DR2 - The Cross of Changes by Nick Midian, Book I, part 2 of 5

Written by Nick Midian

Content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Duncan
English grammar, spelling, slang, Highlander continuity and general corrections
by Theo
French slang, content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Mash
French slang by Alan


EMAIL: jcaballero@euskalnet.net

WEBSITE: http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/thedarkages

SPOILERS: For Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow kissing
and no Lover's Walk (welcome to the wonderful State of Denial, Land of
'Shippiness). Hmmm, I've messed with the third season's timeline to accommodate
it to my necessities. Let's just say that 'Band Candy' happened a lot later than
it did, around the first days of February, OK?
For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are only
tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of Highlander-style
immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole 'Immortals have no parents and
are found in a little basket' is a... um, the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada',
so let's just ignore it, OK?
KEYWORDS: Romance, Angst, Action-adventure, Violence, Alternate Universe,
Crossover.
RATING: PG-13 with some mild R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.
DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit, merely for
the pleasure of writing and sharing it.
The concept and characters of BTVS (Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Xander, Willow, Oz,
Giles, Joyce, Spike, Drusilla, Snyder, Faith, Harmony, Lyle Gorch, Quentin
Travers and the rest) are intellectual and legal property of Joss Whedon, Warner
Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc. Also, the concept of Highlander and the characters
mentioned here (Duncan MacLeod, Amanda Darieux, Richie Ryan, Joe Dawson and the
Society of Watchers) are the property of Panzer-Davis and Rysher Entertainment.
Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Robert
Coltrane, Elvis the Dog, Broderick Egoyan, Damon Frost, Mr. Smith, the World
Committee for Civil Defense and the rest are my own creation.
All the songs and lyrics here are used without permission, they are copyright of
their respective rights owners.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please, understand that English is not my native language, so
any grammatical or spelling errors are my fault, not of any one of my wonderful
beta-readers. If you're thinking of sending any flames, please be kind with me.
I'm a grown man, but I still can cry like a child, believe me.
Additional Author's Note: The songs performed by Oz's band are 'Loli Jackson'
and 'Serenade' by Dover. It appears courtesy of Subterfuge records. All rights
reserved, yadda, yadda, yadda...
SUMMARY: After the events in 'Dark Reflection' a new threat menaces both the
Slayerettes and the Archangels as new and old enemies come to Sunnydale, merging
past and present. This time, it's something personal - ta-da-da-dam!!! (sorry,
but I just had to say that)

And now, on with the show. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gentlemen, because
it's going to be a long, hard and jumpy ride...

~~~~~~

The cast for Book I:

Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
David Boreanaz as Angel
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Seth Green as Daniel 'Oz' Osborne
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux
Paula Trickey as Rachel Curran
James Marsters as Spike
Nikki Cox as Crystal Parker
David James Elliott as Kyle White Owl
Elvis the Dog as Himself

Eliza Dushku as Faith Adams
Donald Sutherland as The Old Chess Player
Sebastian Spence as Damon Frost
Avery Brooks as Mr. Smith

Harris Yulin as Quentin Travers
John Heard as Officer Mark Hastings, SPD
Nicholle Tom as Myriam Archer
Brian Bosworth as Cecil
Denniz Franz as Det. Edward Kowalsky, LAPD

and

Nicholas Lea as Jonah Whalls

~~~~~~


CHAPTER ONE: Death from above (the boys are back in town)
Los Angeles, California. December 1, 2002. 11:37 p.m.

Dead I am the one, exterminating son
Slipping through the trees, strangling the breeze
Dead I am the sky, watching angels cry
As they slowly turn, conquering the worm
Dead I am the life, dig into the skin
Knuckle crack the bone, 21 to win
Dead I am the dog, hound of hell you cry
Devil on your back, I can never die

"Dragula", Rob Zombie


They called it the City of Light; but that night, after the rain, Los Angeles
was a depressing place, full of dark alleys and empty streets that reeked of wet
trash and lost souls. A place where, by definition, you wouldn't want to find
yourself alone and helpless.

That night, as the witching hour came closer and closer, a strange feeling was
covering the city like a blanket of darkness. It was something indefinable, just
a whisper in the collective consciousness of the citizenship; but it was telling
them to take refuge from the cold, hostile forces that roamed streets that no
sane person would ever walk.

