Into the Abyss
Chapter 9
Stopping Buffy saw a small house about 100 yards away and turned to look at Angel. "That's it? That little thing is where this Sorcerer-guy is staying?" Buffy said incredulously.
Nodding, "Yeah, the house is just the entrance to the lower levels." Shrugging, "Who'd think there was anything more underneath that?" Angel asked.
"Are we going in there with 'guns blazing' as it were, or are we trying the James Bond route?" Oz asked calmly.
"Fine." Buffy said flatly, ignoring Oz and she pulled out the slim wooden staff that was sharpened on either end. "You guys stay here," Buffy said before walking toward the house.
Willow looked at the others, waiting for someone to say or do something. "What are you guys doing?"
"Buffy said to wait here and she is…like, the expert on things vampy." Said Oz.
Willow looked at Oz, "Yeah? And when has that ever stopped us from being there?" Willow said before grabbing a crossbow and running after Buffy.
The rest of the Scoobies looked at each other and grabbed a weapon, and ran after Willow and Buffy.
The Slayer walked up to the door and kicked it hard twice. The second kick sent the door flying off its hinges into the house and she stood in the doorway looking at 15 very surprised vampires. "Hey boys! Is this a private party or can anyone stop by?"
The vampires stood startled for several seconds before charging the girl that dared to enter their lair, except for one vampire who noticed the way the girl stood in door, confidently holding the odd looking staff and chose to run instead.
The Slayer dropped into a ready stance as the vampires charged her….
Willow ran into the house expecting to see Buffy in trouble, instead all Willow saw was a cloud of dust surrounding Buffy and 14 piles of ash on the ground. "Oh…" Willow said as she realized Buffy was okay and didn't need her help.
Buffy heard Willow behind her and turned around, "Hey Will. See? No problem."
"Damnit Buffy and what if you were in real trouble? By the time we got here you could have been hurt..." Willow trailed off at the lump in her chest at the thought of Buffy being hurt.
Buffy saw the serious look of worry on Willow's face and instantly regretted what she said.
"You're right...I'll try," Buffy was saying as Giles, Angel and the rest of the Scoobs burst into the house. "Better late than never?" Buffy said with a grin, "I've already called the maid to clean up the mess in here," Buffy joked.
"Any sign of the entrance down?" Angel asked, all business as usual.
"No, but I haven't had time to look either." Buffy replied.
With that everyone spread out, searching the room when Xander's yell, "BINGO!!" rang out. Everyone moved over to where Xander had been digging though a large pile of clothes, jewelry, suitcases and other odds & ends. Underneath was a large square, wooden door with a metal ring in the center set into the door.
Reaching down Angel grabbed the ring and pulled the door open, peering into the darkness he could see a set of stairs leading down. "Down we go then..." Hefting his axe Angel started down the stairs. Oz broke out the 2 torches he had brought with him and using a lighter set them blazing. One torch he gave to Giles who headed down and he kept the other torch for himself. One by one everyone started down the stairs except for Willow and Buffy.
Reaching over Buffy put her hand on Willow's arm, "I really didn't mean to scare you Will, I've just got some things on my mind."
Willow put her hand over Buffy's, "I understand, but...just...please be more careful, okay?" Willow saw Buffy nod before she headed down the stairs.
Buffy stopped at an intersection and looked both ways, but didn't see any demons. They'd already fought their way through two demon ambushes in the last 10 minutes. "Let's stop here a minute everybody," Buffy said as she stopped the group to let them catch their breath a minute. "Xander, you okay?" Buffy asked as she walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm good to go Buff," Xander said as he tore a sleeve off his shirt to bandage the long cut on his arm.
"Good," Buffy said and she started to walk away. "Xander?" Buffy asked as a thought just occurred to her, "Don't be too much the hero. Cordelia'd kill me if I let you get hurt." With that Buffy walked over to Willow, ignoring the surprised look on Xander's face.
Willow saw the tired look on Buffy's face as she headed over and without thinking opened her arms up, hugging Buffy as she walked over to her. "Are you okay Buffy?" Willow asked quietly.
"Yeah, I've..." Buffy started to say and shook her head angrily. "I'll be fine," Buffy said brusquely as she let go of Willow and her Slayer side took over.
An angry look came over Willow's face, "Don't give me that missy! I'm your best friend, don't try snowing my like you do with Giles or Xander and I can see you're hurting right now! Buffy...look at me," Willow said as Buffy tried not to look at her. "Buffy, I'm not trying to bust your chops, but I thought you realized by now you can let your guard down with me..."
