CROSS ROADS
Part 9
Abhar Jhamel the Speaker was utterly speechless. He had not expected such a foolhardy, yet daring rescue from an American teenager. An American boy with raging hormones, no less! And yet what had surprised him the most was when his most trusted warrior abandoned his duty to chase after the foolish American teenagers. Jhamel ran up to the hole where his hostages had disappeared into and he glared down it in a vain attempt to see them.
WHY had Rueben gone after them?! he asked himself angrily.
He was more than certain that they had all fallen to their deaths. They had fallen through the loose covering and they would have continued to fall from the rope as it had pulled taught. The worst of it was that Rueben Julius would die in vain with them. This enraged Jhamel for the stupidity of his right hand man, so he grabbed a hold of the rope and he cut it.
The rope disappeared into the hole.
He screamed into the hole, "INFIDELS! FOOLS!" He glared as if expecting a response. "YOU COULD HAVE DIED HONORABLY, MY BROTHER! NOW YOU DIE WITH NO GLORY!!"
One of his men ran up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
Jhamel spun around and he punched the man in the jaw. The man fell,
dropping his AK-47, and lay on his back looking up at Jhamel.
"What is it?!" Jhamel demanded.
Rubbing his jaw, the man pointed.
Jhamel turned his head. There he saw a car driving toward them. "What the hell...?" He was about to order his men to open fire when he noticed that the car was swerving about. He brought his hand up to shade the sun from his eyes and he could make out two passengers in the car. A man, and a woman. And the man, he was certain, was drunk.
In the car, Mulder was singing a little diddy.
"'oh, bring me a home
where those buffalo roam
and the deer and the antelope play...'"
Scully glanced over at him as he continued with another verse.
"'and I'll give you a knee
it would bring me much glee
in the crotch just to ma-ake you pay...'"
Suddenly, he swerved the car into a wall and he stepped on the accelerator. The car went through the wall of the old shed and it came crashing down upon them. Giles was in the trunk and he had been trying to keep the trunk from closing all the way. However, when the car went through the shed, a part of it slammed the trunk shut and then fell to the ground.
Giles let out a weary sigh. "Oh, isn't that just lovely?"
Three terrorists were leveling their weapons at the car from behind it as they approached. Mulder saw them coming and he threw his arms around Scully. "Kiss me, baby! Gotta make this look good."
Before Scully could respond, he pressed his lips to hers.
She was staring at him with her eyes wide open as they kissed.
One of the terrorists happened to see what they were doing, and he turned to his companions, laughing. In his native tongue, he told them all what he saw. Jhamel was heading for them, and he didn't look amused.
"Get out of the way!" Jhamel shouted. He passed them and moved toward the car. As he got close, he was able to see into the car through the back window. The closer he got, the slower he walked. Finally, he stopped. The car door was open and there was no one there. He shouted out orders, and his men spread out to look for the two "lovebirds".
On the other side of the quarry, a helicopter was keeping behind the high structures.
Vogel was talking into his headset. "Bear! We don't think they've spotted us, so we're going to get low enough for you to bail!"
"They don't hear us coming?" Barrington asked.
LeBeau snarled and shook his head. "Nah. With these old structures about, and most of them being empty, our rotors will be muffled. Our only way of being discovered right now is if somebody sees us."
"Or smells us, in your case," Vogel told him.
LeBeau shot a look at him. "You wanna fly...without the chopper?!"
Vogel grinned. "Bear...time to go. We're setting down!"
Barrington looked at Stacy, Lenox, and Buffy. "Saddle up! Lock and load!"
Lenox opened the door and jumped out. The others followed behind him and it was then that Buffy noticed that Stacy wasn't carrying a gun. When they were all on the ground, Buffy stayed low and followed behind Lenox. Barrington and Stacy had gone off in the other direction. They headed for the terrorists and when the enemy was in their sights, they opened fire. Barrington fired from one angle, and Lenox from another angle. Three terrorists who were caught out in the open from the unexpected ambush danced as the bullets tore into them. As their bodies hit the ground, two other terrorists ran into one of the many structures. Barrington went in after them with Stacy following behind.
