronger, more agile, and you started having wierd dreams - if you weren't having them before. Weirder than normal, which given what you do, were probably nightmares by anyone's standards already. You heal faster. You maybe heard a small voice, not yours, in the back of your head that said: 'Are you ready to be Strong?'"

Abby nodded, eyes narrowed, then wide. "Yeah. I can't bend that barrel, but I could straighten it part way."

"Congrats. You're one of us now. Slayer." Faith's voice sounded weary, "You were a potential before. Someone in your past gave you The Gift. And a bunch of terrified people fighting for their lives against the biggest bad they'd ever seen woke it up in you so they'd have a half chance at not dieing."

Abby looked away. "That's what you said, before."

"Yeah. S'true." She caught Abby's eyes and held them. "I wouldn't have agreed if we'd had any other option we could see. I don't like people making choices for me: I try not to do it for them."

"Yeah... " She sighed. "I could hear that when you were talking the other night. Feel it." She gave Faith a sympathetic look. "You don't like this thing much, do you."

Faith laughed, wildly, it startled out of her. "Oh no... I love it. Jeeze. Always have! Just don't like all the shit that goes with it, and don't like that there wasn't a choice. Not that I'd have chosen not, get me?"

She looked at Abby with an exasperated mix of pride and compassion. "You should have had a choice, but you never did. I should have.. B... all the others. You never had a choice even if we hadn't raised the Power in you: it was made for us eons ago. If we hadn't and I'd died, you might have been Chosen next the old fashioned way. And with no one left to explain what the fuck was happening to you, or why The First was looking to ice you."

She looked out the window louvers, speaking softly. "But I don't hate It. I like the Power. I like the rush. I like knowing that I have a purpose. I like being the Thing that Monsters Fear. I like standing between them and those that can't protect themselves. I like the dance, the kill, and that wild savage intensity where life is full blazing Technicolor, not shades of gray. Maybe I like it too much... " She brought her eyes back around to Abby's. "What I don't like are the things that I did while I was trying to find out who the hell I was. And what it did to me and others. Understand?"

"Kinda," She looked thoughtful. "What happens now?"

Faith shrugged. "Depends, on a lot of things. Mostly you. And your family here."

"You're not going to try and recruit me to your Slayer school?"

"No. And not mine, not any more." Faith shook her head, "Don't think you need it. You've already got training, instincts, support, skills... all the things we... they try to teach a newly awakened Slayer. You have friends who'll back you. And you've already got a mission."

Abby frowned. "I think that you're more like Blade, and Hannibal than me in some ways. They live for the war, the kill, loving it. I got into it for personal reasons... but now, it's more something that has to be done. I'm one of the people who can do it."

"Best reason, maybe." Faith said. "But you are in it now already, and the power's an edge. Won't hurt, will help. Doesn't have to always be saving the world. Protecting your corner of it can be enough."

Nod. "Then... why'd you come here?" Abby's face was carefully expressionless, but Faith was already used to reading Blade, and Whistler's pokerface wasn't up to his levels.

"Got drunk, fell down, Blade brought me." Faith laughed. "Honest."

Abby studied her for long moments, then grinned. "So you weren't looking for me? We wondered."

Faith looked away, briefly. "Blade doesn't trust me much. Not surprised."

"Maybe you should be." Abby looked at her. "Blade doesn't trust easy. Neither does King. But Blade trusts you more than I've ever seen him do anyone on such short knowing."

Faith looked doubtful, shrugged. "No, not looking for you. But I probably would have if I'd known, just to give you The Speech. And then moved on."

"So now you've given it, you move on?" Abby frowned, as if she was surprised she didn't quite like the idea.

"Normally." Faith stretched. "But... " sigh "You've been having the dreams again, recently. The Pits of Hell in the middle of the city? Gates of hell and hordes of demons? Me and you and a shitload of people you don't know, fighting? Long room with tons of books?"

Abby's eyes got wider with each sentence. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Me too. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Slayer Dreams. You're about to get your first Apocalypse." She groaned. "You, me, King, and Blade need a council of war. Tonight or sooner."

