Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Sigh.
"Damn," Xander hissed, shifting his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet nervously, "I wish this thing went faster...I mean, you'd think gravity would make it move just a little bit-"
"Shut up, Xander..." Darla snarled, "It's not going to go any faster, and saying that just irritates me."
"You say that like it's a bad thing..." the young necromancer pointed out with a weak grin. He couldn't manage much more; he was too nervous. So he watched the numbers go by. And he was sure that each number was going slower and slower and slow-
"Cut it out!" Darla insisted, obviously wishing she could hit him.
"Cut out what?" he asked irately.
"With the...staring," she told him with what he would have sworn was a shiver, "And those flames in your eyes...I've never liked Azrael's flame around me..."
"Well EXCUSE ME!" Xander exclaimed, throwing his arms wide, "And would the Madame also like a glass of heated blood with her whine?"
"Shut up..." the vampiress muttered.
"I'm not gonna shu-"
Then she heard something.
"No, seriously," Darla insisted, her tone completely serious, "Shut up. I thought I heard something out there...like the sound of radios..."
Xander sighed tiredly. "It's probably some blue-blood swindling a Fyarl demon out of its last loogie or something..." the raiser told her, "Nothing to do with us. I mean, as important as we are, I'm sure there are OTHER things going on."
"Whatever..." the blonde vampire agreed as she continued to listen intently to the sounds around the elevator. It didn't help that she looked exceedingly perturbed, which did nothing to calm the necromancer's own nerves. He began to pace, walking quietly so as not to distract his 'partner'.
This continued for a couple more levels, until a look of alarm crossed Darla's face.
"Xander, they know we've escaped!" she told him anxiously, "I heard it on one of their radios. A guard on our floor saw us and-"
It was at this point that a heavy clanking noise interrupted Darla. This was followed by something that alarmed Xander even worse then the vampiress' unease.
The elevator stopped.
"And they aren't letting either of us go without a fight..."
##
Angel, Cordelia, Doyle, and Wesley rushed down the stairs, finding the elevator that they'd used earlier to be far too slow for their current purposes. They needed to get to the car. They needed to get to the car-
"NOW!" the seer screeched as they reached the convertible, "If we don't get there in time, Lindsay and the rest of those over-paid assholes will capture them again!"
Angel looked at his secretary, unable to keep all the annoyance out of her voice. "I understand that, Cordelia..."
"Then hit the bloody pedal!" chorused Doyle and Wesley, both shouting at the top of their lungs even though it was the middle of the night.
The souled vampire raised an eyebrow.
"You don't want to wait for Michael and Kat?"
There was a pause.
"No, we don't have time. And I'm sure they know where the building is. They can drive themselves..." Cordelia reasoned, "We have to get there now."
"But-"
"NOW!"
##
Xander's heart skipped a beat. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Okay, the time for bullshit is over," he announced to her quickly, "Darla, you need to open those doors manually, while I work on the ceiling hatch."
"Well, which way are we going?"
"Open the doors and I'll tell you..." Xander answered her briskly as he began to work on the hatch, "If we're on a floor, we'll head this way and escape to the level above us. If we're halfway between levels, we'll slip through the one below us, and we'll leave both doors open."
"And?"
"And..." the necromancer continued, "Then they won't know where we went. They're hunting for us, so there won't be guards in unneeded places. But with both doors open, they won't know which one is unneeded. They'll have to guess-"
"And," Darla finished for him as she realized what he was doing, "With us hidden from the cameras, that guessing will be difficult. Unless we-"
"Bang a hole through the floor and slid down, completely confusing them by covering the hole with a bit of illusion."
Darla raised an eyebrow. "You got the power to backup that plan?"
Xander thought, then nodded. "Yeah. With the traces on you and my own returning strength, I should be able to do it with just a bit left over. Damn, I wish I was at full strength. I could've blasted through the wall and-"
"Well, you're not, so stop whining..." the vampiress told him, all business, "Let's get working..."
