So I spoiled you guys with the last few fluffy/smutty chapters. This ought to balance it out. Many thanks to my readers and reviewers. Welcome to those who added me to their favorites/alerts so late in the game and thanks for taking a chance on this giant :). Also, special thanks to my regular reviewers! And Happy Easter! Oh and make sure to check out the companion piece set in between this chapter the previous one in "Perfect Companions"
Chapter XXXIII: Through the Looking Glass…Again
Alice nervously tugged at the sleeve of the purple velvet coat as she stood next to Hatter within the majestic Looking Glass Hall. Compared to all the other buildings in Wonderland, this one seemed to have received lavish attention and care. The walls consisted of elegant panels of mahogany. Lovely stained glass windows overlooked a smoothly revolving door. There was a large clock set upon the front wall, the minute and hour hands spinning slowly as if to show just how truly this area disregarded the rules of time. Even the stone walls of the outside had gleamed like a diamond amidst a pile of coals. It stood out starkly amidst the crumbling, squalid, mostly abandoned areas of the city. She supposed that since it housed the very object which had supported the monstrosity that was Wonderland's former economy, it had warranted special consideration.
"This is definitely not where I ended up when I came through," she commented, drawing her gaze over to the Looking Glass itself.
Save for the much grander surroundings, this one looked nearly identical to the one on her side. It was the centerpiece of the room, set upon a raised dais with a small stairway in front of it. A lanky technician clothed in white plastic lab regalia stood by a small operating pad next to the portal. She wondered where the Stone of Wonderland, the Looking Glass's power source, was supposed to go.
"Where did you end up?" Hatter asked.
She shrugged, grimacing at the memory of having to trudge through dirty, ankle-deep water when she had first arrived in Wonderland. "A horror movie hallway with a huge plumbing and electrical problem, so, it was probably the basement. This would have been way nicer."
"It could have been a side effect of the Looking Glass losing power without the ring. You were lucky you managed to come through at all," her father pointed out. He had arrived at the Looking Glass Hall well before her and Hatter, eager to see the first batch of oysters off to their world.
Alice shuddered at the thought of becoming stuck in that disorienting transitional plane. It had been horrible enough spending a few seconds there as it was. Spending more time than that would surely make one go mad.
"So when are the rest arriving?" Hatter inquired of her father.
"Should be any moment now," Robert replied, glancing at the unmoving revolving doors.
Jack and the duchess were to be arriving with the oysters to personally oversee their return to their own world. It was nearly noon already, but Alice had only figured that out by the position of the sun. Wonderland did not measure time in the way that her world did. In fact, it did not seem as if they measured time at all. Things happened when they happened, no sooner and no later. It was very frustrating to a girl like Alice, who placed a lot of value on schedules and punctuality.
They had spent most of the morning at Hatter's flat trying to decide what he should bring. By her estimation, it had taken several hours for him to sift through his extensive collection of silk shirts, trousers, hats, shoes, and ties. Alice had eventually convinced him to just buy new shoes in her world. The man did not own a single scrap of underclothing. She decided that was a quirk she could live with. Eventually, they had ended up with two bags of clothes and his tea kettle. It was a lucky tea kettle, apparently. So it could not be left behind.
"Dad," Alice said, turning to face her father, "remember the date we agreed on and do not, under any circumstances, come through that thing at night."
She had not had a chance to fully explain the nature of her abilities or the truth about Cleveland to him. The one time she had tried to broach the topic she had been interrupted and another opportunity had never really arisen. He had immersed himself with helping undo the damage done to their own people and the people of Wonderland by the former queen's regime. The explanations would have to be saved for after his return home. She and Hatter would be returning to her world a mere hour or so after she had originally gone through the Looking Glass by her world's reckoning. They had agreed that he would return two weeks later while she and Hatter would be there to greet him. There was still a lot about this time dysfunction she did not understand. It made her head spin to think on it too much. The way her father told it, there was no way to judge how much time would pass in Wonderland. Alice told him to try not to let years pass by. After all, his body would still physically age.
"Your mother…" Robert stammered, clenching his hands.
"Leave Mom to me," Alice assured him with far more confidence than she felt. While she was happy to be seeing her mother again, she was not looking forward to trying to explain everything to her. Challenging deeply ingrained beliefs was never easy. There was no way to predict how her mother would react.