"So - so much for just 'protecting my corner of it', huh?"

"Smartass. And this is your corner. I'm just passin' through." Faith smirked. "Let's go find some food."

...

Food and coffee and 1pm and Hannibal was still sleeping off whatever they'd been doing while Faith was out doing the 'Seek. Hunt. Kill.' thing. Blade was already up and gone, out hunting, evidently the dhampir needing as little sleep as a Slayer to keep going. Faith'd been sleeping more than she'd ever done since her prison time lately. Not that she was complaining: felt good, and evidently her body'd been needing the down time.

But she could feel the clock ticking now, in the places where the watches melt and where the hell did that come from, anyway?, and she was getting restless, edgy, and bored. Time was running out, her inner sense was telling her, and she hadn't even figured out 'Who' and 'Where', much less 'What' and 'When'. And that nagging itch that they kept giving her in her dreams that she should know, somehow, was driving her nutso. Glah.

Killed time and energy with a near-lethal-speed workout that left Abby laughing, exhilarated, and Faith strumming like an overstrung bow.

A shower and snack later and she dialed Wes to fill him in on the latest from Slayer Dreamland, and just to have someone to vent her frustration at. With. And that was a damned strange feeling for her, too.

Once he'd absorbed everything she'd seen, every tidbit of possible information she'd run across and drawn half remembered dream details out of her, he fell into one of those long thoughtful silences.

"Still nothing on our end," he said, finally. "Nothing in the books that would indicate a way of opening something like that, not short of a major Elder God being Awakened... and all of our sources suggest that they're all still sleeping or confined to the Deeper Wells. And no indicators of anyone having gained access to any of the books containing rituals for raising them. All of those are still safely guarded."

"Good. Doesn't feel like Lovecraft, anyway." She sighed. "Grrrf, dammit. Feel like I've got all of the damned pieces, or most of them, but they're not clicking. And I can't see what the pieces are even."

"Hrrmm. Well." He paused.

"If you say 'Oh dear lord', and I hear glasses polishing, I'm going to scream." She snickered.

"Ha. No." He chuckled. "No... was going to say that possibly if you could identify that man you saw at the end of the Gates dream, you'd have it. He seems to have a pivotal resonance in your mind."

"Grr. To borrow a B'ism, 'Well, duh!'." She rolled her eyes. "Figured that one. Don't seem to be happening. Feel like I'm stuck now in an endless dream-loop going 'Apocalypse season! Wabbit season! No - Apocalypse season.'" She snickered.

He laughed. "Yes. Well. Just make sure you're the one holding the shotgun when the music stops."

"oh. My. Gods. You actually caught a Bugs Bunny reference You've been Corrupted." She grinned. "I think I may go hide under the covers. That's fucking scary."

"I'll have you know we have Bugs Bunny cartoons in England."

"Suuuuuuuurrrrrrreee you do." She could almost hear him visibly decide to not dignify that with a response. "Hrrm. Ok... sword from what Vi said was seen. That's an important bit."

"Yes. Quite." He coughed slightly. "Unfortunately, there's no known mystical sword of that description, anywhere. We've checked every possible reference we can find, and even run it through the Wolfram & Hart databases. And looked in the vaults."

She could visualize him ticking off thing on his fingers as he continued, "No archaeological digs anywhere that might have dug up something ancient. No odd museums robbed of strange artifacts. No strange occurrences in any of the Weird News papers or 'From the Weird' sections that would tie in. So it's either a) something described in the Watcher's Archives that didn't survive The First, b) something unknown, or c) doesn't exist."

Faith frowned, "Also a 'shifting-in-realities' mentioned. Maybe someone pulled it in from some other dimension?"

"Possibly, but if so, that leaves us a dead end for the nonce."

"Grrr. Again." She made a face, thinking. "'Books and swords and dimensional shifting; Hellgates and demons and pits that are rifting; Ghost-B's and Slaydreams and vampires drifting'. Could set it to music and get a new 'These are a few of my unfavorite things' verse."