Lenox and Buffy would have gone in after them, but Lenox just happened to see Jhamel. Jhamel took one look at him, then he turned and he ran. He was heading for a warehouse.
"That's got to be their lair!" Lenox exclaimed to Buffy. "Willow's bound to be in there. Stay close! We're going in!"
They broke into a run and headed for the warehouse. Buffy held her gun aimed at the ground, but she held it awkwardly. She was not used to carrying a gun and it felt oddly out of place for her.
Just as Lenox went inside the warehouse, a terrorist came out of hiding and grabbed Buffy in a bear hug from behind, causing her to drop her gun. He began to drag her out into the dirt road, but suddenly she rammed the back of her head into his face. Stunned, he let go of her and stepped back. She spun around and kicked the side of his face. He fell back into a pole and leaned on it for support.
He looked up and Buffy was spinning around once more, intending to kick him again. Without warning, he caught her leg and pushed her off balance. She fell backward, but turned her fall into a roll and was back on her feet in an instant. However, the terrorist had grabbed a chain and he threw one end of it with deadly accuracy. The end of the chain wrapped around her throat, then he used the pole to vault himself over a low beam. Using his weight, Buffy found herself hanging inches from the ground.
Meanwhile, in the trunk of the car, which was behind the terrorist, Giles had finally managed to break open the trunk. He was also in time to see what was happening to his Slayer. He climbed out of the trunk, walked over to the terrorist, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Startled, the man turned his head and looked at Giles.
"Do you like tire irons?" Giles asked him. Then he struck the man full in the face with a tire iron. "I happen to like them very much."
The men fell unconscious to the ground, releasing his hold on the chain.
Buffy collapsed to the ground herself and Giles hurried to her side to help her get the chain off from around her neck. She was gasping for breath. "God, I...I didn't...see that...coming..."
He helped her to her feet. "Have no fear, Buffy. I am already designing a method with terrorists in mind for your next training session."
"Great!" Buffy said with a false smile. "Something to look forward
to...like having my fingernails removed."
He looked at her with a puzzled frown. "Er...I'm sorry, b-but what...?"
"Forget it."
Mulder and Scully ran up to them from around the shed. Buffy saw them and waved them forward. "C'mon!" she exclaimed. "Lenox ran inside after Jhamel!"
They all headed for the warehouse.
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Lenox saw Jhamel just as he entered the building. The Speaker had run up to a table and he had snatched up something that had looked like a thermostat. Lenox leveled his Uzi and he was about to fire when something hard slammed into his back. He fell to the ground, dropped his weapon, and rolled onto his back in an attempt to see what had struck him. A terrorist was holding up a two-by-four over his head, preparing to bring it down again to strike at his enemy.
Lenox would have laughed at that moment if the danger hadn't been real.
The man had hit him with a rotten piece of wood, only he didn't know it was rotten. The two-by-four had broken apart as it had struck Lenox, and the piece that remained in the terrorist's hands was too small to be any threat if he swung it down as he intended to do. But because the raving terrorist loony was holding it far above his head, he hadn't noticed that it was broken.
So Lenox simply waited.
The man swung his arms down, fully expecting to hit Lenox, unfortunately, he swung too fast and too hard. As his arms came down, he did not see the two-by-four he had seen before when he had first picked it up. In astonishment, he wound up not striking Lenox his enemy, but he ended up striking himself right between the legs. He howled in agony as he fell to his knees. Lenox calmly got to his feet and then he introduced his foot into the mans face. The man fell unconscious to the ground.
Lenox turned around and glared at his surroundings.
Abhar Jhamel was nowhere in sight.