"From what Alice tells me, she'll just be happy to know you're alive," Hatter added, linking his hand with Alice's and squeezing it supportively. That simple gesture communicated that he understood the doubts and fears running through her head and that he was here for her, every step of the way.
Robert gave him a small smile, dipping his head in gratitude.
"Lady Alice! Harbinger!"
Charlie's shout came from behind. Alice and Hatter turned to see their friend practically bouncing across the floor from the revolving doors. He was not wearing any plate armor for a change, trading in the cumbersome load for a shiny chainmail shirt. The tiny metal links clinked with every move.
"Charlie, you made it," Alice greeted with obvious delight and affection. She stepped forward to embrace the tall old man.
"Well, of course I did. I would not miss the chance to say farewell to Wonderland's valiant heroine!" the knight insisted.
"And hero," Alice added, motioning towards Hatter.
"Yes, of course, and hero," Charlie said, inclining his head towards the younger man with an infectious grin. "I am happy to see you are returning with her, Harbinger. I've no doubt you will guard her well against the foul beasts which roam her lands." Those pale blue eyes grew serious and mournful. "'Tis a shame that I cannot go to offer my own services. Alas, my place is here in Wonderland."
"Foul beasts? Alice, what is he talking about?" her father cut in, eyes wide with concern.
"Um…" Alice struggled to think of a short but appropriate response. "Well, that's kind of the reason why you're not allowed to come through at night."
Robert raised an eyebrow at her. "This has to do with your…abilities, doesn't it?"
She pursed her lips, eyes flitting to the revolving door which had just started to spin again. "I'll explain more when you get back home. But, yeah, it does have to do with that."
The man pressed his palm up against his forehead, shaking his head and sighing heavily. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this explanation?"
"Because you won't," Hatter mumbled darkly.
Robert's eyes rested upon Alice, roiling with concern and a fledgling sense of fearful comprehension. Her father was a smart man so there was no doubt that he was already working out some of the explanations for himself. But there would be no time to confirm his steadily growing suspicions.
Jack and Ilaena had just come through the door with a full contingent of Suits flanking them as bodyguards. The royal couple did not have their arms linked, but Alice noticed the two walked very closely, the duchess's head inclined slightly towards Jack just as his was cocked slightly towards her. It was a subtle, but definite, sign that relations between them had improved. Alice hoped things would only get better from there. Jack would need a strong, capable partner to help him take up the leadership of a shattered realm and make it whole once more. There was no better person for it than the duchess.
Then the oysters came through the doors in a steady stream. Once they all were in the hall, they immediately clustered into a tightly packed knot. The group brimmed with cagey anticipation. They were eager to be returned home to their loved ones, but were also understandably wary of the method of travel. They were also likely worried about the reception they would receive from their loved ones. Alice felt she could commiserate with them on the latter issue.
"Alice, Hatter," Jack greeted with a regal nod of his head. He was dressed in a crisp crimson suit jacket, pressed white shirt, black tie, and black slacks. It was practically the same outfit he had worn that day in the throne room when she had discovered who he truly was. There was no crown, signet ring, sash, or anything to indicate his royal status save for the color he wore. The duchess, in contrast, wore a lovely, modest gown of ivory. Her abundance of golden tresses was piled up into a silk mesh caul with what were likely actual diamonds studded throughout the fabric.
"Come to see us off?" Hatter asked brightly, unable to contain his wide grin.
Jack half-smiled. If there was bitterness in the young king, he cloaked it well beneath his royal exterior.
The duchess stepped forward to clasp both of Alice's hands. Her green-hazel eyes were warmly appraising with just a touch of sorrow. "I am sorry to see you go, Alice, but I am glad I have met you in spite of…" her eyes flitted to Jack for a brief instance, "the strange circumstances."
Alice shifted guiltily, for she knew exactly what circumstances the other woman spoke of. It was startling how gracious Ilaena had been about it. She did not know if she could command the same affability had their positions been reversed.
"It's a pity you two cannot stay for Jack's coronation," Ilaena continued. "Although it will be somewhat of an understated affair, things being what they are."
Pleasantries and farewells were exchanged with genuine fondness-excepting perhaps the fractious exchange between Jack and Hatter. Alice supposed that kingly reserve did have its limits. She had the feeling that Hatter was still working off some of his resentment towards Jack's previous attitudes and actions regarding him and Alice. Then Jack turned towards the nervous pack of people who were waiting to return home, eyeing the Looking Glass with obvious doubt.