##
"Great track record, Lindsey..."
Lindsey McDonald looked across to one of his colleagues and sneered.
"Well, you try harnessing a LaVelle necromancer," he challenged angrily as he listened to the buzzing and the crackling on the radio, "At least we got to use him for what we needed the most."
Lilah didn't answer for a moment, but finally slid behind her fellow lawyer and whispered into this ear.
"You couldn't convince him to take a six figure salary, with paid vacations..." she reminded him, "That's pretty bad for a lawyer of your reputation..."
"Need I remind you that the boy is a former friend of the Slayer?" Lindsey pointed out irately, "One who fought...evil, as one would say...for years before even discovering his powers? People like that aren't as easy to deal with. They see the world in black and white-"
"And to his eyes, we are decidedly black..." Lilah finished with a smirk, "But that's not my problem, is it?"
"Yes, you're still trying to get that young telekinetic, aren't you?" Lindsey mentioned disdainfully, "That abused little-"
"Don't talk about her like that!" the attorney interrupted angrily, "I only want the best for her..."
"So you drag her into this lion's den?" he asked, "Lilah, I may be doing the same with this LaVelle boy, but at least I'm honest with myself about it."
"Just shut up, Lindsey..." she replied, "Get back to your job. Maybe FIND the LaVelle boy so that you can try and talk to him."
"I'll do that..." he answered with a smile on his face. He loved getting Lilah riled up. It made him feel productive. "So why don't you go along your way?"
"I'll do that..." Lilah answered mockingly. And then she walked out the door.
Lindsey watched her make her way out, then turned his attention to the radio, where voices intermingled with the crackle and buzz.
"I'll talk to him," Lindsey vowed, "And he WILL work here. Even if it kills him..."
##
Grunt.
Grunt.
Grunt.
Sigh.
Darla looked down to Xander, who was ever so slowly making his way down the large metal wire.
"Can't you go any faster?" she asked with a sneer.
Xander glanced up quickly, his eyes still wide with fear. "Well, I'm sorry that I'm a little against plummeting to my death, being that it'll kill me and all."
The vampiress raised an eyebrow and went back to her own work, unable to argue with that logic. She supposed it didn't really matter how fast they went at this point. No one knew where they were. But, the little nervous part of her mind insisted, faster was better.
And that was when they both heard the 'clang'.
Followed by the 'whirring'.
"Oh no..." muttered Xander, "This is SO not of the good..."
The elevator started.
"Very not good..." agreed Darla with a frantic shuffle, which was almost matched by an equally upset Xander.
Then it started coming down.
##
"Hurry! Hurry!" Cordelia shouted, her instructions nearly deafening the souled vampire to the other noises of the street. Not that he was listening to them. Not that he had the time to, according to Cordelia.
Doyle joined his love in urging Angel onto to even further break the speed limit...or perhaps the sound barrier. "Can't ya' go any faster, man?"
"Indeed!" cried Wesley, who the vampire was sure had simply gotten caught up in the whole adrenaline-rushed insanity. Normally, the former Watcher was so hesitant to correct his 'boss' in anything that it was a wonder he ever did anything without asking. On the first day, Angel had actually thought that he would ask to use the men's room.
But, he had to admit, the three had a point. They had to get there as soon as possible, even if that meant practically destroying his car to do so. He owed it to Xander and to Griffin & Draco, not to mention all their friends in Sunnydale, to get him back.
And with this in mind, Angel lessened the pressure on the gas just slightly for a moment, then rammed his foot down on the peddle as hard as he could.
##
"Michael, hurry up! We're losing them!"
The Mindwalker, known to those who she called friends as Kat, pointed towards the speeding black convertible.
"Come on!"
"Oh, shut up, Kat!" cried Michael, who was trying his hardest not to make the door handle fly off and smack her in the face, "I'm working on it!"
"Well, work harder! They're getting-"
"I know they're getting away!" the telekinetic answered in a growl, "But I only have a Hundai! I'm doing the best I can in this piece of crap..."
