~6~
"They're gone!" Anya ran
into the room, panting and frightened. She and Tara had been left to guard the
rooms holding Willow and Giles, although "monitor" might have been a better
word, since "guard" implied an ability to stop something from happening. "Buffy
went all glow-y, and she vanished. When we checked in the rooms, the Willow and
Giles were gone, too."
"Shit," Andrea exploded.
"This is my fault. I really thought they wouldn't Join again. We can only hope
Unity is still able to keep them under control."
"Not to be the portent of
gloom and doom…" Angel began.
"But you're so *good* at
it," Cordelia interrupted. He glared at her.
"…But do you think they
would have done that if they hadn't figured out a way around Unity's controls?"
"Shit," Andrea repeated.
~**~
Lilah Morgan was staring.
She used to think that, in spite of the pesky way he was always ruining their
plans, Angel had to be the best-looking man she'd ever seen. Sure, Lindsay'd
had a certain nasty charm, but Angel won in the looks department, hands down.
After meeting Dark, he'd now taken a distant second, with little chance to
catch up again.
She'd seen pictures of
Alexander Harris – even videotape. He'd been okay, well, not bad, really. But
this creature wearing his body – she had to admit, if the young man who'd
originally occupied it ever came back, she was going to have to look at him
again, and much closer.
Not that she'd ever make a
move on him like this – she'd worked with enough dangerous creatures, demons
and simple homicidal humans to know a killer when she saw one, and this was one
of the most glaring examples of killer she'd ever seen. He exuded a confidence
and anger that, if you were stupid enough to get close enough to him you could
probably touch. But you'd have to be pretty stupid to want to be within arm's
length of someone as deadly as he clearly was.
Dark had taken off his
jacket, and was sitting at the table, cleaning his knives. He had several, all
very sharp, in varying sizes. She asked him why he didn't carry a gun, and he
laughed in that hollow and humorless way he had, and said that guns were for
sissies. 'They' wanted a weapon where they could feel the blood of their victim
as they killed them. Then he smiled at her, and she got this impression that he
was happily seeing a mental picture of filet of Lilah. She found other places
to be for a while.
When next she saw Dark, he
had his knives all strapped back in place, and he was heading out the front
door. "Sh-sh-should you be leaving?" she asked nervously. Her understanding of
the plan was that Dark Unity was to be their tool – and tools didn't go about
leaving when they felt like it. She wasn't stupid enough to be the one to point
that out to him, however.
"One of your vampire lackeys
tried to tell us that we shouldn't, but we changed his mind. Actually, we made
dust of his mind, along with the rest of his parts. You might want to invest in
a good vacuum," he threw over his shoulder as he left. His last words were, "We
have a very personal message to deliver. Back later."
~**~
Cordelia was nervous – the
portents all indicated that her vision was coming true, and that things were
only going to get worse. She fluttered around the kitchen in the big house, not
really doing anything, but wanting to stay out of the way while the others
looked for protection spells, location spells, anything that could help them
find Unity and keep her from harming anyone. She too had researched until her
eyes were swimming, and she finally offered to come down and make snacks to
keep everyone going.
It was dark, but she was
used to the dark. The thoughts running through her head were scary, but scary
was her business. The house was still cold and strange to her, though. She
wanted Angel down here with her. Now that the nasties were wearing off, she'd
even like to have Wesley here. She wanted… The outside door creaked behind her,
and she spun around.
"Xander! Where have you
been? How did you get in here?"
His smile wasn't quite as
comforting as she'd have liked. "Our house, remember? It helps to know the
location of the hidden key, too." He held up the small copper tool.
Cordy began to babble, not
certain why she was so uncomfortable, aside from the way he'd been treating her
for the past couple of days, of course. This went deeper than that, though.
"Well, if you're back, then maybe it's worn off. I mean, we thought you guys
had Joined, and Unity went all bad and dark, but if you're here, she's not,
and…" She grunted as he pinned her against the refrigerator with his body.