He cleared his throat and spread his arms wide, adopting a humble posture to ingratiate himself towards the people his mother had deeply wronged. "Everyone, once more I extend my deepest apologies and regrets for what has happened to you all under my mother's regime. I know nothing can be done to permanently erase the effects of what was done to you, but I pledge today that no more of you or your people shall be subjected to the same inhumane treatment. We are sending you home today the same way you were brought here and I hope you are all able to return to the normalcy of your lives and families." He rotated to gesture towards the Looking Glass. "I understand you have some reservations about traveling through this device. As a show of good faith, Alice," he paused to point to the girl, who waved awkwardly, "has agreed to go through first and then make an immediate return to show that no harm shall come to you during the journey."
The king plucked a box from his pocket, the very same box he had presented to Alice back in her world, thus starting in motion this entire chain of events, and sprung the hidden catch. He then motioned to Alice to step forward.
"Would you do the honors, Alice?"
She nodded solemnly, taking the ring from him. The object hummed excitedly as she walked towards the Looking Glass. The technician pressed a button on the little operating pad, which opened up a filmy white box with a special rectangular crevice. Without needing to be directed, she placed the ring in that crevice. It clicked in place and there was a resulting rumble as the Looking Glass came to life. The reflective surface of the mirror rippled outwards for a few seconds before settling into deceptive tranquility.
She stared at the glass surface, remembering the sensation of being yanked forward and pulled in. Would that happen again? Or would she actually have to willingly enter it this time? She supposed there was only one way to find out.
The girl turned around to face the crowd of eyes which had all fallen upon her. She met Hatter's encouraging warm chocolate ones and smiled.
"Go on, love. We'll be waiting right here for you," he said.
She addressed the oysters. "Okay, everyone, traveling through this is probably not the most fun experience you will ever have. But you all got here in one piece and I got here in one piece so it's not that bad. Just, um, try to remember to breathe and you may experience a little bit of dizziness like when you've been in a tilt-a-whirl ride."
A series of chuckles reverberated through the crowd of oysters. She could see she had eased their tension quite a bit. But it would be better for them to see that traveling through the Looking Glass would not hurt them rather than just take her word for it.
"I'll be right back," she quipped before turning around, taking a deep breath, and stepping through the mirror.
The Technicolor vortex surrounded her once more, spinning around her and disorienting her senses. Light and darkness, up and down became impossible to differentiate. Since she was actually prepared for this, it was marginally better than the first time she had traveled through the inter-dimensional wormhole. At least this time, she kept her body primed for landing, her arms ready to displace the brunt of the momentum and protect her head and neck from the impact on concrete. Her landing was far more graceful than the last time. Instead of just crashing into the ground like senseless dead weight, she hit the floor in a somersault, rolling off the force and stopping in a crouch, hinged on the balls of her feet with her hands pressed to the floor to balance herself. Unfortunately, there was no getting around the assault to her equilibrium. The dark hallway of the abandoned warehouse, barely lit by the weak light of streetlamps outside spun wildly in her vision. She stayed still and allowed for the vertigo to wear off, keeping her eyes shut and her breaths controlled and even.
That was when the hellmouth threw a monkey wrench into the plan. Once she recovered, she was supposed to have turned around and gone straight back through. But when she stood, shaking off the vestiges of the dizziness, she heard a bloodcurdling scream from very close by followed by several inhuman growls of hunger. Every Slayer knew that growl—the growl of a blood lusting vampire who has just found its meal. Only, from the sound of it, there was more than just one.
"Oh, shit, now?" she groaned, pressing her hand against the rough concrete wall. She turned back to the Looking Glass, agonized and conflicted over what to do.
"Please! Someone help me!" It sounded like a young woman. Her voice was shrill with terror and rightly so, for it was likely she was being chased by a band of young vampires who had a penchant for playing with their food before finishing it off. There would not be time to save her if Alice went back through the Looking Glass.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Alice cursed. She threw one last glance back at the Looking Glass as the Slayer within her overruled the original plan. She could only hope they would not mind waiting a little bit longer for her return.
