Becoming

As much as she'd rather see Angel dead than cured - knowing that he could turn into a homicidal maniac at a moment's notice really dampened her enthusiasm for having him around - she still somehow ended up being part of the ceremony to try and restore his soul. That was sort of the one downside of dating Xander, beyond the lack of cool factor, she was now sort of a scooby and that meant getting wound up in all their weirdness.

And today that involved pacing up and down swirling an incense stick, while Willow sat on the table and started up her chant. 'Not dead nor not of the living, spirits of the interegnum I call…'

The atmosphere in the library was tense. Kendra - superfreak number two - prowled by the door, a stake in her hand. Xander was watching the spell being performed. He had argued against it. He wanted Angel dead - even more than Cordy did. She wondered what he was thinking as he watched them try this instead. He had argued that this was whitewashing over everything Angel had done, was forgetting about Miss Calendar's murder just so Buffy could have Angel back. Cordelia couldn't help but wonder if, now he had been overruled, he was angry. Certainly, she was none too pleased about the situation.

And - talking of not being too pleased, she couldn't help but notice that - apart from Willow - she was the only one doing anything. Sure, Kendra was marching up and down - but there was nothing to fight. Giles and Xander were both just standing there, acting like this was dinner theatre - men! Meanwhile, she was the one choking on the stinky herbs. She didn't want to be here, out of everyone, she must be the one that cared the least about the outcome… and yet here she was, doing the work.

Willow continued with her chanting: 'let him know the pain of humanity. Gods, reach your wizened hands to me. Give me the sword…'

Cordelia was just rolling her eyes at the melodramatic, over the topness of ancient Romany magic rituals, when the first vampire attacked Xander - jumping out from behind the stacks.

Two more came through the doors and set upon Kendra - and from that moment on, all was chaos, the ritual was ruined and Cordelia only had a very blurred and hazy idea of what was going on - beyond that she was in mortal danger … again.

Giles was yelling at her and Willow to run. Willow scrambled off the table and together they ran up the steps towards the stacks, but another vampire was coming out of the shelving. It leapt the railing and landed on Giles. Meanwhile, Xander had a vampire on his back, he elbowed it in the face and it fell off him, stumbling into the bookcases. Willow ran off, into the shelves, trying to find a place to hide - but Cordy was frozen in fear. She didn't want to leave Xander, she couldn't possibly hope to fight and so she just stood there, not acting.

The vampire attacked Xander again, and then everything was going so fast, Cordy couldn't keep up: Kendra fighting near the doors; Giles smashing a vase over a vampire's head. The one attacking Xander rushed him, but Xander side stepped. So the vamp grabbed hold of the boy and threw him into the bookshelves. Another vampire had jumped up from the main floor of the library into the books, and pushed a case onto Willow. She was crushed beneath it. At the same time, the vampire attacking Xander grabbed hold of his hand and snapped. Xander cried out - Cordy yelped … and then noticed a vampire sneaking up on her.

But Xander grabbed the vampire he was fighting and threw it away from himself, so it barged into the one attacking Cordelia and they both tumbled to the ground. Cordy screamed again. And Xander, holding onto his broken hand, told her to run - and this time she did, screaming once more and running for the hidden exit in the stacks.

...

Once she was free of the library, she just kept on running - across the quad, through the gates, down the road… The blood was pounding in her ears so loudly that it sounded like footsteps behind her and she sped on, heading into the bright lights of town.

It wasn't until she got to the main street, to near the Espresso Pump, surrounded by other people that she began to slow down. The looks she got from other people in the street as she tore past them eventually made something click in her brain. They were looking at her as if she was crazy… they couldn't see that she was being chased … maybe that was because she wasn't being chased.

Her lungs were burning with the exertion, her heart was hammering away in her chest - she stumbled to a stop, gripping onto a lamp post to steady herself and then dared to sneak a look back. There were no vamps behind her. No demons, evil minions or forces of darkness. Just ordinary people out in the road.

She took a great, deep, gasping breath and tried to force her heart to beat more steadily. Her legs were shaky beneath her and her hands were slippery with sweat - but she took lungful after lungful of air and forced herself to be calm. There was no one following her. She was safe, she was fine…

But as the pulse pounding terror receded, she felt the first inkling of shame. She shouldn't have run. She didn't know if the others were OK, she didn't know what was happening. She knew Xander and Willow were injured and she had just left them to it. She continued drawing in deep and calming breaths, and felt her pulse return to a more normal speed. She needed to go back. She needed to check that everyone was OK and then she needed to find out what exactly she could do to help.

With a final, deep breath, she nodded to herself firmly, let go of the lamp post and forced her shaking legs to walk her back to school.