"Ha. Yes, quite. If we could only find the thing that connects all of them, we'd have it." He paused. "Maybe one of your next dreams will provide the missing connectors, if we can decipher them."

"And if the Gates don't open while we wait, dammit." She sighed, "Ok. Well... keep digging and keep looking for indicators, and I'll keep shaking things apart here. Maybe if we can get a line on 'Who', 'When', or 'Where', 'What' will sort itself out."

"Quite. Good hunting." She said 'yeah' absently and clicked off, disturbed and impatient still.

...

Late afternoon and everyone was up, back, and gathered in the main room again, finally. Council of war. Small council, no idea of what the war is or when or where it starts. SSDD on the half-shell.

Earlier, Blade had come in before King'd woken, and Abby'd filled him in on hers and Faith's discussion. He'd looked at her and just said, 'Now what?' and laid it out to sit there.

Abby'd shrugged and said "Faith said she thinks it's best that I stay here with you guys."

He'd nodded. "What do you want? Up to you, really."

She looked at a point on the wall and through it. "Don't know." Small voice. "Want to stay. Also think it'd be interesting to be around people who've been through the same thing, and can show me what it's about."

Blade glanced at Faith. "She's here."

Abby'd nodded. "But she won't be forever."

Blade'd given one of those microscopic shrugs. "Nothing is forever."

Faith put in, glancing from one to the other, "You know... not like you have to decide right now, Abby. School's set up in NYC, which ain't far. And other slayers'll be around. Nothing says you can't make contact with 'em and do both: stay with your family and work with and learn with them."

"Besides," she continued. "You already have more training and experience than a majority of the newer Slayers. More than I did when I was Chosen." She left out the 'And people who know you and give a shit about you I didn't' that both of them could hear in her voice.

Blade cocked his head. "True." Probably to all of the above, she figured.

Abby'd nodded. Blade said, "We'll figure it out," and she nodded again.

Now, and after Hannibal'd gotten up, they'd discussed the Dreams and all of the information that Faith had gathered and figured out, or not figured out. Plus the brief interesting explosion when he'd been let in on Abby's Calling. Sorted through what it all meant if anything, how it might all connect, if it did. King had actually taken the revelation about Abby's slay hood pretty well - he'd known something had happened with her and after Faith, had figured out a lot of the what. It was the Apocalypse thing he was really having issues with.

"Ok, so let me get this straight: Slayers are connected to these 'Powers', whatever the hell they are, and they send you visions of shit you have to figure out," He snorted. "And then you're supposed to figure out what the hell to do about them."

"Yup. 'Faith LeHane, We Choose You!'" She snorted. "That's me: The Power's Psychotic Pokemon."

Abby laughed, "Ok, that's just way too bizarre a mental image. So.. 'Here's the job, have an indecipherable clue, now go end the Apocalypse'? That kinda err... sucks rocks."

Nod. "And not die. 'Not dieing' is considered a Good Thing." She considered. "And Champions. Not all Slayers get drafted for the heavy lifting stuff. Not sure why it seems to center on me 'n B."

"And I thought our life was weird" He glared at her. "Do you have any idea how fucking insane this sounds?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, "Compared to vampires, killing Dagon, scientifically created uber-vamps, and Blood-packs? Yeah. I can see how it might seem odd." She snorted.

"But... " He glowered. "Yeah. And Abby's one of you now. Wonderful." Maybe he hadn't taken it that well after all, she mused.

"She was in this before. But now she's got a bigger edge." Faith met his eyes, level.

"It was pretty big before," he grinned. "Ok. so... what's next?"

Blade mostly listened and watched, eyes lidded. He'd asked a few short, pertinent questions when she was laying it out, but after he'd leaned back and let the three of them hash it. It had taken awhile: dark was falling outside. She'd had to back up a lot, give past history and examples to explain some of the things she was describing and explaining... all the while trying to carefully figure out what to leave out to keep secrets that weren't hers to give out.