She sped down the corridor, the tails of the purple velvet coat flapping behind her. There was the stairway just ahead, and, if she remembered correctly, stacks of wooden crates below which had just become her source of weapons. All the way she grumbled about the hellmouth being a major inconvenience.
Thankfully, the wood of the crates was still in good enough condition to transfigure into sharp stakes. They would not work as well as a prepared, crafted stake, but they would do in a pinch. There was no way she could go after that amount of vampires with no weapon. Even for a Slayer as experienced and well-trained as Alice, an act like that amounted to suicide. Going after what she estimated to be around five to seven vampires alone and with improvised weapons was risky enough as it was. She was not going to push her luck further. The hellmouth had already shown her just how horrible her luck could be.
Following her keen natural and preternatural senses, she ran out of the building and tracked the moving group. It must have rained in that perceived hour of time Alice had been in Wonderland, for the ground was filled with fresh puddles. Water dripped from the eaves and gutters of the buildings. The girl's screams mingled with the vampire's growls deep into the narrow, twisted alleyways carved in between all the old warehouses. It was a premium hunting and nesting ground for the undead. It was regularly patrolled, but Cleveland was a large city—much larger than Sunnydale had been. It could be the patrol was scheduled for later, or the girls had just not reached this area yet. Either way, Alice was the only chance this girl had for survival now. She did not even have her cell phone or specialized patrol transceiver which could also send out a distress signal if she ran into trouble. Her house was only a few blocks away in the opposite direction, but she dared not even take the time to go there.
"Fuck my life! Seriously, what the hell?" she griped. By now she sorely regretted not keeping the nifty butterfly knife she had taken from that Suit in the casino.
A plan of action formed. Okay, find them, distract them long enough so the girl can get away, and then you try to run. Don't get in over your head. Hatter would never forgive you if you got yourself killed right off the bat. Follow the rule. Don't die. Don't die.
"Help! Oh god, please, leave me alone!"
There was menacing laughter and bawdy jokes, indicating that the group was composed mostly of males, if not completely. Alice shuddered. They probably had more on their minds than just chasing down a meal, then.
She was very close now. They were just around the corner, probably having trapped the girl in a dead end. She could smell the vampires now, that loamy scent of decay filling her nostrils. Alice flattened herself against a building, gripping one of her makeshift stakes in her dominant right hand. The other stakes she had stashed in the auspiciously deep pockets of Hatter's purple coat. This coat had definitely proved its use to her in more ways than she had expected.
Peaking around the corner of the building, she saw that her senses had been correct. A group of six male vampires were taking turns beating on a woman who looked even younger than Alice. The sobbing, terrified girl was being tossed from vampire to vampire, her face already mottled with bruises and her lip split, blood streaming down her chin. The alley did not end in a dead end, but there was a high chain-linked fence. Such things were easily traversed by creatures of the night and those who hunted them, but tended to be quite the obstacle for most normal humans.
What Alice would give to have a repeating crossbow at that moment. The stakes she had fashioned from the wood of that old crate were not bound to be very aerodynamic, thus trying to fling out a stake with the intent to hit one of them in the heart from where she stood was likely to be a lost cause. She would probably only end up losing a precious weapon in the process. That crossbow, unfortunately, was uselessly stuck in the weapons chest she had hidden in her walk-in closet back home.
One of the vampires, a large one with bright red hair who appeared to be the pack leader, struck the girl, knocking her to the ground with a broken scream of pain and fear. She fell into a deep puddle, water splashing up around her and soaking into her pink jacket. The vampires enclosed around her in a semi-circle, the big red-haired one at the center.
"Save some for me, boss!" one of the spectator vampires standing on the fringe yelled out.
"I think she's good and ready, boys," the leader announced menacingly. His hands lowered to his belt buckle.
Alice stepped out from behind the wall. All the vampires' backs were turned to her. They were so intent upon their quarry that they did not even sense her approach. They must have been relatively young to have such a lack of vigilance in a city fiercely guarded by dozens of Slayers. That was all the better for Alice. Young, stupid, undisciplined vampires were much easier to fight than older, experienced ones, especially when the odds were six to one.
She soundlessly marched up to the red-haired leader and slammed her boot into the back of his knee. The vampire howled in pain as he unwillingly fell to his knees, bringing him down to the perfect height for Alice to jam her stake into his back, piercing his heart. She yanked it out before his body erupted into ashes. Many rookie Slayers made the mistake of leaving the stake in the vampire's body after hitting the heart, causing the weapon to meet the same fate as its victim. It was a lesson quickly learned.