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It was a small structure, and Barrington was certain that Willow was not in it. The two terrorists he had chased inside, however, were in hiding. Suddenly, they opened fire on him from above. He ran and dove behind a tractor. They fired at him and yelled obscenities in their native tongue, but they soon realized that they couldn't hit him. So they were simply content to yell at him and wait for their compatriots to come to their aid. While they waited, Barrington looked frantically around for Stacy. But he couldn't see her anywhere. He couldn't call for her either for then the terrorists would know where she was and they might be able to be in a position to hit her.
If anything ever happened to her, Lenox would kill him for certain.
Suddenly, he had an idea.
He climbed into the tractor and he hot-wired it. He wasn't certain how the thing's engine actually turned over, but the sound of the engine roaring to life was like music in his ears. As he revved the tractor up and brought up the heavy shovel to protect him like a shield, the terrorists up on the balcony above him looked down and they began to worry.
Their worry was short-lived, however. Barrington simply drove the tractor directly beneath them. The tractor knocked down the beams that held up the balcony, and continued on through the wall. The entire structure came crashing down. He hadn't expected that but he realized that the structures were old and unsafe. He stopped the tractor, climbed out and he looked at the mess he had made. If the terrorists were still alive, it would definitely take some time to dig them out.
He had to find Stacy before he did anything else. He left the tractor
behind and found himself moving toward the tower at the center of the
quarry. He found Stacy standing beside a large hole in the ground, and she was looking into it.
He approached her. "What is it, Stacy?"
Stacy looked at him and there was hope in her eyes. "They're in there, Al."
"Who is?"
"Willow and Xander! They're both down there somewhere...But so is Julius, the Knife."
Barrington moved carefully to the edge and he looked down into the hole. He could see only as far as the sun would allow. Then there was a dark hole that seemed to go on. But something was wrong. He could feel it and it gave him goose bumps.
He looked at Stacy. "Do you feel that?"
Stacy nodded her head, her eyes wide with fear. "I do..." she said. "I feel it." She looked at Barrington with concern. "It's...it's evil that I feel."
Barrington regarded her. "Stacy, how do you know that Xander and Willow are down there?"
"Jeremiah told me."
"Who's Jeremiah?"
"Well, he's right over--" She stopped as she pointed at...no one. She
frowned. "He was...he was just there...Before you came over."
Barrington hesitated. "Stacy...I know that you have something going
on...Some ability that we can't understand...But if you say that they're down there, then I believe you."
She nodded. "So what do we do now?"
He looked down the hole. "Go in after them."
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Lenox, Buffy, Giles, Mulder, and Scully went through the warehouse. They found the cell that had been Willow's but she wasn't in it. Their search did not turn up either Willow, Jhamel, or Julius. But it did turn up a room in which had been on the tape they were told about by Jenny and Fronk. It was the room where Julius had been drinking blood.
Buffy was telling Giles about it as he looked at the ceremonial jar.
"That's all of what Mr. Fronk had told Barrington over that radio thingy over his head, Giles. This Julius guy was performing some kind of a ritual! And he said something about an Heir that was coming to lead the dead to glory!" She paused. "Does that sound familiar to you?"
Giles picked up the ceremonial jar and frowned in concentration. He was thinking about the volumes of books he had at the library, most of which he had memorized. Was there some prophecy that told of this ritual the terrorist had been performing? "Er...Heir, you say?"
"Well...I didn't say. That Crazy Man guy did."
"What are you thinking, Giles?" Mulder asked as he and Scully moved toward him. "Do you think this is some kind of prophecy?"
Giles nodded grimly. "Th-that is precisely what I am thinking, Mr. Mulder."
"Willow is nowhere to be found," Lenox growled. "I would not want to think otherwise, Giles...but do you think that this blood was hers?"
Buffy held her breath in fear for her friend.
Giles slowly shook his head. "No," he said softly. "This blood is not
Willow's."