That night, the hookers and the dealers had disappeared from the neon-filled
avenues of Hollywood. The rich people up in Beverly Hills and down in Santa
Monica were securely guarded inside their mansions, and even the gangs in South
Central and Compton had decided to take a vacation.

That night, the Lakers would not play at Inglewood, Spaggo's would not accept
any reservations, and the Beverly Plaza suites would not witness any illicit
affair by some famous movie star.

That night, Los Angeles was a dead city whose dark, lonely and wet streets were
only walked by fools and the enlightened.

It was going to be a night of miracles and horrors. It was going to be the end
of an old age, and the beginning of a new one.

The still-unfinished twin structures of the Kobayashi Towers rose fifty floors
from the ground, reigning over the city from their vantage point in the business
center. Their steel and glass bodies were like a pair of knives, defiantly
trying to stab the heavens, claiming a victory of human beings' intellect over
the forces of nature.

They were screaming that maybe God had put us on Earth, but no one had helped us
to reach this place, the one reserved for the rulers of the world.

It was ironic that this exact spot of civilization, had been chosen to witness
the moment that was going to mean the end of the world, as human beings knew it.

The only difference between the two, almost identical, towers was the fact that
Kobayashi-1 had a helipad on its roof while its twin, Kobayashi-2, housed the
big, metallic structure of a worldwide communications antennae.

The fact was that, painted in the usual red-white stripe pattern, they looked
too much like a giant lollipop to Myriam Archer's eyes, as she watched it from
across the street.

She supposed it was an unavoidable evil, as the towers were going to be the new
headquarters of one of the most powerful mass-media consortiums in the world.
But that didn't diminish the fact that it was aesthetically offensive.

It was a cold night and, at fifty floors up, the wind was blowing full force,
worming its way under the black and heavy robe she wore, chilling her to the
bone.

She clenched her teeth to avoid them chattering and rubbed her slender hands
together, trying to warm them a little before they went completely numb.

She had been waiting for this night from the moment she'd been born, when her
parents had found the mark on her body that identified her as the Chosen One. A
little birth-mark on her wrist, with the shape of a five-pointed star that
signaled her coming as the one that one day would give shelter to their dark
mistress inside her.

Now twenty-five years of waiting, of preparations and studies were going to end
in less than half an hour, exactly at midnight. At that moment, the planets and
the stars would be in their correct positions, the ceremony would take place,
and the innocent blood would be spilled and drunk.

And Ezrain the unholy would worm its way from the depths of Hell, into the
wonderful, astonishing world of the 21st century.

She knew that once the unholy goddess took control of her body, there would be
no place for her vital essence in it and she would die – but that wasn't
something that bothered her.

It was her fate to do this, and she had been taught to eagerly expect it with
joy. She had to come to change the world, and that was all that mattered.

"Mistress?" called a voice behind her, making her turn around to face the
acolyte.

He was tall and bulky, and similarly dressed in a black robe. From his neck,
hung the golden symbol of Ezrain.

With his entire appearance almost taken from an old horror movie starring Peter
Cushing and Vincent Price, the Uzi submachine-gun that he carried in his hands
seemed completely out of place.

"What do you want, Cecil?" she asked, making an effort to remember the name of
the acolyte.

Not daring to look straight into the eyes of the soon-to-be goddess, the tall
man shifted his weight from one foot to the other, almost with shy nervousness.

"The building is now finally under control," he informed her, "all the security
guards have been captured and eliminated. Communications have been cut, and all
the entrances are under surveillance."

She nodded, and let a satisfied smile cross her lips. She wasn't especially
beautiful or anything, but the man in front of her seemed about to blush, and
took shyly took his eyes away from her face.

"Well done, Cecil, your actions will be rewarded. How are the preparations for
the ceremony going?" she asked, as they began to walk away from the edge of the
roof to the center of the helipad, where a group of similarly black-robed men
were arranging the equipment for the upcoming ceremony.

They had placed a dark mahogany table in the center, and were drawing a perfect
circle with torches around it. The mere fact that the torches remained lit under
the force of the wind, reeked of black magic.

"Everything is ready for the moment, my Mistress," Cecil said, his long legs
barely keeping up with the woman's quick steps. "The offerings are ready and..."