Stupid and unorganized the pack might have been, but they immediately recognized her for what she was after witnessing the death of their leader. They hissed with outrage and dismay, turning from the stunned, frozen young woman on the ground. Their ridged, disfigured faces and yellow eyes fell upon her, all five gleaming with murderous intent. Well, at least Alice's first objective of distracting them from the girl seemed to have worked. Now if only the girl would cooperate and get out of there.
"Slayer!" one growled accusingly.
"Shit!" another cried out.
Alice drove her elbow up and back into one vampire's face and then spun to deliver a forceful snap kick to another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fist hurtling towards her face. So she lifted up her arm to block the strike. Unfortunately, she did not see the moving fist of another vampire, and it rammed into her gut, knocking the wind from her and causing her to double over with a pained grunt.
She caught sight of the girl huddled on the ground, her hands clutching at the lapels of her jacket and her wide, red-rimmed eyes staring at Alice with shock and terror.
"What are you waiting for? Get out of here!" Alice screamed at her as she caught one vampire's fist in her hand, hooked her other arm under his shoulder and then flipped his body in mid-air to slam him to the ground. With one swift motion, she staked him. His body disintegrated into ashes.
That seemed to snap the girl out of her trance. She hastily clambered to her feet and began stumbling away, but then hesitated at the end of the alleyway. Tears tracked through the blood and grit on her face and she began fumbling in her jacket, pulling out a black cell phone.
Oh dear god, don't try to play hero. "Jesus Christ, run already! Get inside!" Alice shouted in the midst of bending backwards into a nearly ninety degree angle to avoid the simultaneous hits of two vampires. She maneuvered her body into a full back handspring, clipping one of the creatures in the chin as her legs lifted up in over in a perfect arc.
"The bitch came alone!" one vampire yelled.
Yes, she had come alone, but she had already managed to kill two of them, cutting the odds against her by a full third in less than five minutes. By her measure, she was doing rather well. One glance down the alley showed that the girl had finally retrieved her senses and escaped. That at least solved one of Alice's problems. But she had already used up far more time than had been allotted. She should have gone back through the Looking Glass a while ago. Everyone back in Wonderland was probably starting to get worried, especially Hatter and her father. She either needed to kill these last four quickly or just run back to the Looking Glass. Vampires were fast. Slayers were faster, but only up to a certain point. They did, after all, need to breathe.
"You assholes," she grunted while roundhouse kicking a vampire and knocking him into one of his pack mates, "have the worst timing." She reversed her momentum into a spinning high kick that lifted a vampire clear off his feet. But the last standing vampire landed a powerful blow to her jaw, causing her to topple over onto her back, landing roughly upon the wet ground.
Bursts of pain and black spots rocketed through her skull and vision, respectively. But she shook it off like the seasoned warrior she was and kept moving, knowing that staying still against four fast, undead opponents would be the death of her.
The vampires had arrayed around her, surrounding her on each side. The two largest ones were blocking the exit out of the alley way. Each of them surveyed her with a mixture of hate and hunger in their acid yellow eyes, licking their lips. A Slayer's blood was highly prized by vampires. But Alice had no intention of letting them have a taste.
"Well, I guess running is out of the question," she grumbled to herself, securing her grip upon her stake.
Alice had told Hatter that it might take her a few minutes to recover from the disorienting effects of traveling through the Looking Glass. So when that short amount of time passed without any sign of her reappearing on the Wonderland side, he was not overly concerned. When more time passed and she still did not come through the mirror, he began to feel a knot of dread form in his gut.
He turned to Alice's father who was likewise staring at the Looking Glass with a deep frown etching furrows into his brow. "Um, don't you think she should have been back by now?" he asked the older man.
"I thought she would be," Robert replied without taking his gaze off the inter-dimensional device.
They were not the only ones who noticed Alice's prolonged absence. Jack and the duchess repeatedly threw quizzical glances back at the Looking Glass before turning to converse with each other in low voices. The oysters were clearly becoming agitated over the situation. The group began to whisper and glare suspiciously.
"Is the Looking Glass operating?" Jack asked the technician. His voice was tightly controlled, but Hatter could sense the undertone of disquiet to it.