Buffy was relieved, but she also recognized the sudden countenance of the Watcher. That far away look in his eyes, the slow motions, the soft tone. When he acted in this way, Buffy began to worry. The room itself got real quiet, as if sensing some unforeseen doom.
Giles slowly took off his glasses and he took out a handkerchief to wipe at them...whether they needed it or not.
Buffy was getting scared. "Giles...?"
He didn't respond. At least not right away. But when he did speak, he had everyone's attention, and what he said caused chills.
"As I said..." he began, "th-this is not...nor was it Willow's blood. For which I am immensely grateful. However, this b-blood is unclean for it reeks of the rotten decay of the undead."
"Don't you mean 'the dead'?" Scully inquired, feeling a chill in spite of herself.
Giles looked at her harshly. "No, Miss Scully, I don't mean 'the dead.' I mean that this blood reeks of the unholy undead!" He took a deep breath. "I don't know how I can tell you this, but I can feel something horribly evil when I hold that ceremonial jar. I feel the presence of an evil even now that I had not felt since the Hellmouth did open and the Master was free."
Buffy looked at him with dread. "Wh-what are you saying, Giles?"
"This blood is evil, and the one who drinks it must therefore himself be evil. You said that Mr. Fronk had mentioned an Heir?" He took a breath as he returned his glasses to his head. "If I am not mistaken, then I will tell you what this means. Julius has drank from this blood and he has proclaimed himself as the Heir which can only mean one thing...although I- I'm not certain yet how this is possible. But I believe he wants to become the Heir to the Master."
Buffy stared at the ceremonial jar in horror. "Then this blood is...?"
Giles looked at her. "The Master's blood."
Silence fell upon the room.
Mulder finally broke the silence. "So we've got a terrorist who wants to become a new undead Master, and another terrorist out there with a possible nuke. Is that what you're saying?"
Lenox let out a sigh. "I believe that's the gist of it."
Mulder looked at every one of them. Finally, he shook his head, looked at Scully, and snorted. "And you call me paranoid."
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TO BE CONTINUED...
Part 9
Abhar Jhamel the Speaker was utterly speechless. He had not expected such a foolhardy, yet daring rescue from an American teenager. An American boy with raging hormones, no less! And yet what had surprised him the most was when his most trusted warrior abandoned his duty to chase after the foolish American teenagers. Jhamel ran up to the hole where his hostages had disappeared into and he glared down it in a vain attempt to see them.
WHY had Rueben gone after them?! he asked himself angrily.
He was more than certain that they had all fallen to their deaths. They had fallen through the loose covering and they would have continued to fall from the rope as it had pulled taught. The worst of it was that Rueben Julius would die in vain with them. This enraged Jhamel for the stupidity of his right hand man, so he grabbed a hold of the rope and he cut it.
The rope disappeared into the hole.
He screamed into the hole, "INFIDELS! FOOLS!" He glared as if expecting a response. "YOU COULD HAVE DIED HONORABLY, MY BROTHER! NOW YOU DIE WITH NO GLORY!!"
One of his men ran up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
Jhamel spun around and he punched the man in the jaw. The man fell,
dropping his AK-47, and lay on his back looking up at Jhamel.
"What is it?!" Jhamel demanded.
Rubbing his jaw, the man pointed.
Jhamel turned his head. There he saw a car driving toward them. "What the hell...?" He was about to order his men to open fire when he noticed that the car was swerving about. He brought his hand up to shade the sun from his eyes and he could make out two passengers in the car. A man, and a woman. And the man, he was certain, was drunk.
In the car, Mulder was singing a little diddy.
"'oh, bring me a home
where those buffalo roam
and the deer and the antelope play...'"
Scully glanced over at him as he continued with another verse.
"'and I'll give you a knee
it would bring me much glee
in the crotch just to ma-ake you pay...'"
Suddenly, he swerved the car into a wall and he stepped on the accelerator. The car went through the wall of the old shed and it came crashing down upon them. Giles was in the trunk and he had been trying to keep the trunk from closing all the way. However, when the car went through the shed, a part of it slammed the trunk shut and then fell to the ground.