A movement caught his eye, and he nodded towards the roof-access door with his
head. "That's where they're bringing the first one now."

Myriam followed the man's signal and looked as two acolytes brought a scared,
screaming-and-kicking child to the table and tied him to it with tight leather
bonds. The woman walked to him and looked at the blue, puffy eyes of the
nine-year-old boy.

She ruffled his spiked sandy hair, and smiled at him in complete sincerity.

"Lemme go," he asked with sobbing voice. "I wanna go home to my mommy!"

She smiled warmly once more, and softly shook her head. "Don't worry, my dear,"
he whispered to him. "You're soon going to go to a better place." She kissed his
forehead. "And don't worry about your mother, she'll also be there soon.
Everybody will be there soon."

A burst of thunder crashed in the dark, starless skies and a lightning bolt
stabbed the still air of the night, illuminating everything with a blue glow.

"The storm is coming back," Cecil whispered, looking at the sky with a frown.

Myriam raised her head, and let out a cruel, dry laugh. "It is coming, indeed.
And who is going to stop it?"

~~~~~~

"Well, that is so not going to be me..." the young blonde woman observed, as she
and her slightly taller friend crossed the distance that separated their car
from the entrance of the night-club, both of them trying to get to the warm
interior of the local establishment as quickly as possible.

"Oh, come on Buffy!" protested her friend, taking off her coat and carefully
rearranging her long mane of dark hair when they were finally inside. "You're my
last chance!"

The vampire Slayer known as Buffy Summers, looked at the other woman with a
small frown on her beautiful face. "I've already told you, Cordy, no. You can
ask me anything else in the whole world. Kill vampires?" she counted, raising a
finger.

"Sure, that's my job. Take care of your pet rock? That's what friends are for.
But posing nude? No thanks, my embarrassment quota is like already full up for
this year!"

As the two young women made their way through the grooving mass of dancing
people, noticing not without surprise how many people had gathered there even on
such a cold and wet night, they finally spotted their usual table empty in one
of the more secluded corners of the club.

They quickly sat down and Buffy made a gesture to Chuck, the waiter, knowing
that he would have their usual beverages ready in a few moments.

The truth was that they spent so much time there, there were always two tables
reserved for them – as if there was some kind of sign over them, reading 'For
the Scooby Gang's exclusive use'.

One of these days, Chuck was going to start making them pay rent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw the pout on Cordelia's face and sighed,
knowing that the discussion was far from over.

"But Buffy," she pleaded, "I have to present the work for the final exam in two
weeks, and I have nobody else to ask! I don't wanna get an F on this, it's
important, pleeeease?"

The blonde Slayer rolled her hazel eyes. "Have you asked Willow?"

Cordelia just looked at her, coolly raising an eyebrow. "Willow? Be serious,
please – she and Oz still do it with the lights switched off!"

"Then ask your better half. I'm quite sure he won't mind exposing himself in all
his... glory in front of you. And don't try to deny it, we live wall to wall and
I know what those sounds are that you two make."

Cordelia sent her a murderous look, but abstained from any cutting comeback.
"The rules of the assignment say that it has to be a female nude. Come on, I
promise you it will be something classy. You'll be proud of me."

Letting her shoulders sink in defeat, Buffy leaned her elbows in the table,
hiding her face between her hands. "Who would see it?" she asked.

With a wide smile full of perfect white teeth, knowing that she had won,
Cordelia leaned close to her. "Only you, me and my teacher."

Buffy groaned. "I had that strangest horrible feeling when you decided to take
that Human Drawing class as an option, but I didn't know why until now."

"Great!!" the brunette girl exclaimed, fiercely hugging her friend. "You're the
best! I swear you won't regret it."

"Too late, I already do," the Slayer mumbled, taking a look around them. "Do you
know when the rest of the guys are gonna come?"

The brunette shrugged helplessly. "Willow will probably be with Oz, getting
ready for the grand debut. And the mighty loser told me not to wait for him and
the guys, that they had something to do in LA."

The Slayer frowned at this. "Do you know what?"

Once again, the former cheerleader shrugged. "You know, the usual. He said that
they'd try to make it on time for the last set."

Buffy shook her head. "I can't believe they're going to miss Oz's debut."

"Well, you know them," Cordelia said resigned, "work always comes first."

