Thirty blocks away at the same depth beneath the city...
With a burst of dusty light the chamber lit-up.
Xander and Ariel stared about them in amazement, gazes sweeping across what shouldn't even exist. Faith stood beside the light switch she'd found like a proud new homeowner, hands on her hips and grinning smugly, "Well? Wadda ya think?"
"Think?" said Xander, "I don't know what to think." he turned in a full circle, "Wait, this is like another 86th Street subway station, only architecturally-reversed." he gestured at the end of the platform on the right, "It's like a second track, a back-up one." he eyed the two exit tunnels, peered into their shadows one-after-another, "But it's inactive, they're walled up with cinder blocks."
He looked back to Faith, "What is this place? And how did you even know it was here?"
Ariel made the connection, "It's like back on Earth-Two. That titanium engine car you rode to Silver City on."
The Slayer nodded, "They called it a Reserve Station. It was constructed during the Cold War and then forgotten due to budget cuts."
Xander grinned, "You asked Tara about it, if there was a New York one, and where it was located. Because if there was one on Earth-Two, then-"
"-there would be one exactly like it, here on Earth-One." Ariel finished.
"And nobody knows about it, look at all the dust!" Faith spread her arms in excitement, "Think about it. This is all ours, and talk about rent control!"
"Not to mention location." agreed Ariel, her hazel eyes narrowing with plots and plans, "You know...this could easily be converted into living quarters." she pointed at the left wall, "See that? His and Hers bathrooms. Those Cold Warriors were very thorough, if I remember my history lessons on the Colonies right. So I'll bet the plumbing is still working." she dropped Faith's bag then headed off at a jog and vanished into the Ladies.
Xander was frowning now. He scratched his neck absently, "I dunno..."
"What's to 'I dunno'?" Faith stepped up and linked her arm in his, lead him off past the spread out row of support pylons, "You're Tim the Tool-Man when it comes to construction, yo, I saw all you did keepin Buffy's homestead ship-shape in the middle of a raging war with the First. Now you get to create and be original, instead of just maintaining the status quo. There's only the three of us and you have tons of room. Think about it."
"Yeah...but what if the government hasn't forgot about this place? What if they come back?"
She halted them beside a column and ran a hand down it, scraping off forty years of thick grit, then held up her caked fingers for his approval, "Huh? Well? Do you really think they're comin back any time soon? I'm thinkin, if the Initiative has set-up shop here in the Big Apple, they'd be usin this place for sumthin, anything. That's if they knew it even existed. Which they obviously don't."
Faith stepped back and folded her arms, fixed Xander with a demanding stare, "You gotta take a chance once in awhile, Harris, go out on a limb so you can improve your standings in life."
"Yeah...I guess..."
"Anyhow, how safe is it going to be living from hotel room to hotel room, where any vamp with an agenda can break in at any time? Like those super-charged ones we faced back at Club Odessa. Once we make this place livable, they won't be able to enter without an invite, will they? Well?"
"No. They won't..." he looked about him again, then nodded, "Okay, I'm in. But it has to be unanimous, meaning Ariel wants to move in too, or it's all off. Don't forget, she's used to living in the lap of luxury, so this might not be something she's up for."
The bathroom door slammed back and the Succubus in question leaned out beaming, "It works! All of it! And there's showers! All they need is new heads and maybe a filter. When can we get my furniture out of storage and rent a moving van?"
Xander shook his head and Faith chuckled, "I guess the girl is in." she turned and jabbed her finger in the grit and wrote jaggedly: Home Sweet Home
Then she turned back to him, pointed at his blinking jacket pocket, "Now, what's yer dohicky sayin?"
His eye went wide, "Crap! The multiscanner!" he pulled it free and brought up the reading he'd picked up on back in the occupied terminal, "Right! Not just one Slayer but two."
Ariel breezed up as Faith stared down at the green-glowing screen, "Two? After a month of searching and finding nothing, then getting lost in another dimension, we come back and suddenly, on the very first day back, there's two?"
He shrugged, "Hey, I don't make the rules, I just bend them."
Faith smiled thinly, "And I break'em. So, 'kay. Now we've got the perfect place to hide them away until Buffy's brigade can pick'em up. So...let's go get'em."
"Lets." nodded Ariel...
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Boston Massachusetts, May 1998...
The atmosphere in the Crookshank Bar & Grill was dark and calm, as per usual on a late Friday night.