Giles let out a weary sigh. "Oh, isn't that just lovely?"
Three terrorists were leveling their weapons at the car from behind it as they approached. Mulder saw them coming and he threw his arms around Scully. "Kiss me, baby! Gotta make this look good."
Before Scully could respond, he pressed his lips to hers.
She was staring at him with her eyes wide open as they kissed.
One of the terrorists happened to see what they were doing, and he turned to his companions, laughing. In his native tongue, he told them all what he saw. Jhamel was heading for them, and he didn't look amused.
"Get out of the way!" Jhamel shouted. He passed them and moved toward the car. As he got close, he was able to see into the car through the back window. The closer he got, the slower he walked. Finally, he stopped. The car door was open and there was no one there. He shouted out orders, and his men spread out to look for the two "lovebirds".
On the other side of the quarry, a helicopter was keeping behind the high structures.
Vogel was talking into his headset. "Bear! We don't think they've spotted us, so we're going to get low enough for you to bail!"
"They don't hear us coming?" Barrington asked.
LeBeau snarled and shook his head. "Nah. With these old structures about, and most of them being empty, our rotors will be muffled. Our only way of being discovered right now is if somebody sees us."
"Or smells us, in your case," Vogel told him.
LeBeau shot a look at him. "You wanna fly...without the chopper?!"
Vogel grinned. "Bear...time to go. We're setting down!"
Barrington looked at Stacy, Lenox, and Buffy. "Saddle up! Lock and load!"
Lenox opened the door and jumped out. The others followed behind him and it was then that Buffy noticed that Stacy wasn't carrying a gun. When they were all on the ground, Buffy stayed low and followed behind Lenox. Barrington and Stacy had gone off in the other direction. They headed for the terrorists and when the enemy was in their sights, they opened fire. Barrington fired from one angle, and Lenox from another angle. Three terrorists who were caught out in the open from the unexpected ambush danced as the bullets tore into them. As their bodies hit the ground, two other terrorists ran into one of the many structures. Barrington went in after them with Stacy following behind.
Lenox and Buffy would have gone in after them, but Lenox just happened to see Jhamel. Jhamel took one look at him, then he turned and he ran. He was heading for a warehouse.
"That's got to be their lair!" Lenox exclaimed to Buffy. "Willow's bound to be in there. Stay close! We're going in!"
They broke into a run and headed for the warehouse. Buffy held her gun aimed at the ground, but she held it awkwardly. She was not used to carrying a gun and it felt oddly out of place for her.
Just as Lenox went inside the warehouse, a terrorist came out of hiding and grabbed Buffy in a bear hug from behind, causing her to drop her gun. He began to drag her out into the dirt road, but suddenly she rammed the back of her head into his face. Stunned, he let go of her and stepped back. She spun around and kicked the side of his face. He fell back into a pole and leaned on it for support.
He looked up and Buffy was spinning around once more, intending to kick him again. Without warning, he caught her leg and pushed her off balance. She fell backward, but turned her fall into a roll and was back on her feet in an instant. However, the terrorist had grabbed a chain and he threw one end of it with deadly accuracy. The end of the chain wrapped around her throat, then he used the pole to vault himself over a low beam. Using his weight, Buffy found herself hanging inches from the ground.
Meanwhile, in the trunk of the car, which was behind the terrorist, Giles had finally managed to break open the trunk. He was also in time to see what was happening to his Slayer. He climbed out of the trunk, walked over to the terrorist, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Startled, the man turned his head and looked at Giles.
"Do you like tire irons?" Giles asked him. Then he struck the man full in the face with a tire iron. "I happen to like them very much."
The men fell unconscious to the ground, releasing his hold on the chain.
Buffy collapsed to the ground herself and Giles hurried to her side to help her get the chain off from around her neck. She was gasping for breath. "God, I...I didn't...see that...coming..."