~~~~~~

The man moved like a shadow, and nestled beside the tall metallic structure of
the antennae, like a predator awaiting for his prey. His dark blue eyes scanned
the darkness around him.

When he was completely sure that there wasn't anybody else up there, he rose
from his secluded spot between the shadows, allowing the light of the
almost-full moon to hit him squarely.

He calmly walked to the edge of the roof, letting the cold wind of the night
blow through his light brown hair and make his black trenchcoat flutter like a
cape.

The man lifted his right foot and, leaning it on the metallic banister that
surrounded the roof, shouldered the huge crossbow that he carried in his hands,
carefully aiming at the tower across the street through the weapon's night
scope.

Taking slow and controlled breaths through his nose, he watched for a second the
show that was taking place on the other tower's helipad, as if it was some kind
of twisted, evil circus.

Immersed in the green electronic glow of the scope, he saw the black-robed men
doing their strange, elaborate dance, making the preparations for the upcoming
ceremony, placing the torches that burnt with white fury in a precisely drawn
circle.

He saw the boy, no more than a little kid, tied to the dark mahogany table,
helplessly struggling with his bonds, crying, shouting. He could almost feel his
fear, as if it was a physical wave crashing against him across the street.

The man clenched his teeth together and lowered the nose of the crossbow, aiming
this time at the last window of the tower. Exactly five centimeters above it. He
closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, letting the air slowly come
out of his lungs, forming a white mist when it mixed with the chilly air of the
night.

He fought the flow of the adrenaline in his veins, and felt his pulse slowing as
a sea of calmness washed over him. His leather-gloved finger pushed the trigger,
and the metallic harpoon of the crossbow flew away, carrying a long steel wire
with it.

It traced out a tense arc across the fifty meters that separated the two towers
and stabbed the metal surface of the building, deeply embedding itself in it.

The man let the crossbow fall to the ground and quickly ran back to the
antennae, losing no time in operating the gear fastened to it until the wire
that now joined the two towers together was completely tensed.

As if time was the most precious thing in the world, he knelt down and, from the
duffel bag that he had near the antennae and took a roller which he promptly
locked onto the wire, closing its safety switch with a low click and checking
the two handles.

Then he took off his trenchcoat and let it fall to the ground, not minding at
all when the wind blew it away like a black cloud. He double-checked all the
zips and locks of his black jumpsuit, the radio on his waist, the receiver in
his right ear and the twin voice-activated microphones tied around his throat.

Finally, from his bag, he took a specially-made holster that he adjusted onto
his shoulders, carefully locking it to his utility belt and jumpsuit. Under his
right arm now hung a short-barreled Steyr AUG assault rifle.

And, behind his left shoulder, a long scabbard with a gold and silver rapier.

The man loaded a 42-round magazine into the rifle and racked back the slide,
chambering a round. Then, after checking that the sword was handy and loose
inside the scabbard, he took the handles of the roller in his hands and
tightened his grip on them until his knuckles were white under his black leather
gloves.

His dark blue gaze settled firmly on the last window of the tower, and he tilted
his head to one side and the other, making his tense vertebrae pop up.
"Archangel Two here," he spoke loud and clear into the darkness of the night,
"locked and ready in position."

~~~~~~

Even though the two towers were far from being finished, due to the continuos
delays on the project because of funding shortages, the 50th floor was
completely furnished and at that very moment, the five men in the office were
making good use of the facilities present there.

"These rich guys sure know how to live," said one of them, stretching out on a
large and comfy sofa and making some of his companions smile. "Ohhh, I could
take me a nice long rest here."

"We don't have time for that," another one told him, carefully looking at the
dark street through the large window, "we have to complete the patrol."

"What for?" his companion protested. "The whole damn building is empty, and the
ceremony will be finished in a few minutes. What the hell are you looking at?"

The black-robed man looked at him with distaste over his shoulder, and
rearranged his grip on the Uzi. "I heard something," he simply said, letting his
fingers trail over the polished surface of the Lawton-III armored window.

"We're on the 50th floor, who do you think is out there? Superman?" The other
men laughed, and the man on the sofa took a cigar box from the table nearby,
offering it to his companion. "Relax, Bobby. You have to learn to calm down, or
you'll have a heart attack, my man."

Letting his shoulders sink down, Bobby smiled and walked to his friend,
accepting one of the cigars from the box.