"Huh..."
Michael looked over, nearly hit a stop sign, then pulled his eyes to the road.
"What do you mean, 'huh...'?"
Kat turned, looking like a rather miffed feline, "You still blame him for the banana pudding, don't you?"
The LaVelle raised an eyebrow, but kept his view on the street. "What?"
"That banana pudding Alex slipped onto your chair when he was two. You know he was just a baby. And yet, you still hold it against him, don't you?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
Kat sighed. "I knew it. You still hold it against him, and that's why you're driving so slow. You want to get back at him."
"Are not."
"Are too..."
"Are not."
"Are too."
There was a pause.
"This is really juvenile, you know..." Michael pointed out as they took a sharp turn which sent Kat's smaller frame up against the door.
"So is what you're doing." Kat replied.
"I'm NOT-"
"Then prove it!"
"Fine."
And Michael slammed his foot onto the gas peddle.
"That's better..."
##
"It's moving."
Xander took a deep breath and kept from smacking Darla's ankle.
"I know it's moving."
"And what are you going to do about it?" she asked anxiously as the huge metal box inched closer and closer to them.
"No clue."
Darla waited a minute for him to say he was kidding, then repeated.
"No clue?"
"No clue." He affirmed for her.
They watched and listened as the elevator continued to make it's way towards them.
"What about you?" Xander asked suddenly, "Got any 'I'm-a-four-hundred-year-old-vampire-who-wants-to-live' brilliance in that blonde head of yours?"
She looked up.
"Not at the moment, no."
"Lovely."
"Look," the vampiress asked, her eyes pleading as she stared down at the young man below her, "Can't you just...I don't know, pull some magic from...somewhere and blast us a hole somewhere? Or maybe levitate us down gently? Stop the elevator?"
"Nope." Xander replied dolefully, "I'm all tapped out."
"Great." Darla muttered, "Plenty of the crap to get us into this damn situation, but nothing to get us out."
Or at least, nothing to get him out, she thought, I can just jump, recover, and tear myself out of the building.
"And by the way," the necromancer added with just the tiniest hint of cheer in his voice, "We're in this together. You are not allowed to save yourself without me."
How does he do that!? She fumed, though in all honesty, she wasn't all that upset. For some reason, the idea of simply saving her own skin didn't appeal to her as much as she'd thought it would. Darla wasn't sure if it was the master-servant bond to the young man, or something else, but she wanted to help him, to save him. She wanted him to live, even though the darker corners of her mind told her that she'd be free if he died.
"Then what are we going to do?" the vampire questioned. Then a thought came into her mind. "Xander? What is this robe made out of?"
The young raiser looked up to Darla with confusion written plainly on his face. "Silk. Very fine silk. Why, are you worried about dying in rayon?"
"That could work..." she muttered, ignoring the young man as she worked to secure one arm around the cable while the other reached down. When she had accomplished this in a manner which she trusted, Darla grabbed the bottom of the robe she had taken earlier from Xander and tore off two long strips.
"Here..." she told him as she let the one strip flutter down to the young man's waiting hand.
"And do what? Make a little bow?"
"No, you moron," Darla cried angrily, "Wrap it around your hands."
"Why?"
"Cause," the vampire replied as she did what she'd instructed Xander to do, "We're gonna slide down, and we need to cut down on the friction."
"Slide?" the young man asked skeptically.
"Yes, slide..." the blonde answered, "I can't guarantee that your hands won't get a little burned, but-"
"But it's better then getting killed by an elevator..." Xander finished for her.
There was a pause in the talking as the two secured the fabric around their hands, though there was unfortunately not a pause in the sound of the huge metal box coming towards them.
"You ready?"
Xander gulped in an almost comical way, then nodded.
"As ready as I'll ever be..."
The vampire and the necromancer locked eyes, then winked at each other almost in unison.
"Then go!"
And Xander began his plummet into the darkness below...