"You talk too damned much,"
he protested, slapping his hand across her mouth. Trapped like that, his face
up to hers, she realized what was wrong. Her Xander had brown eyes, and this
one didn't. And she'd seen ice chunks warmer than these hazel orbs. His other
hand was crushing her breast, almost as if he were actually interested in her
body, although she had strong feeling that this man only wanted her body if it
would cause her pain. Which, she knew from his face, it would if he decided to
try anything. "We need you to scream, Cordelia. We have to talk to everybody,
and you can bring them all down here." Mockery danced in the cruel smile on his
face. She was aware that the hand across her mouth had moved, and was now
holding a huge sharp knife to her throat. He wanted her to scream. She could
scream, all right.
They tumbled into the
kitchen only minutes later, falling all over each other to be the first one
there. It felt like hours to Cordelia. Angel managed to be first, as usual, and
he roared when he saw the scene, diving towards this pseudo-Xander with his
normal "I'm already dead, you can't kill me" bravado. The strange copy batted
the vampire away almost casually, and he flew across the kitchen, landing near
the outside door.
"Good," not-Xander said in a
deep British-tinged voice that suddenly sounded completely alien to her.
"You're all here." He stepped back from Cody, who had to concentrate on staying
on her feet, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much
he'd shaken her. "We didn't want to have to say all this twice."
Angel was picking himself
gingerly off the floor, looking like his demon was ready to surface. What the
not-Xander said next knocked the breath out of all the others, and certainly
gave the vampire pause.
"We're Dark Unity. Our
friends call us Dark." He looked up from cleaning his nails with the knife he'd
been holding to Cordy's throat with a twisted parody of Xander's smirk.
"Actually, they're not our friends. They brought us here to use us, and we
intend to pay them back for that. Soon, they'll call us 'Master.' But you can
call us Dark." He cleaned his nails for a moment more, and Angel tried to move
on him again. In less than a heartbeat, he had the knife back at Cordy's
throat. "Although you aren't our friends, either." Angel held up his hands in
the universal gesture of surrender. Finally, ignoring the May Queen's tears
entirely, 'Dark' lowered the knife again and went back to working on his nails.
"We suppose you want to know why we don't just kill you all now. The idea does
have its appeal. But suffering and fear is the real fun, and we learned from a
master." The look he gave Angel could have frozen a blast furnace. "Isn't that
right, lover?" he sneered, in voice that was clearly Buffy's. He looked around
the circle of faces, most strained and pale. "Since this is our home, we'll be
back as soon as we straighten things out with the folks who so graciously
brought us here. But make no mistake, we will be back." With a twirl, he
sheathed the knife and gave a sardonic half-bow. Smoothly he slid out the door
and melted into the night.
"Shit," Andrea whispered. It
was becoming her mantra for the night.
~**~
"We can't do an uninvite
spell," Amy insisted. "He, they, whatever – the four people whose names are on
the title documents are in there. It's their house."
"B-b-besides," Tara
stuttered, "Not vampires."
"Maybe we should just change
the locks, then," Anya insisted stubbornly.
"Uhm," Oz reminded her,
"Still their house."
The group was getting
nowhere in deciding how to protect themselves from this new threat. Cordelia
was quietly trying to recover from her shock, while Andrea seemed bogged down
in hers. Angel fluttered around Cordy, trying to fuss without being obvious,
and earning her grateful smile after one particularly awkward attempt.
Wesley was pretty much
Wesley again – nervous and brave in turns, with flashes of genuine brilliance.
They could use the brilliance right now, but they got the fear, instead. "Why
don't we just leave? As has been amply mentioned, this is their residence.
Let's leave it to them, and go home." Anya appeared about to agree. It was
obvious that her fear was, once Dark finished with Cordelia, one of Xander's
ex-girlfriends, the next logical target would be another ex-girlfriend. Being
the only qualifying candidate, the former demon wanted to be far away when that
time came.
Angel whirled on his
co-worker, eyes snapping. "When I was Angelus, did any of them run away? They
were brave enough to take me on, and probably saved a lot of lives because of
it. Now they're in the thrall of a demon of some sorts themselves, and you want
to leave them to do things they'll never live down, once they're free. Forget
it. We stay, and we find a way to get them loose from this Dark monster."