Sighing loudly Buffy stepped back into Willow's arms, "I'm sorry Will. I've just got a lot on my mind and sometimes it's hard to switch out of Slayer-mode with everything right now."
"Just be careful Buff." Willow said before she backed up and walked over to Oz.
As Willow bandaged one of Oz's cuts, Willow suddenly stopped as she felt a build-up of magick someplace close by.
"Willow?" Oz asked, "Are you okay?" Oz asked again as he gently shook Willow's arm until he saw Willow realize he was talking to her.
"Uh, sorry. Something's going on though, I think it's started..." Willow explained before she turned towards Buffy. "Buffy!" Willow called out to Buffy and she saw Buffy turn to look at her, "The Sorcerer's started I think, I can feel a strong build-up of magick somewhere that away..." Willow said pointing to the right. "We have to..."
"hurry," Buffy finished. "I know." Turning back to Angel, "Angel, you head down there and see what's waiting for us. I'll bring the rest behind you, k?"
"Giles, Xander, Oz. Come on. We've got to get a move on, we're running out of time."
"Roger that, Buffy." Xander replied as he and Oz walked past her. Giles stopped by Buffy, "We must stop the spell from being completed at any cost Buffy...So if we..."
"Don't go there Giles! I'm not leaving anyone behind, so don't bother wasting your breath. I already know the parable "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," and that's not an option." Seeing Giles was going to protest, "No! If he casts the spell we'll deal with it then, so just drop it." With that Buffy turned on heel and headed down the hallway at a fast run.
Angel quickly moved down the hallway and slowed down as he heard voices. Peering into the open doorway, Angel saw 3 demons inside the room playing craps and at the far end of the room was a staircase leading down. Switching to game-face Angel casually walked into the room, "Hey there fellas!"
A green-skinned demon stood up suddenly, "What you do here? You kind no wanted!!"
"I'm the tax collector, I'm here to get your high occupancy taxes for this upper-level establishment. The boys on the first floor okayed me to come on down here you know."
The three demons looked at each other confused at the large words, "You go now! No stay for taxes! We no let any-one here, this is orders from Boss!" the green-skinned demon answered proudly.
Walking forward casually, Angel kept his sword behind his back. "If I leave my boss is going to send the Tax Auditor and she's not as patient as I am." Nodding to himself, "If she has to come here, there 's going to be lots of unpleasantness going on." Angel said stopping just 5 feet away from the three demons. Angel heard footsteps behind him and smiled to himself.
"Who Tax Auditer? We no afraid of little girl!!"
Jerking his thumb back towards the doorway, "That's her." Angel said simply.
All three demons turned to look at the young blonde girl, just in time to see a spear seemingly materialize in the chest of the right-hand demon.
Staggering back, the demon collapsed and Angel jumped forward his sword swinging down and quickly slicing the green demon in half.
The green demon smiled as nothing happened for several seconds when it suddenly slid into two pieces and hit the floor with a wet THWICKK sound. The third demon; a blue scaled demon leapt at Angel with its claws bared.
Angel parried the blue demon's attack with the sword and swung the sword at the demons' arm, only to see the sword bounce off the armor on its arm as sparks flew at the contact. Several crossbow bolts hit the demon as well, bouncing off the demons armor uselessly.
Buffy arrived by Angel's side now carrying a double-bladed battle axe and proceeded to swing at the blue demon and see it shrug off her heaviest blows, with a grim look on her face. Switching tactics Buffy started hitting the demon with the flat of the axe-blade and managed to land two blows to the demons' head stunning it. As it reeled back Buffy ran behind the demon and used the axe-handle to cut off the demon's ability to breathe. Reaching backwards the demon wasn't able to grab Buffy or focus its attention on her alone as Angel continued to attack it and crossbow bolts continued to hit the demon. Slowly the demon started to weaken and before it went limp. Dropping the axe Buffy grabbed the demon's head and viciously twisted it hard with a loud SNAP echoing in the room. With that Buffy dropped the demon and walked away.
Angel paused as did Oz and Willow as they saw the look or lack of one on Buffy's face. All three looked at each other with worried expressions on their faces.
Angel and Oz came to the same conclusion, which was to leave Buffy alone for now and talk to her later. But Willow headed straight for Buffy who stood at the stairway. "What's wrong?" Willow asked quietly as she stopped just behind Buffy.
"Nothing Willow," Buffy said in a dead voice.
"It's not nothing Buffy. I saw that expression on your face." Willow paused searching for the right words, "It was like Buffy was gone and only the Slayer was there..."