Greasy clouds of blue-grey smoke hung over a few of the circular tables, while the stools before the pitted mahogany bar were half-filled with hunched over men contemplating their shots or ale, while chatting here and there in muted voices. Johnny Cash drifted from the antique Croomagram jukebox in the far corner, doing nothing to add to the putrid ambiance ruined by the soggy Chinese box lights somebody had foolishly strung amongst the low rafters.
The door to the ladies swung back and a tall, leggy blonde strode free in a sway of hips and blue-sequined hand bag. Her name was Sheila and she pushed at her platinum-blonde coiffe then made for the center of the bar, hopped her mini-skirted behind up on a stool and smiled waif-like at the bartender.
The server made no reply, just refilled her scotch.
The bear of a man beside her waited until she'd downed it. Inside his own slightly tequila-addled mind he mentally ticked it off as her fifth shot of the night, so thus rotated around toward her, grinned.
"Hi. You're out late."
Her overly-mascara'd eyes swiveled in their slightly blood-shot sockets and took him in, flicked up-and-down his solid length. She liked what she saw, or at least approved of what little her rapidly fogging senses managed to process.
Sheila smirked slightly, "I like it late. None of that annoying sunlight."
He leaned in a little closer and chuckled wryly, "Hey, I'm with ya on that. You're smaht to be a night-owl."
"Oh? How so?" she fought not to slur her speech and decided one-syllable words were probably her best-bet.
"Ya get a better class of people this time of night." he explained, the cheap aftershave reeking off him in waves.
She giggled, "Do you? I don't think so." she glanced around the Crookshank, eying the wrinkled patrons, as the entrance door swung back to admit yet another customer, "You call these guys a better class of pee...pee...people?" she covered her mouth and burped, blinked in embarrassment. He smiled it off and slid a rough hand onto her knee. She liked him so she allowed it. Even widened the gap between her legs slightly.
He noticed.
"Yep." he smirked as his eyes plowed a channel down the length of her cleavage, "You know how you stand with honest guys like these."
"You must spend your day with some really scummy kinds then." her eyes flicked to his left hand toying with the rim of his shot glass. No ring or tan line, 'kay, he passes number two...
"Yeah, I do." he squeezed her knee and slid up a little farther, poked his finger through a run in her stocking. He lowered the tone of his voice, "You like cops, babe?"
"Ooo yeah, I like'em lots."
"Good, 'cause I'm the best cop Beantown's ever had, and about a thousand Southie bastards have got my knuckles tattooed on the backs of their heads."
She slipped a hand along his thigh and deepened her smile, "If you take me home, handsome, can I see your gun?"
"Oh, honey, if ya go home with ol'Jake here, then you'll get ta see alot more then just his gun." said another girl who they both realized was now standing beside them.
Sheila scowled and glared at her, "Go away, we're talkin." then she looked back to the cop for support, but his face had hardened, his cheeks had reddened even more then his night of drinking had accomplished. He glared at the new girl and a vein pulsed in his left temple.
"Leave. I won't tell you twice."
"Make me."
Sheila reached out a hand to push the brunette away, but the girl caught her wrist and twisted hard, she yelped and fell off her stool. Her face was livid as she scrambled madly on her ass amongst the cigarette butts and sticky tiles, then she got to her feet and slashed at her attacker with her store-bought nails. The girl was faster and flat-handed her halfway across the room, Sheila crashed over a table and landed on her back, didn't get up.
Jake was off the stool in a flash and he grabbed her attacker by the arm, twisted, "You little bitch! I told you what would happen if I ever saw your smart-assed face again!"
She yanked her arm free and grinned, "I forget, musta been all those times you got suspended from work, got piss-drunk, then punched me in the head. So jog my memory 'kay? What did ya tell me?"
He swung a fist for her face, "I told you to-" she caught the hand.
Jake stared at her hand for a long second, her slim and delicate fingers were motionless and hard as they grasped his meaty fist. He pushed against it but it didn't shift even a millimeter. With narrowing eyes he looked into her face and saw that she was grinning ear-to-ear. Something was...very wrong here...
His lips twisted and he snatched his hand back, "Droppin PCP, huh? Heh, you always were pathetic."
She shook her face emphatically, "Nope, not PCP. Not anything at all, actually."
Drug or no drug, Jake thought as he glared her down, there's nuthin she could have taken that's gonna save her from the beat-down I'm about to lay on her. "I'm gonna wail on you, lil girl, until you vomit blood, then I'm gonna drag you back to that hell-hole of a trailer and have her wail on ya." and he reached for her hair to drag her out of the bar.