"Depends." She ticked off options on our fingers. "I thank you guys for the hospitality, and then get on my bike and go try to figure it out and stop it, leaving you out. My war really, my job, not yours. Or you decide to kick in, and we figure it out, and stop it from happening. Your town, figure you have an interest. But I don't draft people into my fights. Your choice."

Blade inclined his head slightly, acknowledging that. "But you said we're in the Dream. We're already drafted?"

She frowned and stared through a wall. "I don't know how that works. I fail, you're in deep anyway: whole fucking world is. You'd become the next line, with everything already gone to shit."

"Gone to Hell... " She met his eyes seriously. "But I ain't going to draft you. I'm giving you the choice, and fuck the damned Powers. They got me already, they don't get people I like 'just because they're handy'. Screw that. You want out, grab a plane and get as far away as possible and plan what you need to do if I don't make it. No harm, no foul. No dishonor."

He snorted, softly. "I don't abandon people to be feed for Things, either." Met her eyes back. "My choice? I'm in."

She should have figured he wasn't one for letting the world go to Hell on his watch, either. One of these days, she'd stop getting surprised by stuff like this. Maybe. She'd been betting on 'You ride out and go figure it out'.

Hannibal looked at both of them like they'd lost it. "Hell. I still don't believe any of this. But I never planned to live forever." Abby nodded.

"You don't get to die," Faith told him. "I'm not going to have it." She grinned. "I have it on Good Authority that I'm not allowed, so you can't check out either."

"Good to know you have 'The Power'," Blade snorted, softly. "What next?"

Faith studied him for a long while before answering, and when she did it would have sounded like a tangent to anyone not listening to the silent subtexts in the room and between her and the people here. "You're taking this awful well considering it's coming from someone who basically dropped into your lives out of the blue a couple days ago. Despite King's 'you're fucking insane' cracks - he makes sense. I blow in, drop a lot of weird crap on you, then drop a lot of wierder crap on you a couple days later about prophetic dreams and 'the end of the world', and after thinking about it a bit, 'I'm in' and 'What's next?' is all you have to say and ask?"

Blade studied her back, oblivious to Hannibal's 'sounds like a good question' smirk. "What else do we need?"

She made an exasperated sound and threw her hands up, "I don't know! Maybe 'why should we trust you?'. Or... 'How do we know you're not setting us up?' Or... "

"Are you?" he returned.

"No! But I could be, dammit!" She glared, "You guys don't even know me."

Hannibal smirked, "It's been a long time since I saw a conman trying this hard to unsell themselves." She glared at him. "We hunt vampires," he added. "Our suspension of disbelief got kind of elastic awhile back."

Blade settled farther into his seat and looked at her from under hooded lids. "But we do know you. Have watched how you deal with us. Listened to what you say, and what you don't say - what you say with your body when you think no one's looking." He shrugged very slightly, "You're insane and selling us your hallucination, then no cost: nothing happens. You're wrong about this, and nothing happens and no cost for the trust. You're setting us up for something... and it comes out and we deal with it."

"You won't do it twice," he said softly. "Takes us back to where we were: we say 'No' and kick you out. Not kicking you out it seems. So 'What next?' is all that's left."

"Beats hell out of me." She thought for a bit... "Research: strange deaths are usually a clue.. stranger than usual. Ritual killings. Especially clustered. Artifacts that might be able to be used to open a rift to a Hell dimension disappearing/being stolen from elsewhere. Powerful mages or beings... maybe elderly Master vamps with large powers around? Rumours of odd arcane books or texts."

Hannibal cocked an eyebrow at her. "But you've already got people looking into all of that. What else?"

She shrugged. "Fresh eyes never hurt - might get a new perspective on it or see something that wouldn't 'click' for Wes or Giles. I can find Demon bars and hangouts. You guys know the vampire underworld around here." She grinned, "I'm not cut out for book stuff and computer research. 'Go kill shit and break things' until someone coughs up a clue's always a decent fall back plan, if you don't have any other leads. Big Bads and minions tend to get nervous when there's a Slayer and several Hunters shaking shit up and threatening to disrupt their Master Plan before it hatches. And nervous minions tend to try and kill you to get you out of the way." She grinned. "I like killin' shit and breaking things, and I'm awful hard to take out."