"Yes, Your Majesty, at full capacity," the man replied, scratching his head in perplexity.
"Where is she?" a tall, dark-skinned man amongst the group of oysters demanded. It was the man whom Alice had called a cop and who had also bravely jumped to her defense during the confrontation with the Queen of Hearts.
"Calm yourselves, please," Jack implored them. "I'm sure Alice will be along any moment."
But the moment passed and the Looking Glass's reflective surface remained horribly inert. The liquid dread coiling in Hatter's belly solidified into a leaden weight. There was no question that if everything had gone smoothly, Alice would be back by now and they would be preparing for their one-way trip through the Looking Glass. That must have meant things had not gone as smoothly as planned. Knowing what he knew of her world, "not going smoothly" could easily translate into "possible death or dismemberment".
Duchess Ilaena caught his gaze and then made a slight nod towards the Looking Glass. Her mouth silently formed the word "Go!" to him. She had practically read his mind. He dropped his bags to the floor and stomped up to the contraption, practically shoving the hapless technician out of the way.
"Hatter, wait!" Jack called out. "You can't go through without—"
Hatter never heard the rest of that sentence nor did he care to. He went through the mirror and into that winding kaleidoscope of light and colors. The experience was a mixture of exhilarating and nauseating. The journey could not have lasted more than seconds, but it had a strange flavor of eternity to it. And, yet, all too quickly, the hard, unyielding surface came rushing up and he barely had time to lift his arms up to protect his face as the Looking Glass on Alice's side spat him out.
He lay there on the ground for several moments, attempting to regain his scattered mental faculties. Every fiber of his being wanted to be up on his feet instantly, looking for Alice. But he knew that if he tried to stand at the moment, he would likely end up back on the ground. His brain matter felt like it was twirling around inside his skull. So he waited an agonizing period of time before he felt his equilibrium had stabilized enough to rise to his feet. He found his hat, which had been whisked off his head on the landing, and secured it back on his head.
He surveyed his surroundings. Just as Alice had told him, he was in the dead end of a very dark, short hallway. Cobwebs and cracks were the only adornment on the walls. There was a weak source of yellowish illumination coming from around the corner. Alice was nowhere in sight. The knot in his stomach tightened; his blood ran cold.
"Alice!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. He could not decide if it was better or worse to see no evidence of her lying hurt or unconscious on the ground in front of the Looking Glass. But that left his mind free to run wild with all sorts of horrific fates which could have befallen his girlfriend.
There was no answer. Heart racing with alarm as fast as his mind ran with speculation, the young man exited the hallway, following the weak sources of light which seemed to come from outside the building. Alice had told him the Looking Glass on her side was located in an abandoned warehouse, most likely to keep people away from it. The building definitely had the feel of being empty for a very long time. The state of disrepair was akin to the dilapidation of most of the buildings in the city of Wonderland.
"Alice!" His frantic cry bounced off the walls, reflecting his desperation back to him.
Come on, Alice, where are you? What could have been so important you left the Looking Glass? He did not allow his mind to move further from that question. Intuition he did not quite want to digest was beginning to whisper insidiously within the confines of his mind. As much as he had tried to prepare himself, it was not something he was quite ready to face just yet. He had thought there would be more time to adjust.
After descending a flight of steps, he came across stacks of wooden crates. Several looked to have been smashed to pieces, leaving an array of fractured wood upon the concrete floor. The dreaded suspicions began whispering again at the sight of the broken wood.
No, come on, they could have already been like that, he told himself.
He was aware of the fact that he was essentially venturing alone into a world he had never been in before, a world full of threats never encountered in Wonderland. But he could not bring himself to care about those things when Alice might be in mortal danger. He stepped outside the building into a deserted side alley with several puddles littering the ground and water dripping freely from above. Rain was a rare occurrence in Wonderland, so Hatter was somewhat taken aback to feel the drops of water splash against the brim of his porkpie hat. An eerie, grim silence pervaded the place. Wet coldness seeped into his bones, and it had nothing to do with the outside temperature.