She side-stepped and ducked past him, swung back a foot and drove her heel into the back of his leg. He growled in pain and fell to his knees. She spun back and caught him by the hair, yanked his head back and grinned down at him, "Is that the best ya got?" he slipped a hand down his left leg and slid a black rod from his boot.
She yanked him back even farther, "Cause if it is, Jake, I got bad news for ya, it ain't gonna-" he snapped the tube up, it telescoped into a baton, he spun out of her grip and slashed it for her knees.
"-cut it!" she sprang up, his blow went wide, she came back down, her boot slamming down onto the weapon, ramming it and his fingers to the floor, then she kneed him in the chin, sending him flying backwards to crash through the bar's window. It shattered and he plunged twisting to the sidewalk, slapped it face-first, deflected off and into the street in a spray of teeth shards and blood, then rolled into the gutter.
He coughed hard, climbed painfully to his hands and knees, the Crookshank's door slammed back and she stalked out, followed by an amazed crowd. She reached him, grabbed him by the neck and hip, then hefted him up and over her head, then turned about and threw him like he was nothing. He crashed across the hood of a battered red Camaro and slammed into the windshield, spider-webbing it badly with his shoulder.
"I'm still waitin for you to wail on me." she mocked.
Then she rounded the side and grabbed him by the throat, flipped him over, spun, got him in a headlock and wrenched him free of the sports car. She hauled him bodily down the sidewalk then charged forward and tossed him head-first through the glass partition of a bus shelter. He crashed down to the ground in a shower of chunky glass, groaned and rolled over. He tried to sit up, but she appeared above him and stepped on his throat, forcing him back down with another show of impossible strength.
Her eyes drunk with victory, she glowered down at his battered and bleeding face, "I could kill you, right here, right now, end your life like I've always wanted to do, like you deserve. But I'm better then that, I'm better then you, I'm better then EVERYBODY! And do you know why?"
"Wha...bha..." he sputtered and gagged for breath.
And she spit down on his face, "Cause I'm the Slayer, now. And nuthin on this friggin planet can stop me."
With shaking hands Jake pried the gun from his holster, but she easily snatched it from his grip and bent the barrel like it was made of rubber. The growing crowd shrank back. She tossed the ruined automatic and stepped off him, kicked him in the side of the head, slamming his face into the shelter's support with a meaty clang! knocking him out cold. Then Faith, newly-Chosen Vampire Slayer for nearly two hours now, turned on her heel and strode away, a swagger to her step.
"If you see her first say hi to Mom for me, will ya Dad?" she called back, not caring in the least whether he heard her or not, "And tell that bitch I gotta beat-down planned for her too..."
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What used to be the Wilson-Schultz Bobby-Pin Manufactory, NYC, present day...
The girl came awake slowly and felt rough and uneven floorboards underneath her, while her ear-drums twitched at the eerie sound of wind whistling nearby. But she was very warm, cozy even, and her head was pillowed on something soft. She judged this one of her better come-to's of late and opened her eyes, looked around.
She was in a darkened building of sorts. Painted over windows on the right, a row of towering machinery on the left, with warped and rusted conveyor belts crossing the warped floor sporadically. A fire burned within a ring of cinder-blocks and around it a scraggly man was muttering under his breath and dancing. And not doing a bad job of it, in her opinion.
"He's been doin that for more then an hour now." said the other girl who'd helped her escape and she looked across the crackling blaze at her, where she sat upon an old apple crate, a hunk of half-chewed turkey-jerky in her hands, "I don't know what the song is that he's singing. Might be a Madonna one."
The young blonde sat up, not without effort, then felt along her leg carefully. The dark-haired girl rounded the fire and crouched by her, "I checked it while you were out. It's nearly healed now. Not bad for a foot that was broken just seven hours ago."
"Um...I don't think it was broken. It must have been only sprained."
The other girl rolled her eyes, "Riiight. Look, don't bother trying to hide it from me. See?" and she pulled back the sleeve of the baggy sweat-shirt she now wore, revealing a wide blue bar-code stamped into her lower left arm. Under the bars it read 033.
She looked down at her own and read 014. The brunette nodded grimly, "We're the same."
"The same what?"
She leaned back on her haunches and shrugged, "I dunno, in the nine-ten months since I changed I've never been able to find out. You?"