~~~~~~

In the darkness of the building's basement, the guards moved as quickly as they
could, their long black robes sweeping across the dirty floor, raising a thin
cloud of dust. They scanned every nook and cranny, searching for any possible
threats, their Uzis locked and ready.

"This is stupid," said one of them, opening the door to their intended
destination. "I mean, what the hell are we doing down here?"

His companion sighed with exasperation and rolled his eyes, while keeping the
door open so the other man could walk into the blackened room without stumbling
into anything.

"We're following orders," he finally said when both of them were in the dark,
exiguous room, following the rays of the first man's flashlight.

With a snort, the man with the flashlight looked at him out of the corner of his
eye. "Sure we're following them, man. What I mean is that we should be up there,
attending the ceremony instead of down here, where Christ lost his sandal."

The other man rolled his eyes again and shrugged, trying to dissipate some of
the wetness of the basement, which had managed to worm under his clothes during
their patrol. "We have to check all the possible entrances to the building, we
can't afford to take any risks."

"Nooo," he mocked his partner with deep sarcasm. "A Special Forces commando
could enter through the sewers at the last minute. Sure."

None of them noticed the man-shaped shadow that began to move behind their
backs, getting closer to them with each passing second, not making any noise at
all.

The ray of the flashlight traced a path over the floor until it finally rested
on a deep, circular hole that seemed to connect the basement with the same
bowels of the earth.

"What the... ?" mumbled the man with the flashlight. "Someone's taken the lid
off."

A noise, nothing more than a mouse scratching the rough floor with its paws,
echoed behind them and, with both their guns cocked, they turned around,
scanning the darkness that surrounded them with the powerful ray of the
flashlight.

Nothing. Only the dark-gray wet walls, the pipes running over them, the dust,
and themselves.

"Wrong side," told a voice behind them.

Turning around once more, they jumped with surprise when they found themselves
face to face with a demon hanging upside down at less than one meter from them,
practically breathing on their necks.

The ray of the flashlight only illuminated him for half a second, barely enough
time to notice his red-gold eyes, the ridged features, the long fangs and the
platinum-blonde hair.

Then he moved like quicksilver, grabbing the head of the man with the flashlight
and violently twisting it, breaking his neck with a sound of splintered bones.

The lifeless body fell to the floor, the flashlight flying from his hand and
dancing in the air as if trapped in a mad twister.

Before the other man could even think of using his gun against the demon, he was
already moving again, disentangling his legs from the frame-work of pipes that
ran over the ceiling, letting himself fall and smoothly spinning in the air,
landing on his boot-clad feet.

The peroxide-blonde demon then connected a spinning kick to the man's chest,
launching him backward with a sound of broken bones and making him collide
against the wall.

The man slipped to the floor, losing his grip on his weapon and finally landing,
letting out a pained grunt and tasting his own blood on his lips. He blindly
searched for the Uzi in the darkness of the room, touching the rough floor with
his hands.

Before he even had the chance to find the weapon, a low growl filled the
sub-basement and he felt a clawed hand closing on his robe and yanking from it,
making him stand up and pushing him once more against the wall.

"Who are you?" he managed to ask when he felt the demon exposing his neck.

He only saw the flash of a smile full of pointed fangs, before his whole world
was engulfed into a sea of excruciating pain when the vampire bit him, sinking
his fangs into the smooth flesh of his neck and draining him in a few seconds.

Then, the vampire let the corpse of the guard fall to the ground, and smacked
his thin lips with distaste.

"Bleedin' vegetarians," he mumbled to no one in particular, adjusting the twin
microphones around his throat, "they got water instead o' blood. Archangel Five
'ere. Emergency exit clear, two tangos down."

~~~~~~

The man in the elevator's hole observed the data quickly scrolling down the
screen of his laptop, his handsome features illuminated by the eerie glow of the
portable computer. His bright blue eyes moved with speed and precision,
absorbing all the information as his nimble fingers flew over the keyboard.

"Archangel Four here," he whispered into the darkness with a smile, when the
information he was waiting for finally appeared on the screen, displaying a
three-dimensional blueprint of the tower.

"Thermal scan completed. Got fifteen tangos on the roof, another fifteen on the
50th floor, guards on patrol on floors 1, 10 and 45. And five more tangos
guarding the main door."

His fingers flew once more, pressing the keys of the laptop. "Elevators one to
nine locked out," he quickly closed the laptop and began to move away, climbing
up the elevator's cabin to its roof. "I'm on my way."