But then he heard something. It was faint, but he could just make out the sounds of sniffling and crying. It sounded distinctly feminine. Feeling it was his only lead (and somewhat grateful for a reprieve from the deadening silence), he followed the sounds of the crying. He eventually came upon a girl in a pink coat, her blonde hair disheveled and obscuring her face, slumped up against a brick wall. She was gripping a black device in one hand while the other acted along with her hair to hide her face. While he felt sorry for whatever was distressing the girl, his heart sunk with disappointment when he saw that it was not Alice.
"Hey, you all right?" he queried with concern.
The girl flinched, lifting her head up and clumsily scrambling away from him. The drenched curtain of hair moved just enough that Hatter caught glimpses of blood and bruises on her face.
"Stay away from me!" the girl cried. "Oh god, just leave me alone!"
"Hey, hey!" Hatter held his hands up, attempting to placate the girl. He maintained his distance, however. This girl might have seen Alice, so he did not want to scare her off. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just looking for someone."
The girl halted, peering at him suspiciously. Even in the dim lighting, he could tell the abrasions and bruises on her face were fresh. Someone or, rather, something, had done a real number on this poor woman. His heart went out to her. Truly, it did. But Alice was his main concern for the moment. This girl could obviously stand and run, so she could not be injured too severely.
"My girlfriend, you see, is around here, somewhere. And, well, she was supposed to meet up with me…" He lapsed into silence when he noticed the girl's expression transform from wary to horrified. The lead weight punched through his gut.
"Was she wearing a purple coat…dark hair?" the girl asked.
Hatter felt like his throat had closed up so he could only nod. His heart began to race furiously.
"She saved me," the girl sobbed wretchedly. "They were gonna kill me…do things to me…but she came out of nowhere and…oh god…" She started to shake, pulling her hands up to cover her mouth.
Hatter lunged forward, heedlessly gripping the traumatized young woman by the arms. "Where? How many? Is she all right?"
The girl's eyes bugged out of her head, but she answered him. "She-she told me to run and I was gonna call for help, but my cell phone is dead. She was fighting them…she moved so fast…but there were six of them and they're so strong. I don't know…" She shook her head despairingly.
Six of them…oh fuck, Alice! He knew it was her job to fight and kill vampires. He knew she could handle herself better than anyone he had ever met including himself. His brain knew all these things. But his heart only heard that his beloved had thrown herself into a battle in which she was heavily outnumbered. Panic at the thought of losing her after only just starting their lives together outweighed any sort of logic.
"Take me there!" he ordered the girl.
"What?" She gawked at him, plainly incredulous that he would ask such a thing. "Are you crazy? I'm not going back there. I don't even know…they chased me down there..."
"Do you want the death of the girl who saved your life on your hands?" he said harshly. His eyes were starting to sting and his throat felt horribly tight and dry. No doubt he looked like a wild man to his young woman.
"N-no," the girl stammered. "But…" She drew in a tremulous breath, her bottom lip quivering. "Okay…I'll try to lead you back there," she relented.
As it turned out, no such action had been needed. Hatter and the girl turned at the sound of footsteps hitting the ground in an obviously accelerated pace in the adjoining alley off to their left. Thinking it was possibly a vampire, he immediately placed himself in front of the girl to shield her from view. Though he had no weapon in which to kill the creature, he cocked back his Sledgehammer fist and prepared to strike out.
There were two vampires, and they were not running to something, but from something. Alice came into sight in a purple and blue blur. She pounced upon one of the creatures, who gave off a piercing screech of pure terror as it careened into the ground. The other did not even pause to glance back as the dark-haired Slayer lifted up a sharp wooden stick and plunged it into the creature's back and then swiftly pulled it back out. Hatter's jaw dropped when the vampire completely crumbled to dust beneath Alice's feet.
"Five out of six," Alice mumbled, presumably to herself as she did not seem to notice the presence of Hatter or the girl. She dusted off her coat and dress. "Not bad for…" She stopped when she looked up and saw the two of them. "Hatter?"
There was a fresh bruise spreading along the bottom right portion of her jaw and a small cut above her left eyebrow. Other than those minor injuries, she looked to be perfectly fine. Hatter felt his blood pressure nearly bottom out from the overwhelming sense of relief. He relaxed his tense posture and moved away from the cowering girl behind him.
"What are you doing here?" Alice asked, tossing aside the sharp stick that he noticed resembled those pieces of wood back in that warehouse which housed the Looking Glass. His initial suspicions had been correct, it seemed.
"Coming to rescue you…but…it seems I was a bit late," he replied lightly.