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Sigh.
"Damn," Xander hissed, shifting his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet nervously, "I wish this thing went faster...I mean, you'd think gravity would make it move just a little bit-"
"Shut up, Xander..." Darla snarled, "It's not going to go any faster, and saying that just irritates me."
"You say that like it's a bad thing..." the young necromancer pointed out with a weak grin. He couldn't manage much more; he was too nervous. So he watched the numbers go by. And he was sure that each number was going slower and slower and slow-
"Cut it out!" Darla insisted, obviously wishing she could hit him.
"Cut out what?" he asked irately.
"With the...staring," she told him with what he would have sworn was a shiver, "And those flames in your eyes...I've never liked Azrael's flame around me..."
"Well EXCUSE ME!" Xander exclaimed, throwing his arms wide, "And would the Madame also like a glass of heated blood with her whine?"
"Shut up..." the vampiress muttered.
"I'm not gonna shu-"
Then she heard something.
"No, seriously," Darla insisted, her tone completely serious, "Shut up. I thought I heard something out there...like the sound of radios..."
Xander sighed tiredly. "It's probably some blue-blood swindling a Fyarl demon out of its last loogie or something..." the raiser told her, "Nothing to do with us. I mean, as important as we are, I'm sure there are OTHER things going on."
"Whatever..." the blonde vampire agreed as she continued to listen intently to the sounds around the elevator. It didn't help that she looked exceedingly perturbed, which did nothing to calm the necromancer's own nerves. He began to pace, walking quietly so as not to distract his 'partner'.
This continued for a couple more levels, until a look of alarm crossed Darla's face.
"Xander, they know we've escaped!" she told him anxiously, "I heard it on one of their radios. A guard on our floor saw us and-"
It was at this point that a heavy clanking noise interrupted Darla. This was followed by something that alarmed Xander even worse then the vampiress' unease.
The elevator stopped.
"And they aren't letting either of us go without a fight..."
##
Angel, Cordelia, Doyle, and Wesley rushed down the stairs, finding the elevator that they'd used earlier to be far too slow for their current purposes. They needed to get to the car. They needed to get to the car-
"NOW!" the seer screeched as they reached the convertible, "If we don't get there in time, Lindsay and the rest of those over-paid assholes will capture them again!"
Angel looked at his secretary, unable to keep all the annoyance out of her voice. "I understand that, Cordelia..."
"Then hit the bloody pedal!" chorused Doyle and Wesley, both shouting at the top of their lungs even though it was the middle of the night.
The souled vampire raised an eyebrow.
"You don't want to wait for Michael and Kat?"
There was a pause.
"No, we don't have time. And I'm sure they know where the building is. They can drive themselves..." Cordelia reasoned, "We have to get there now."
"But-"
"NOW!"
##
Xander's heart skipped a beat. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Okay, the time for bullshit is over," he announced to her quickly, "Darla, you need to open those doors manually, while I work on the ceiling hatch."
"Well, which way are we going?"
"Open the doors and I'll tell you..." Xander answered her briskly as he began to work on the hatch, "If we're on a floor, we'll head this way and escape to the level above us. If we're halfway between levels, we'll slip through the one below us, and we'll leave both doors open."
"And?"
"And..." the necromancer continued, "Then they won't know where we went. They're hunting for us, so there won't be guards in unneeded places. But with both doors open, they won't know which one is unneeded. They'll have to guess-"
"And," Darla finished for him as she realized what he was doing, "With us hidden from the cameras, that guessing will be difficult. Unless we-"
"Bang a hole through the floor and slid down, completely confusing them by covering the hole with a bit of illusion."
Darla raised an eyebrow. "You got the power to backup that plan?"
Xander thought, then nodded. "Yeah. With the traces on you and my own returning strength, I should be able to do it with just a bit left over. Damn, I wish I was at full strength. I could've blasted through the wall and-"
"Well, you're not, so stop whining..." the vampiress told him, all business, "Let's get working..."