"So?" Buffy asked angrily as she turned to face Willow. "What's the problem? I mean that's what everyone needs right now…right? Well, you got what you wanted and the Slayer's come to town!"
"That's not what I wanted or what we need right now. What we need is Buffy to help us out, not the Slayer."
Buffy grabbed Willow and pulled her towards the back of the room, "Don't you get it?!" Buffy hissed. "We can't win this battle with Buffy. She's going to be too worried about her friends to concentrate on doing what has to be done and for that you need the Slayer!"
"No I don't. I need Buffy." Willow said simply.
Buffy grabbed Willow by both arms sharply, "You don't get it do you Willow? We're not all making it out of here, we're on this guys home turf and he's going to have every advantage in this fight! If any of us make it out alive it'll be a miracle!" Buffy said with a look of both anger and pain on her face.
"Buffy, that's the risk we take all the time only this time the stakes are higher than usual. But do you really think that Xander or Giles or Oz or even me don't understand that? We figured that out the day we met you and found out that vampires are real!!"
"But…!"
"No buts Buffy. This isn't a game and we know it. If we don't stop him, no one else can or will…I'm gonna go check on Oz." With that Willow turned and walked away.
Willow saw Angel walk over to the doorway and her eyes widened as she saw the Glyph above the door. "Angel, NO!" Willow yelled a half-second too late as Angel was suddenly thrown back and slammed into the wall across the room, falling to the floor, his back smoking.
Slowly Angel picked himself up off the ground, "You couldn't have warned me 5 seconds earlier?" he asked.
"It's not like it was gonna kill you deadboy!" Xander joked mirthlessly.
Before Angel could reply Giles stepped in between them. "Xander, why don't you go take a look at the drawings on that wall."
"What drawings?" Xander asked. "It's blank..."
"Exactly. Now go!"
"Willow can you break that spell?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah," Willow answered distracted as she pulled out two small bags of powder and mixed them. Chanting softly Willow threw the mixed powders at the doorway and yelled, "Arbane P'ah!!" there was a flash as the powders hit the doorway and then the doorway flashed in a violent explosion of a colour. When it cleared Willow looked at the door and tossed a rock through it and nothing happened.
"Nice going Willow! You go with the Witchy Poo Power!!" Xander said as he walked passed Willow and headed down the stairs.
Angel stopped Xander and started forward, stopping at the top stair he looked at Willow. "I'm not going to go flying backwards this time am I?"
"Nope, the spell's broken. But the one that cast it will have felt me break the spell on the stairway..."
"Then he knows we're coming, so let's not disappoint him." Buffy said confidently. "Angel..." and Buffy gestured to the stairs.
Angel took a firm grasp on his sword and headed down the dark stairway, only his being a vampire with their night vision kept him from falling down and killing himself on the small steps of the circular staircase.
"Careful how you walk down, the steps are made so that if you're in a hurry you'll fall and end up either getting hurt or dead." Angel announced to the others as they came down the stairs.
Buffy was the first out of the dark stairway and blinked several times at the bright light as she tried to get her eyes used to the light. Buffy felt herself get bumped twice before her eyes were back to normal and she could see clearly. But what she saw made her freeze; the stairway had opened up onto a large landing about 15' feet above the floor of the room. Stepping forward Buffy stopped on the top step and looked out into the massive room that was easily 150' across and twice as long, the ceiling loomed above them in a dome shape with stalactites of different sizes on the ceiling. There in the center of the room was a raised pedestal that the Sorcerer was standing on, in front of him was a large brazier with smoke rising from it.
"Greetings Slayer and company, to the beginning of the end. I would have invited you to stay, however I've misplaced the welcome mat and neither am I a gracious host!" The sorcerers voice boomed throughout the room. As the sorcerer stopped talking, a large metal gray demon walked out into the room and stepped in front of the large raised pedestal the sorcerer stood on.
As Buffy took a deep breath there was the sound of rock breaking and Buffy turned her head towards the noise in time to see a skeletal hand and arm punch their way out of the stone wall nearby.
"On three," Angel started.
"Three" the Slayer said and jumped straight down into the large group of skeletons below. Bracing herself the Slayer landed feet first on top of a skeleton and pile drove him into the ground. The Slayer heard a thump as Angel landed next to her a moment later. Her axe and mace flashed as she waded into the mass of skeletons. A part of her mind noted that they were all armed and in some cases were still wearing armour as her axe severed bony limbs and her mace shattered skulls, rib cages, arms or whatever else when she hit. The Slayer saw the first group of skeletons was now nothing more than a pile of shattered bones and dust lying on the ground and the stairs were clear. Calling up to the others, "Let's move it down here!" The Slayer yelled as she saw a skeleton out of the corner of her eye who was trying to sneak up on her. Parrying the sword with her axe the Slayer kicked the skeleton in front away from her and whirled around, her mace coming up and blocking the sword stroke that would have hit her in the head.