"Oh." Alice smiled. She came towards him and pressed her lips against his. He leaned into the kiss, twining his hands in her damp, gritty hair. "Maybe next time. You've saved me enough for a while anyway," she murmured.
"You never mentioned they turned into dust after stabbing them," he commented mildly.
"I didn't?" She frowned. "Yeah, nice and convenient, isn't it? If only all the hell beasties were this courteous."
Her eyes fairly glowed with exhilaration. He supposed it only made sense that she was experiencing the lush thrill of adrenaline. She was in her element here, doing what she had been built to do. It made her all the more heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Hell beasties?" the girl, whose presence had been temporarily forgotten by Hatter, asked shakily.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" Alice asked with clear concern, skirting around Hatter to see to the girl.
The girl lifted a shaking hand to run through her straggly blonde locks. "I…I don't know. What were those things?"
He noticed Alice's cringe and then remembered that there was supposed to be an element of secrecy to her job. The reason for the secrecy had not been made exactly clear other than that it was mainly to avoid mass hysteria. Oysters were a quirky bunch, he decided.
"Um, you've had kind of a rough night and it might take some time to process everything. You should probably get yourself to a hospital," Alice kindly advised.
"No, I hate hospitals," the girl declared, violently shaking her head.
"Well, then, at least get yourself home. It's not safe to be hanging out around outside at night, especially around here," Alice countered. "Where do you live?"
"A few blocks down." The girl sniffled and wiped at her swollen lip. "My dad…he's gonna wonder what happened…"
"Tell him you were attacked by a gang and fill out a police report. Just go home and stay there for the rest of the night, okay?" Alice said firmly. She gave the girl a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder. "Everything's going to be all right."
Alice and Hatter escorted the girl out of the cryptic network of alleys and abandoned buildings. They parted ways with her once they reached the edge of the residential area and watched the girl's pink shrouded form disappear into the night.
"She'll rationalize it away by morning," Alice noted dryly. "She'll make herself forget their deformed faces, their sharp teeth, the sounds they made…"
"Them exploding into dust," added Hatter. It was surely not a sight he would forget. That had just been unbelievable.
They started trekking back to the warehouse where the Looking Glass was located. They still needed to return to try to salvage the oysters' already flimsy trust in the contraption that was the only way to get them home.
"I'm sorry. I just heard her screaming for help and I had to…I didn't think there would be enough time to go back through," Alice apologetically explained, turning to Hatter with a profoundly contrite expression on her face.
He grinned and affectionately tweaked her nose. "If you hadn't gone off to save her, you wouldn't be my Alice. Just…well, try to be careful and keep following that bloody rule of yours."
"The no underclothes rule?" she teased.
"I'm serious, Alice," Hatter said. "We've only just started our lives. Don't you go ruining things by dying prematurely."
She glanced away from him. "Well, normally, I don't go rushing off after a pack of vamps on my own unless I need to really work off steam. I usually go out with a group of Slayers."
That slightly mollified his distress over the ordeal. He definitely felt much better about Alice's dangerous job knowing she would usually have other equally strong, talented fighters guarding her back.
They entered the building, both remaining ever vigilant for more signs of the hellmouth's nocturnal occupants. Thankfully, the warehouse was as deserted as before, leading Alice to wonder aloud if perhaps the Looking Glass exerted some kind of mystical repelling force upon the non-human variety.
"Seriously, I think this would be a vamp's dream-nest. Not too many windows, lots of nooks and dark hallways. Close enough to a residential district to keep up a steady supply of food except for the fact that I live close by, but, still…" she mused as they climbed the stairs.
They stopped before the Looking Glass. Hatter glanced down at his girlfriend. The purple-red bruise on her face was very noticeable against her fair skin. The oysters were bound to see that and question whether or not she had received the injury because of her journey through the Looking Glass.
"Love, what are you going to tell the oysters—" she gave him that annoyed look so he quickly amended his statement to "erm…your lot…about the bruise?"
Her hand flew up to her face and she threw her head back, sighing deeply. "Shit…uh…I'll just tell them I tripped and fell or something. Crap, I didn't even think about that."
Hatter chuckled in amusement as he linked hands with her. Then, together, they stepped through the Looking Glass…again.
Come on, you know you want to review after finally seeing some Slayin' action...