##
"Great track record, Lindsey..."
Lindsey McDonald looked across to one of his colleagues and sneered.
"Well, you try harnessing a LaVelle necromancer," he challenged angrily as he listened to the buzzing and the crackling on the radio, "At least we got to use him for what we needed the most."
Lilah didn't answer for a moment, but finally slid behind her fellow lawyer and whispered into this ear.
"You couldn't convince him to take a six figure salary, with paid vacations..." she reminded him, "That's pretty bad for a lawyer of your reputation..."
"Need I remind you that the boy is a former friend of the Slayer?" Lindsey pointed out irately, "One who fought...evil, as one would say...for years before even discovering his powers? People like that aren't as easy to deal with. They see the world in black and white-"
"And to his eyes, we are decidedly black..." Lilah finished with a smirk, "But that's not my problem, is it?"
"Yes, you're still trying to get that young telekinetic, aren't you?" Lindsey mentioned disdainfully, "That abused little-"
"Don't talk about her like that!" the attorney interrupted angrily, "I only want the best for her..."
"So you drag her into this lion's den?" he asked, "Lilah, I may be doing the same with this LaVelle boy, but at least I'm honest with myself about it."
"Just shut up, Lindsey..." she replied, "Get back to your job. Maybe FIND the LaVelle boy so that you can try and talk to him."
"I'll do that..." he answered with a smile on his face. He loved getting Lilah riled up. It made him feel productive. "So why don't you go along your way?"
"I'll do that..." Lilah answered mockingly. And then she walked out the door.
Lindsey watched her make her way out, then turned his attention to the radio, where voices intermingled with the crackle and buzz.
"I'll talk to him," Lindsey vowed, "And he WILL work here. Even if it kills him..."
##
Grunt.
Grunt.
Grunt.
Sigh.
Darla looked down to Xander, who was ever so slowly making his way down the large metal wire.
"Can't you go any faster?" she asked with a sneer.
Xander glanced up quickly, his eyes still wide with fear. "Well, I'm sorry that I'm a little against plummeting to my death, being that it'll kill me and all."
The vampiress raised an eyebrow and went back to her own work, unable to argue with that logic. She supposed it didn't really matter how fast they went at this point. No one knew where they were. But, the little nervous part of her mind insisted, faster was better.
And that was when they both heard the 'clang'.
Followed by the 'whirring'.
"Oh no..." muttered Xander, "This is SO not of the good..."
The elevator started.
"Very not good..." agreed Darla with a frantic shuffle, which was almost matched by an equally upset Xander.
Then it started coming down.
##
"Hurry! Hurry!" Cordelia shouted, her instructions nearly deafening the souled vampire to the other noises of the street. Not that he was listening to them. Not that he had the time to, according to Cordelia.
Doyle joined his love in urging Angel onto to even further break the speed limit...or perhaps the sound barrier. "Can't ya' go any faster, man?"
"Indeed!" cried Wesley, who the vampire was sure had simply gotten caught up in the whole adrenaline-rushed insanity. Normally, the former Watcher was so hesitant to correct his 'boss' in anything that it was a wonder he ever did anything without asking. On the first day, Angel had actually thought that he would ask to use the men's room.
But, he had to admit, the three had a point. They had to get there as soon as possible, even if that meant practically destroying his car to do so. He owed it to Xander and to Griffin & Draco, not to mention all their friends in Sunnydale, to get him back.
And with this in mind, Angel lessened the pressure on the gas just slightly for a moment, then rammed his foot down on the peddle as hard as he could.
##
"Michael, hurry up! We're losing them!"
The Mindwalker, known to those who she called friends as Kat, pointed towards the speeding black convertible.
"Come on!"
"Oh, shut up, Kat!" cried Michael, who was trying his hardest not to make the door handle fly off and smack her in the face, "I'm working on it!"
"Well, work harder! They're getting-"
"I know they're getting away!" the telekinetic answered in a growl, "But I only have a Hundai! I'm doing the best I can in this piece of crap..."