She shook her head, "Nope, haven't got a clue. But did you know that vampires are real?"
"Yeah." the dark-haired girl nodded firmly, "I killed four of 'em, broke their necks and turned'em to dust. Oh, and this big fat demon with skin like bacon."
"A demon? Really? I haven't seen any, but somehow I'm not surprised. Um, my names Claudia."
They shook.
"Nice to meet ya, Claude." she reached behind her and handed over a bundle of wrinkled clothes, "It ain't Bloomies, but it's better then a linen gown that gapes in the back. Courtesy of Dancin Marvin over there. Sorry, but there's no shoes or socks, but then I'm in the same boat as you." she stood and helped her to her feet, pointed to a large chunk of machinery, "There's sort of a nook back there. And it's gotta hole in the floor, if ya know what I mean."
Claudia nodded and limped off. A few minutes later she returned, clad in dusty day-glo orange trousers and a tattered Method Man tee. She ran hands back through her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair and wished she had a hair-band or something.
The other girl held out a fist, from which a pair of bobby-pins protruded. Claudia blinked then smiled, took them gingerly, "Wow, you think of everything. Where'd you find them?"
She spread her hands, "They're everywhere. This is a factory and they musta made them here, I guess."
Claudia panned her gaze around as she pinned back her tresses, saw a dark spiky heap of duplicate pins a few meters away, easily as high as her waist. She turned back and eyed the half-bar of dried meat, "Um, can I have a bite of that?"
"Sure." it was handed over, "Go crazy. Marvin's gotta stash. There's water in that Pepsi bottle over there, but don't try the Coke one, it..." she grinned, "Lets just say it ain't water..."
Claudia limped across the planks to it and lifted it carefully, sipped while trying not to breath in through her nose. The Coke bottle stank to the high-heavens and the air around it seemed to waver dangerously. After thirty seconds of swallowing she was sated somewhat and set it back down, turned back to the fire and bit off a mouthful of jerky.
"So, you never told me your name. Or should I just call you Thirty-Three?"
The girl didn't answer, her head was swishing back-and-forth, eyes rotating narrowly. Claudia raised an eyebrow, "What now, are you gonna start dancing too? If so, you should know-" she was cut-off sharply as a hand was slapped over her mouth.
Marvin was behind her and he rasped into her right ear, "Quiet, girly. Or they might get ya." he released her and stepped back, picked up a rusty pipe and hefted it.
Who? Claudia swallowed and looked about her, but only saw shadows punctuated here and there by dim shafts of yellow light from a nearby street-lamp.
"What's he talking about-"
"Shhh!" hissed the other girl as she stalked forward across the dirty factory floor. On the opposite wall an ancient door hung on heavy hinges, highlighted by a rectangle of dim light around it's border. She reached it and with careful movements put out a hand and grasped the knob-the door rocked hard with a thumping-crash and she lurched back a step.
"They've found us! They've found us! The Dark Ones have found us!" howled Marvin and he started hopping up-and-down, waving his pipe like a maniac. Despite the terror in his eyes, he never stopped grinning like a Jack-O-Lantern, "They gonna eat us, bite off our toes and drink us! Ah-hee-hee-hee!"
"Stop it!" snapped Claudia and she grabbed for him, but he danced out of her reach and ran for the line of painted windows.
The other girl looked over her shoulder, eyes wide, "NO! Claude, stop him!"
"But-"
"DO IT!"
That galvanized her, she launched herself forward, bum ankle long forgotten, and vaulted a conveyor Marvin had rounded, landed evenly and kicked off again, hurtled through the air, twisting back around as she went, and landed in front of him, reached up and caught the pipe as he brought it down with a howl for the first window. She yanked it from his grasp and pushed him back hard, "Just calm down, Marvin, just chill!"
"But they're here! But they're here! Weee! They're gonna get us, they're gonna eat us, we're gonna dance like monkeys when they tear out our guts!"
The exit thumped again and this time a hinge popped loose. Claudia looked toward it just as the other girl like her spun away from it and took off back toward her at a run. She threw up her hands and waved at her to do the same, then the door exploded inwards and a cloud of blackness broiled inside in a flapping rush.
Claudia's ears ratcheted at the reverberating sound of rustling leather, she looked up sharply as the darkness spread across the high ceiling, blotting out the rising moonlight that bled down from the random holes in the flooring above. Bats. It's bats. But lots of them and they're really, really-with a crash, a shadowy, thrashing form dropped to the floor before her.