"Dark isn't a monster, or a
demon. He's the walking embodiment of what we all carry somewhere in our
hearts," Andrea said emotionlessly, speaking for the first time since the
incident in the kitchen. "If the emotions that fuel him weren't so strong, he
wouldn't be, either." She looked up, turmoil churning in her eyes. "I knew.
I've always known they all had issues, and they needed to talk to someone about
them, but I let it go. They've been incredibly strong people, dealing with
them, hiding them and overcoming them so well that it took magic to bring them
out. If I had just handled it all when I could." She finally broke down,
burying her face in her hands and sobbing.
Angel looked at Cordy, who
moved to the couch to sit beside the doctor. The vampire sat on her other side,
and pulling her gently, brought her head to his chest. He rocked her, and
Cordelia stroked her back and patted her, until she'd cried herself to sleep.
Then they stretched her out on the couch, covered her up, and moved the
planning session to the dining room.
~**~
*Too easy,* Dark thought.
*But still satisfying.* He entered the rental home, his blood churning from the
fear he'd absorbed from Cordelia. He needed more of that emotion – it was so
energizing.
Lilah Morgan had been
debating whether she should just cut the firm's losses here, and cancel the
entire Dark Unity project. Sadly, it wouldn't be the first time one of her
brilliant schemes had spun madly out of her control, and she wondered if she'd
ever learn that the stronger the evil, the less likely it would be to want to
do the bidding of a bunch of lawyers. Darla had been Lindsey's last straw;
maybe Dark would be hers. Oh, she found herself thinking distractedly, now
*that* would be an interesting couple…
The door to her room flew open,
and the tall handsome embodiment of evil strode in. "We had some fun," he
announced and smiled, his eyes rapidly narrowing. "Now we're restless. You
could help us burn off some energy." It wasn't a question or a request. It was
more of a command.
The attorney jumped up from
her bed, sensing that was the wrong place to be while having this conversation.
She backed away slightly, trying to maneuver towards the door. "How about a
jog? I noticed a great trail, just the other side…" She dropped off, wondering
how he'd gotten that close to her without her noticing. His hot breath was
ruffling her hair.
"We don't run. From
anything," he growled as he grabbed her arm with a bruising grip. "Things run
from *us*."
She nodded in complete
understanding. "I could do that. Yeah…" She kept trying to back away, but he
wasn't letting go, and she was running out of room to move in.
Her salvation came from the
most unlikely source, running through the door with an aluminum baseball bat in
hand and managing to connect with Dark's head before the being reacted. "I was
the only one who knew you couldn't be trusted. You're mad, I tell you, MAD!"
Quentin Travers screamed and tried to clobber Dark again, but the tall man had
a firm hold on the bat, and seemed to be denting it with his fingertips. He
actually, genuinely laughed.
"It is true that it takes
one to know one, isn't it?" Dark asked with humor. Travers refused to release
his weapon, so Dark pulled it from his hands and tossed it aside, winding his
fingers in the Watcher's shirt, his expression mercurial. Anger replaced the
humor, and he snarled viciously, "You're the asshole that tried to kill our
Willow, aren't you? We owe you." He body slammed the bulky man against the wall
with one hand, demanding. "You are, aren't you? Why aren't you dead? We love
her." *Slam.* Travers' head was wobbling, his grip on consciousness slipping.
"We hate you." *Slam.* Lilah, who was
watching in sick fascination from where she'd slid down the wall when Dark had
released her, saw the entity shimmer for a moment, and his eyes flashed from
hazel to brown. A look of horror crossed his face, and he dropped the limp and
possibly dead body of Quentin Travers and ran from the room.
She wanted to crawl over and
check to see if Quentin still had a pulse, really she did. She would have liked
to get up and wipe the bloodstain that had been left by the repeated impact of
the back of the Watcher's head off of her wall. But all the frightened woman
inside her was capable of was sitting there, sobbing and mentally writing her
letter of resignation.
~**~
"Hi," Andrea said sleepily.
The planning group had reassembled after spending a restless night trying to
sleep spread out around the house. No one looked overly rested, even the
doctor, whose emotional collapse had guaranteed her almost eight hours of
shut-eye. The others had talked and worked late into the night before
succumbing to exhaustion. "I thought of something that might be helpful."