"Huh..."
Michael looked over, nearly hit a stop sign, then pulled his eyes to the road.
"What do you mean, 'huh...'?"
Kat turned, looking like a rather miffed feline, "You still blame him for the banana pudding, don't you?"
The LaVelle raised an eyebrow, but kept his view on the street. "What?"
"That banana pudding Alex slipped onto your chair when he was two. You know he was just a baby. And yet, you still hold it against him, don't you?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
Kat sighed. "I knew it. You still hold it against him, and that's why you're driving so slow. You want to get back at him."
"Are not."
"Are too..."
"Are not."
"Are too."
There was a pause.
"This is really juvenile, you know..." Michael pointed out as they took a sharp turn which sent Kat's smaller frame up against the door.
"So is what you're doing." Kat replied.
"I'm NOT-"
"Then prove it!"
"Fine."
And Michael slammed his foot onto the gas peddle.
"That's better..."
##
"It's moving."
Xander took a deep breath and kept from smacking Darla's ankle.
"I know it's moving."
"And what are you going to do about it?" she asked anxiously as the huge metal box inched closer and closer to them.
"No clue."
Darla waited a minute for him to say he was kidding, then repeated.
"No clue?"
"No clue." He affirmed for her.
They watched and listened as the elevator continued to make it's way towards them.
"What about you?" Xander asked suddenly, "Got any 'I'm-a-four-hundred-year-old-vampire-who-wants-to-live' brilliance in that blonde head of yours?"
She looked up.
"Not at the moment, no."
"Lovely."
"Look," the vampiress asked, her eyes pleading as she stared down at the young man below her, "Can't you just...I don't know, pull some magic from...somewhere and blast us a hole somewhere? Or maybe levitate us down gently? Stop the elevator?"
"Nope." Xander replied dolefully, "I'm all tapped out."
"Great." Darla muttered, "Plenty of the crap to get us into this damn situation, but nothing to get us out."
Or at least, nothing to get him out, she thought, I can just jump, recover, and tear myself out of the building.
"And by the way," the necromancer added with just the tiniest hint of cheer in his voice, "We're in this together. You are not allowed to save yourself without me."
How does he do that!? She fumed, though in all honesty, she wasn't all that upset. For some reason, the idea of simply saving her own skin didn't appeal to her as much as she'd thought it would. Darla wasn't sure if it was the master-servant bond to the young man, or something else, but she wanted to help him, to save him. She wanted him to live, even though the darker corners of her mind told her that she'd be free if he died.
"Then what are we going to do?" the vampire questioned. Then a thought came into her mind. "Xander? What is this robe made out of?"
The young raiser looked up to Darla with confusion written plainly on his face. "Silk. Very fine silk. Why, are you worried about dying in rayon?"
"That could work..." she muttered, ignoring the young man as she worked to secure one arm around the cable while the other reached down. When she had accomplished this in a manner which she trusted, Darla grabbed the bottom of the robe she had taken earlier from Xander and tore off two long strips.
"Here..." she told him as she let the one strip flutter down to the young man's waiting hand.
"And do what? Make a little bow?"
"No, you moron," Darla cried angrily, "Wrap it around your hands."
"Why?"
"Cause," the vampire replied as she did what she'd instructed Xander to do, "We're gonna slide down, and we need to cut down on the friction."
"Slide?" the young man asked skeptically.
"Yes, slide..." the blonde answered, "I can't guarantee that your hands won't get a little burned, but-"
"But it's better then getting killed by an elevator..." Xander finished for her.
There was a pause in the talking as the two secured the fabric around their hands, though there was unfortunately not a pause in the sound of the huge metal box coming towards them.
"You ready?"
Xander gulped in an almost comical way, then nodded.
"As ready as I'll ever be..."
The vampire and the necromancer locked eyes, then winked at each other almost in unison.
"Then go!"
And Xander began his plummet into the darkness below...