"-big ones..." she finished, as it straightened up and it's form rippled with a sound like bubbling skin. The wings and gaping maw vanished, were replaced by the shape of lean woman in a dark green leather skinsuit. Her black hair was spiked and frosted with silver and her eyes were yellow, her forehead vamped. She grinned and cocked her head, tongued sallow fangs, then clicked her teeth at her, "Fresssssh meat. I'll bet you taste like ground beef."
Claudia paled and stepped backwards, while on the other side of the factory she heard the sounds of heavy combat. I have to fight too, I can't let Thirty-Three do it alone, no matter what-then her shoulder-blades pressed against something solid and she spun about, found another vampire blocking her way, this one male and dressed in a straps of riveted leather.
Oh no...
Her eyes flicked back-and-forth and discovered two more vampires, on either side of her. She swallowed and tried to think straight, then her shoulders were grabbed and the woman pulled her back against her, Claudia felt her body swimming and heard the creak of leather. She was spun about and found her human no more, but a hybrid of bat and vampire, taller then she and with a face out of nightmares.
It opened it's maw and screeched ultrasonic, Claudia screamed in agony. She clamped her eyes shut and beat at it, fell back and onto her haunches, threw up hands to cover her ears. The howling went on-and-on, she felt rivulets of blood streaming down from her nostrils, then suddenly it ceased and she cracked open her eyes.
A line of bat Hybrids stood before her, hunched bodies twitching leathery and semi-transparent brown-black wings about themselves like ragged capes. And at center of them a tall, thin man in a dapper black suit stood, his cruel eyes locked upon her, a smile twisting his white-goateed face.
A throng of Hybrids moved out of the shadows and dumped the dark-haired girl at his feet. She moaned and fell on her hands and knees, blood staining her bruised face. She looked up at him through unfocused eyes, "Who...who are you?"
He tore his gaze from Claudia and glowered down at her, "I am Cronin of the Clan Oranak. And you, girl, are a Slayer." he looked back at the other one, "And so are you. Excellent. You won't find any others of your kind in New York, just in case that's why you came here. We don't stand for them, you see. They annoyed us somewhat so we drove them all away, and killed the ones who wouldn't leave."
"Okay." said Claudia cautiously, licking her dry lips, "We'll go. We didn't want to come here in the first place and don't want any trouble."
He grinned then laughed, "Oh, it's far too late for that. You see, there's a price on your pretty little heads and we mean to collect. Interestingly enough, the bounty didn't specify whether you needed to be alive or dead for us to collect, just that your blood be intact and still somewhat warm. So..." his features twisted and vamped, his eyes glowed a sickly yellow, "...I think we'll try for dead and see how much we can get."
The bat-Hybrids shrieked their agreement and moved forward, Claudia shrank back and raised shaking fists. Then-then the windows shattered inwards in a spray of spinning glass, and a woman hurtled through and landed at the ready between her and the vamps!
She had long black hair pooling on her shoulders and was dressed in dusty torn jeans, hiking boots and a red halter-top. She pulled a lethal-looking stake from her back pocket and rotated around to face the horde of misshapen vamps. She grinned and hefted her pine weapon, "Cronin. Wicked. Dontcha know I've just been jonesing for another throw-down with your sorry ass."
"Slayer..." he hissed, smile turning to a sneer, "I'd heard you'd left town more then a month ago." his grin returned, "I assumed you ran after the beating I gave you."
"Heh, correction there monolith, dontcha mean the beating I gave you? Let me guess, no more goin all marble for you since I sanded that Glyph right off yer bony chest."
He scowled and she laughed, "I knew it! So, you Oranak's have a weakness after all, perfect. And guess what, I'm all about takin the advantage when it comes to...comes to..." her senses had been trying to get her attention for nearly a minute now and at last they managed to tunnel through her sarcastic lambations. Her gaze swiveled downwards to the girl lying between her and Cronin. Her eyes gaped and her spine ran cold, "Wha-Hope?"
And the girl looked up at her, eyes focusing at last, then she scowled, "Dammit-all, I thought it was you." she straightened up and spat in disgust, her bloody saliva splashing down onto Faith's left boot.
"I'd rather it be more vampires, or cops, or even Typhoid Mary herself. But not you."
And the Slayer exhaled long and hard, shook her head, "And it's real nice to see you again too, sis..."
End of Chapter VIII...