Dunkin' Donuts boxes
littered the table, and Cordelia silently handed the older woman a Styrofoam
cup of coffee from the same establishment. At Andrea's raised eyebrow, she
shrugged. "Still afraid of the water," Cordy answered shortly.
"So, what do you have for
us?" Angel pressed. "'Cos we're fresh out of good ideas, and we've pretty much
examined even all the bad ones." He wasn't hiding particularly well the fact he
was eaten up with guilt that his alter ego was the named inspiration for this
new danger to them all.
"I'm sure you noticed that
Dark refers to himself plurally," she pointed out. "You know – 'Our friends
call us Dark?'" The people at the table nodded. "When we first met Unity, she
did the same thing. She didn't discover the personal pronoun 'I' until she
started to exist as her own person, independent of the four she was built upon.
So Dark is still the four of them, somewhere in there. He isn't thinking on his
own."
"I'm not sure I find that
comforting," Cordy said slowly. "That means our friends are willing and capable
of terrorizing and killing us all. Not a warm, cozy thought."
"But they wouldn't be, if it
weren't for the enchanted water. As it wears off, so will Dark, maybe."
Angel spoke for all of them
when he said, "For the first time in two days, I see a reason for hope."
~**~
Dark had spent the night in
a secluded crypt in of one of the many cemeteries in Sunnydale. Their Body had
occupied the same crypt before he'd called Dark together with one purpose. No
one would look for them here, and the Body had known that, too. The others
would be concerned about vamps. Vampires didn't frighten Dark in the least;
they were actually hoping one would take them on, so they could release some of
their tension.
There was a war on, and it
was being fought inside Dark. Their Spirit, and to a lesser extent their Mind,
were pulling away from the Heart and Body. The anger, the desire for pain was
still the strongest thing in them, but there was a softness, and they'd had to
push it down more than once. They kicked one of the empty canteens across the
crypt, irritated that the Body had finished all the water earlier, because they
were thirsty now. Throwing the strap of the other empty canteen over their
shoulder, they strode out to take care of some business. Perhaps a little
activity would bind them fully again.
~**~
"Flight one-sixty-eight to
Chicago, now departing from Gate 31C," the emotionless voice droned from the
overhead speaker. Ernst Heinrich scurried through the airport, his hat pulled
low on his brow.
One of the first lessons
he'd learned in the dog-eat-dog existence of a member of the Watcher's Council
was, "He that schemes and runs away, lives to scheme another day." Ernst had
lived this many years by following that credo, and now he was quite intent on
living at least a few more. Dark was a brilliant tool for evil, and he wished
Wolfram & Hart all the luck in the world in using him, but he seriously
doubted they'd survive the experience. If they did, they might want their money
back. He'd worry about that when the time came. Right now, he needed to get out
of here.
Miss Rogers wasn't too sure
if Travers was going to make it, either. His pulse had been thready and weak,
in her words. His already unstable mental condition wouldn't be helped any by
the head trauma, if he did indeed live. Heinrich had given her a large amount
of money and told her to take care of it, either way. He wondered if she'd let
him know the outcome. At this point, he wasn't sure he cared.
"Flight three-twenty,
departing for London, will begin boarding at gate 14C," the uncaring female
announced, and Ernst moved quickly to the door. He was already fabricating an
alibi, to be fleshed out and filled in on the long flight home. He really never
wanted to return to the States. Maybe he'd even retire…
~**~
Hope. There was actually
hope that this might all end before anyone she knew ended up dead. This meant a
lot to Cordelia Chase – she didn't like friends dying on her. Or even
acquaintances. Anyone but demons dying was usually a bad thing, although she'd
reserve judgment on the folks from Wolfram & Hart, probably. No need to
make sweeping statements, after all.
Maybe she'd go inside and
change, put on her bathing suit, and relax in the hot tub. She took a sip from
the bottle of water. She just felt cooped up in the house, and decided to sit
by the pool for a while for a change of scenery. If she were really lucky,
nothing bad would happen for the rest of the day.
"Cordelia. Just who we were
hoping to see."
Just once, she'd like to be
really lucky.
~**~