A quick swipe with the axe and the Slayer saw the skeleton's head bounce away, but that wasn't going to be enough the Slayer knew. The skeleton hesitated a moment and Buffy took that moment to shatter it with the mace with 2 hard blows. The Slayer saw Giles, Xander, Oz and Willow next to her now. "Okay, follow me and let Angel and me handle most of them. You worry about the stragglers and above all, KEEP WILLOW SAFE!"
"I'm not a child Buffy." Willow said angrily.
"No, you're not. You're all of 16 right now," The Slayer said sarcastically. "And if you die, we can't stop the sorcerer! So yes, you will listen to me or I'll tie you up and throw you over my shoulder!"
"Fine. But don't think we won't be talking about this later..." Willow said before walking away and over towards Xander.
Satisfied Willow would listen, the Slayer headed over towards Angel and moved into the new group of skeletons, just behind she could make out another set of skeletons but her attention moved as the fighting required her full attention.
Willow was fuming inside over Buffy's overprotective streak, but she was 'being good' and staying out of the fight, all of which gave her the time to see something was going on. Watching Willow saw this new group was lined up but staying back when she heard a voice call out "DRAW! AIM!" and Willow realized what they were doing. "BUFFY!! THEY HAVE ARCHERS!!"
"LOOSE!" And a cloud of arrows arced up and then down towards the group.
Running towards Xander and Oz, Willow through up a shield around the three of them just in time to see the arrows shatter against it.
Just as she finished the skeleton closest to her, Buffy heard Willow yell about archers. Looking up Buffy saw a cloud of arrows heading in her general direction. "Oh shit!" Buffy cursed as she dove for the shield she had knocked away from a skeleton a minute ago.
Buffy threw the shield up in front of her even as she pulled her body behind it and bit back a scream as she felt an arrow sink into her leg. Looking at it Buffy saw the arrow had gone through her calf and grimaced. Buffy snapped the back half of the arrow off and put it in her mouth, biting down on the shaft. With that Buffy grabbed the front of the arrow and pulled it out of her leg with a muffled scream. Buffy tossed the arrow away from her and spit out the piece in her mouth. Grabbing a bandana from her pants pocket, Buffy wrapped it around the wound on her leg tightly.
Standing up Buffy looked around for Angel and the others. She didn't see Angel, but Buffy breathed a silent sigh of relief when she saw Willow was okay, as was Oz and Xander. Giles finally came into view a moment later as he fought his way out of a crowd of skeletons, Buffy could see Giles was covered in small cuts, none of which looked too serious. There was a loud yell from behind and Buffy turned to see a very pissed off Angel cutting his way through the last of the skeletons. Buffy saw at least 4 arrows sticking out of Angel, but none had hit his heart thankfully. "Come on!" Buffy yelled towards the other before charging into the group Angel was fighting with. Buffy stood next to Angel as they waded into the middle of the skeleton archers, slaughtering them. Several minutes later, the last skeleton archer now lying in pieces, Buffy leaned against Angel feeling the cuts and bruises all over her body.
The rest of the Scoobs were here as well and only a group of 20 demons stood between them and the sorcerer Buffy noted. Looking for Willow, Buffy saw her a few feet away and felt a smile crack the dark mood that hovered over her.
"You've done very well Slayer! Better than I had ever anticipated, but then you didn't really get this far all on your own, now did you?" Taking a dramatic pause, "But it's all going to be for nothing!!" With that the sorcerer lit the brazier in front of him and green flames shot out of it.
"You up for this Angel?" Buffy asked as she saw Angel rip an arrow out of his shoulder.
Angel morphed into game-face, "What do you think?" Angel asked right before charging into the demons blocking the way, the two-handed sword that he had acquired flashed in the light and a demons head bounced away.
"I guess so," Buffy murmured and ran to catch up.
Oz and Xander hesitated as they looked at the demons blocking their way. Xander winced as something slapped him on the back of his head.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Christmas?" Willow said, her hands on her hips and an impatient look on her face.
"Indeed." Giles said and they all ran towards where Buffy and Angel were up ahead.
End Chapter Nine and Concluded in Chapter Ten