He helped her to her feet. "Have no fear, Buffy. I am already designing a method with terrorists in mind for your next training session."
"Great!" Buffy said with a false smile. "Something to look forward
to...like having my fingernails removed."
He looked at her with a puzzled frown. "Er...I'm sorry, b-but what...?"
"Forget it."
Mulder and Scully ran up to them from around the shed. Buffy saw them and waved them forward. "C'mon!" she exclaimed. "Lenox ran inside after Jhamel!"
They all headed for the warehouse.
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Lenox saw Jhamel just as he entered the building. The Speaker had run up to a table and he had snatched up something that had looked like a thermostat. Lenox leveled his Uzi and he was about to fire when something hard slammed into his back. He fell to the ground, dropped his weapon, and rolled onto his back in an attempt to see what had struck him. A terrorist was holding up a two-by-four over his head, preparing to bring it down again to strike at his enemy.
Lenox would have laughed at that moment if the danger hadn't been real.
The man had hit him with a rotten piece of wood, only he didn't know it was rotten. The two-by-four had broken apart as it had struck Lenox, and the piece that remained in the terrorist's hands was too small to be any threat if he swung it down as he intended to do. But because the raving terrorist loony was holding it far above his head, he hadn't noticed that it was broken.
So Lenox simply waited.
The man swung his arms down, fully expecting to hit Lenox, unfortunately, he swung too fast and too hard. As his arms came down, he did not see the two-by-four he had seen before when he had first picked it up. In astonishment, he wound up not striking Lenox his enemy, but he ended up striking himself right between the legs. He howled in agony as he fell to his knees. Lenox calmly got to his feet and then he introduced his foot into the mans face. The man fell unconscious to the ground.
Lenox turned around and glared at his surroundings.
Abhar Jhamel was nowhere in sight.
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It was a small structure, and Barrington was certain that Willow was not in it. The two terrorists he had chased inside, however, were in hiding. Suddenly, they opened fire on him from above. He ran and dove behind a tractor. They fired at him and yelled obscenities in their native tongue, but they soon realized that they couldn't hit him. So they were simply content to yell at him and wait for their compatriots to come to their aid. While they waited, Barrington looked frantically around for Stacy. But he couldn't see her anywhere. He couldn't call for her either for then the terrorists would know where she was and they might be able to be in a position to hit her.
If anything ever happened to her, Lenox would kill him for certain.
Suddenly, he had an idea.
He climbed into the tractor and he hot-wired it. He wasn't certain how the thing's engine actually turned over, but the sound of the engine roaring to life was like music in his ears. As he revved the tractor up and brought up the heavy shovel to protect him like a shield, the terrorists up on the balcony above him looked down and they began to worry.
Their worry was short-lived, however. Barrington simply drove the tractor directly beneath them. The tractor knocked down the beams that held up the balcony, and continued on through the wall. The entire structure came crashing down. He hadn't expected that but he realized that the structures were old and unsafe. He stopped the tractor, climbed out and he looked at the mess he had made. If the terrorists were still alive, it would definitely take some time to dig them out.
He had to find Stacy before he did anything else. He left the tractor
behind and found himself moving toward the tower at the center of the
quarry. He found Stacy standing beside a large hole in the ground, and she was looking into it.
He approached her. "What is it, Stacy?"
Stacy looked at him and there was hope in her eyes. "They're in there, Al."
"Who is?"
"Willow and Xander! They're both down there somewhere...But so is Julius, the Knife."
Barrington moved carefully to the edge and he looked down into the hole. He could see only as far as the sun would allow. Then there was a dark hole that seemed to go on. But something was wrong. He could feel it and it gave him goose bumps.
He looked at Stacy. "Do you feel that?"
Stacy nodded her head, her eyes wide with fear. "I do..." she said. "I feel it." She looked at Barrington with concern. "It's...it's evil that I feel."
