See first chapter for disclaimers.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Next stop. Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.
PREVIOUSLY: Ash V. Evil Dead
Timely Arrival
"It's a suburb." Faith looked around carefully, but didn't see anything threatening or even unusual. "You suppose one of the houses is going to get up and come after us?"
"I hope not." Xander suppressed a shudder at the memory of one of their first stops. If he never saw something like that again, it would be too soon. "There are suburbs in Sunnydale too, remember? Hopefully, we'll find something more normal here than a house that walks and smashes things."
"Normal?" Faith asked, slightly amused at the word.
"It's a sliding scale." Xander shrugged. It was night and fairly late given the lack of traffic on the streets they could see. Only a few lights were on in the houses around them.
For lack of an obvious task, the two just picked a direction and started walking. The neighborhood was of the middle-class variety. The houses were modest sized, but well kept. The cars they could see were reasonably new but not overly expensive. Everything seemed normal.
"Whatever it is that's wrong here isn't jumping up and down shouting for attention." Xander scanned the street, looking for anything out of place. "Ideas?"
"Keep walking." Faith shrugged, unconcerned with the lack of immediate violence. "We'll find something eventually. We always do." That was certainly true, Xander had to admit. Wherever they went, they were never far from whatever it was they were there to do. Either a monster to fight or someone to help was always in the immediate area. Sometimes it was something small, like stopping a kid from running into the street, sometimes it was complicated like solving a puzzle of some kind, but there was always something.
Headlights became visible at an intersection they were approaching. They had only seen two other cars on the road and neither had evidenced any sign of a problem. They still watched closely as they approached the corner, wondering if this might be the source of the trouble.
Tires screeched before the car reached the intersection, and there was a distinctive thump. Both demon hunters ran forward to see who or what the driver had hit. They found a redheaded woman in glasses hurrying around the front of her car to see what she'd hit.
Faith and Xander joined her a few seconds later to find her staring in confusion at a puddle of green goo. "What did you hit?"
"I've no idea. I know I hit something, but all I see is this puddle." The woman glanced at the two strangers. "Did you see anything?"
"Sorry." Xander shook his head. "Too far away." He examined the puddle and the portion of it that was on the car's slightly dented bumper. "If those are the remains of something, and I think they are, it couldn't have been very big." He and Faith could both think of demons that dissolved after death. It might be an indication that they were home. Neither voiced the thought, though, not wanting to jinx it.
"Living tissue doesn't liquefy on death." The woman shook her head. "I'm a doctor. I have some knowledge on the subject."
"Could it be one of those?" Faith asked, pointing at the creature glaring at them from behind a bush. It was slightly bigger than a monkey, hairless with green skin and large pointed ears. It looked very angry, and they quickly realized that it wasn't alone.
"We should get in the car and get away from here," Xander said calmly.
"I think you're right." The doctor straightened, staring at the strange creatures. "My house isn't too far from here. A call to the police-"
"-would get a few of them killed," Faith shook her head. Then she continued more quietly. "Let's get to a defensible place. Then let Xand and me handle them. It's kind of what we do."
The doctor looked doubtful, but she didn't argue about their need to get away. As casually as they could manage, they made their way around the car to reach the doors. The little things apparently weren't that stupid. Suddenly, there were three standing on the roof of the car, glaring down at them.
"Right." Faith said. "On my signal, run." She grabbed one of the things by a leg and used it to swat the other two before throwing her improvised weapon at the oncoming crowd of beasts.
"That was the signal," Xander said, grabbing the doctor and pulling her down the street at her best pace. Fortunately, the doctor was in reasonably good shape and was appropriately terrified.
She pointed out her house, and she and Xander made for it while Faith did her best to dissuade their pursuers. Fortunately, they weren't too far from the doctor's house. They made it just in time. Faith slammed the door in the face of the creatures. The door shook under the impact and the things began to claw at it. After locking the door, the doctor made for the back of the house.
"I'll make sure the back door is locked."
"I doubt these things can work a knob," Xander called after her. "They're more likely to break a window."
Faith followed her into the kitchen. "Might as well lock it. No sense making it easy."
"What are we going to do? My son is going to be home soon."
"We'll think of something." Faith tried to reassure her. "They started coming after you because you ran into one of them."
"I didn't mean to. It ran in front of my car."
"I doubt they care about the details," Xander said, poking his head into the kitchen. "I'm thinking that sweet reason isn't going to get us out of this." The sound of breaking glass from the front room proved the truth of that. He turned back to the living room. "I'll hold them as best I can. See if you can get out the back."
Another crash from the kitchen window showed that that idea had come too late. Faith drew a knife from her jacket, one of several she carried, and met the first one through the window. That one was easily taken out, but they began to come in waves after that, angrier than ever.
The doctor grabbed the only thing to come to hand, a skillet from the stove top, and began trying to defend herself, knocking them away or braining them. "I feel like such a cliché," she complained.
Faith was too busy to comment. Whatever they were, they were fast, agile, and tenacious. Killing them wasn't easy, and for each one she punched, kicked, or cut open, there were two more.
Judging by the sounds from the living room, Xander wasn't fairing much better. Stemming the tide at the kitchen windows wasn't working. Too many were getting in. Faith was thinking it was time to retreat to the living room and fight back to back when things suddenly got very quiet in there.
"Xander?!" Faith called, fearing the worst. Her distraction allowed two of the things to get by her and leap at the doctor.
She managed to knock one back with a wild swing of the pan, but that left her open to the other. She screamed and backpedaled toward the living room door as it flew at her face.
It never reached her. With no warning, the creature found itself dangling from the end of a sword. That sword shone with reflected sunlight, which seemed odd as it was the middle of the night. Following the blade with her eyes, the doctor found a teenage boy with light washing over him, leaving armor in its wake even as he completed what sounded like a magic spell.
"-light is mine to command." He deliberately didn't look at her as he stepped into the room and made a sharp gesture with the blade that left the creature on the floor in front of its kin as a puddle. "I don't know what led to this," he said, speaking with deliberate calm. "And I really don't care," he added as several of the creatures started to yammer at him. Whatever language they were speaking, it wasn't English, but the boy seemed to have some idea what they were saying. "Vengeance only applies when the harm done was deliberate. That's something goblins don't really understand."
Several of the goblins snarled and offered a few more words, but none tried to attack anyone. "Do you understand them?" Faith asked.
"Some. But it's really a waste of breath trying to talk to them."
One specimen stepped forward, glaring at the boy. Their rescuer looked honestly surprised when the creature opened its mouth. "Hunter."
The word came out as a menacing snarl and the creature leapt at him. The blade moved in a blur with a flash reminiscent of daylight reflecting off a pond. The goblin hit the kitchen wall as two separate stains, one small and one large; one above the other.
"Anyone else got something to say?"
Within 30 seconds, the goblins were gone from the house. He grabbed a paper towel and wiped off his sward before putting it away with an ease that spoke of long practice.
"Jim." The doctor spoke softly, still watching the boy.
He finally turned to face her. "Hi mom. I can explain."
"That should be interesting," Xander said, watching the pair. Faith rolled her eyes and took him by the ear before pulling him into the living room and through the portal waiting for them there.