King snickered. "Hard part is grabbing one for questioning without killing it."

"Minions belong to someone. Even dead minions." She shrugged. "Can figure out 'Who', 'What' falls into place a lot of times. Usually, it's not any one thing that turns up the What, When, and Where. Any of the Above can do it. You just never know."

"This Watcher thing... " Abby mused, "They usually come through on this stuff? Research and support?"

Faith started to respond, opened her mouth and closed it again, thinking. "Huh. Y'know? Personally... I'm not sure? I've never really done that part of the Slayer bit. Not for real." She frowned. "My first Watcher died before I really got started. Giles was always B's... I was just the 'unwanted psycho bitch' no one wanted around."

She frowned, "Haven't really worked with Wesley since that one time, til now. And he's no longer a Watcher, anyway."

Hannibal frowned, "Sounds like he had all the training and he's still got the skills, from what you say. Not something you'd lose."

"Yeah. And picked up some new ones." She smiled at the memory of 'Marlboro Man Wesley'. "Heh. Not even really sure why he wants to have anything to do with me, after fuckup-Slayer me did the hot & cold running torture thing with him." She glowered.

Both Blade and Abby shot her a Look.

"What?" She asked back to it.

"Why do you do that?" Blade cocked his head.

"Do what?"

"Every time you refer to yourself, it's something sharp and nasty. 'Fuckup Slayer'. 'Psycho Bitch'. 'Psycho Slayer'. 'Screwup'." Abby said, frowning. "I'm not seeing it in what you've been saying, or what we dug up on you while you were out."

Blade nodded. "You haven't fucked up since you been here."

Faith's mouth opened and stayed there. Nothing came out - her mind went completely blank and ran in circles, stuttering. "Uhh... "

She stared at them. Hell, she knew why she did it: she'd had more psyche evals and therapy sessions while she was in lockup than she wanted to think about. Even knew the names for it. Defense mechanism: put herself down before someone else did. Make a joke about it so it wouldn't hurt. As much. But she'd gotten so used to thinking of herself that way that it never occurred to her how it sounded to other people, not that she was ever around other people for long. Prison psyches didn't count: they got paid to blow smoke up her ass and tell her she was 'making changes' and shit. Other people though? She didn't want to find out that they couldn't see the diff, no matter how hard she tried.

Blow in, move out, don't touch. Get it done and get gone... before they could decide to tell her to blow. Make it not matter.

Because none of the talk about redemption and change really mattered: sure, she was working on it, but she didn't think she'd paid enough yet... changed any, so she knew no one else could see the diff. She didn't like thinking about this stuff: because then she had to face that she hadn't put paid, could never put paid to all the damage done.

Except she didn't kill and torture people any more... and she tried real hard not to hurt them, no matter all the ways they left themselves wide open for it. No matter how easy it was. She put her life on the line against the Dark, same as the others, same as Angel, Buffy... Little voice in her mind kept going around circles whispering 'But is that enough?' She hadn't done all the big things, saved the Whole World, died, made enough of a difference. And that little voice went 'But Buffy did all that, and she's still fucked up.' She closed her mouth, finally, and told that tiny voice to piss off.

"Maybe he figures it's even after all that, and he's helping because he gives a shit," King was looking at her oddly. She wondered how the hell much of all that was going wide open across her face while she'd gone spinning. Probably too much. "And maybe he likes working with you. He's supposed to be a Watcher, maybe he wants a slightly bent recovering psycho-Slayer to work with."

Abby said, "Besides. I don't think that fits any more. Maybe you should figure out what you are now."

Hannibal grinned. "AFTER we save the world, natch. This isn't Star Trek TNG and we don't have time for all that touchy-feely shit this episode."

She glared at him, then snickered. "Yeah. Easy stuff now. Figure me out after."

"Stop Hell, first," Blade nodded decisively. "Daytime, research. Nights, we shake stuff and see what falls out."