Barrington regarded her. "Stacy, how do you know that Xander and Willow are down there?"
"Jeremiah told me."
"Who's Jeremiah?"
"Well, he's right over--" She stopped as she pointed at...no one. She
frowned. "He was...he was just there...Before you came over."
Barrington hesitated. "Stacy...I know that you have something going
on...Some ability that we can't understand...But if you say that they're down there, then I believe you."
She nodded. "So what do we do now?"
He looked down the hole. "Go in after them."
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Lenox, Buffy, Giles, Mulder, and Scully went through the warehouse. They found the cell that had been Willow's but she wasn't in it. Their search did not turn up either Willow, Jhamel, or Julius. But it did turn up a room in which had been on the tape they were told about by Jenny and Fronk. It was the room where Julius had been drinking blood.
Buffy was telling Giles about it as he looked at the ceremonial jar.
"That's all of what Mr. Fronk had told Barrington over that radio thingy over his head, Giles. This Julius guy was performing some kind of a ritual! And he said something about an Heir that was coming to lead the dead to glory!" She paused. "Does that sound familiar to you?"
Giles picked up the ceremonial jar and frowned in concentration. He was thinking about the volumes of books he had at the library, most of which he had memorized. Was there some prophecy that told of this ritual the terrorist had been performing? "Er...Heir, you say?"
"Well...I didn't say. That Crazy Man guy did."
"What are you thinking, Giles?" Mulder asked as he and Scully moved toward him. "Do you think this is some kind of prophecy?"
Giles nodded grimly. "Th-that is precisely what I am thinking, Mr. Mulder."
"Willow is nowhere to be found," Lenox growled. "I would not want to think otherwise, Giles...but do you think that this blood was hers?"
Buffy held her breath in fear for her friend.
Giles slowly shook his head. "No," he said softly. "This blood is not
Willow's."
Buffy was relieved, but she also recognized the sudden countenance of the Watcher. That far away look in his eyes, the slow motions, the soft tone. When he acted in this way, Buffy began to worry. The room itself got real quiet, as if sensing some unforeseen doom.
Giles slowly took off his glasses and he took out a handkerchief to wipe at them...whether they needed it or not.
Buffy was getting scared. "Giles...?"
He didn't respond. At least not right away. But when he did speak, he had everyone's attention, and what he said caused chills.
"As I said..." he began, "th-this is not...nor was it Willow's blood. For which I am immensely grateful. However, this b-blood is unclean for it reeks of the rotten decay of the undead."
"Don't you mean 'the dead'?" Scully inquired, feeling a chill in spite of herself.
Giles looked at her harshly. "No, Miss Scully, I don't mean 'the dead.' I mean that this blood reeks of the unholy undead!" He took a deep breath. "I don't know how I can tell you this, but I can feel something horribly evil when I hold that ceremonial jar. I feel the presence of an evil even now that I had not felt since the Hellmouth did open and the Master was free."
Buffy looked at him with dread. "Wh-what are you saying, Giles?"
"This blood is evil, and the one who drinks it must therefore himself be evil. You said that Mr. Fronk had mentioned an Heir?" He took a breath as he returned his glasses to his head. "If I am not mistaken, then I will tell you what this means. Julius has drank from this blood and he has proclaimed himself as the Heir which can only mean one thing...although I- I'm not certain yet how this is possible. But I believe he wants to become the Heir to the Master."
Buffy stared at the ceremonial jar in horror. "Then this blood is...?"
Giles looked at her. "The Master's blood."
Silence fell upon the room.
Mulder finally broke the silence. "So we've got a terrorist who wants to become a new undead Master, and another terrorist out there with a possible nuke. Is that what you're saying?"
Lenox let out a sigh. "I believe that's the gist of it."
Mulder looked at every one of them. Finally, he shook his head, looked at Scully, and snorted. "And you call me paranoid."
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TO BE CONTINUED...