~~~~~~

The noise, the clank of metal against stone, alerted the two guards on the 45th
floor, making them stop and turn around to face the bathroom's door. The first
guard nodded to his companion and both of them moved in silence, placing
themselves on each side of the door.

When the guard nodded a second time, his companion forcefully kicked the door
open and stepped into the bathroom, firing his gun and spraying the room with a
rain of hot lead.

In a second, the doors of the stalls were filled with bullet-shaped holes and
the toilets exploded in clouds of china, letting a flow of water cover the
floor.

Then, while the man quickly reloaded his weapon, his companion advanced
carefully and pushed each one of the stalls' doors with the mouth of his Uzi,
taking a look inside. Nothing inside the first, nothing inside the second, the
third, the fourth...

When the turn for the 5th and last stall arrived, the black-robed guard stepped
back and fired a short burst of bullets against it before violently kicking its
door open, practically ripping it from its hinges.

Nothing.

Except the cover of the ventilation shaft, softly rocking from one of its
screws.

With a frown, the guard turned around to face his partner. "There's nothing
here, we should..."

The expression on his partner's face shut his mouth. His eyes were almost popped
out and his mouth twisted in a grimace of half-surprise, half-pain. And there
was a shining piece of sharpened metal coming out from his chest.

Before he could react, an unknown force, barely giving him time to step aside to
avoid it launched the lifeless body of his partner above him. He raised the Uzi,
ready to open fire and felt a light breeze softly blowing through his hair and
clothes.

Suddenly, his gun hand was no longer attached to the rest of his arm and a thick
flood of blood began to spray from his wrist, coating his clothes and forming a
pool on the already wet floor. He looked ahead in astonishment, face to face
with his opponent.

The scariest and most beautiful sight he had ever seen. A gorgeous brunette
marvel in black jumpsuit and combat boots. Then a flash of silver, the wetness
of his own blood splattering his face and then nothing.

The brunette woman watched as the body of the man slowly sank to the floor, and
then she turned around, stepping out of the bathroom.

"This is Archangel Three," she said, starting a silent run towards the stairs.
"Floor 45 clean. I'm on my way."

~~~~~~

The voice came then through everyone's speakers. It was a young voice, but full
of authority and confidence, the voice of somebody who knew what he wanted.
"Archangel Leader to all Archangels. Go in T-minus five..."

Over the Kobayashi-2 tower's roof, the man with the dark blue eyes and the light
brown hair tensed his grip on the roller's handles and felt the adrenaline
pumping into his system, fueling him like a dose of amphetamines, and began to
run to the roof's edge.

"T-minus four..."

At the building's entrance, the five acolytes standing guard watched in mute
fascination as a soft blue glow surrounded the main crystal doors. A thin layer
of white frost then began to cover them, slowly expanding through the walls,
floor and ceiling of the ample hall.

One of them looked around himself, seeing with amazement how his breath formed
soft clouds of vapor in the air.

"T-minus three..."

On the 50th floor, the five acolytes guarding a group of scared, tied and gagged
children turned around and raised their cocked guns when the elevators panel
began to ding, the digital numbers quickly changing as the cabin climbed up the
floors.

"T-minus two..."

The five men on the 50th floor office were having a very nice time, making good
use of the cigars and the bottles of liquor they had found in a mini-bar. Bobby,
the worried acolyte was now looking through the armored window, carefully
watching the darkness outside.

"I don't know what has you so worried," his friend told him, knocking slightly
on the thick glass with his knuckles. "This little wonder has three layers of
bulletproof glass, and if there was somebody out there he'd need a goddamn
bazooka to penetrate it."

Bobby just shook his head. "I could swear I saw something moving."

"T-minus one..."

The brunette woman reached the 50th floor and smoothly placed herself beside the
access door, her leather-gloved hand around the door's handle.

"GO!"

~~~~~~

Chuck, the waiter, jumped to the stage of the Bronze with a microphone in his
hand, waving at the screaming audience, who was clamoring for the band to begin.

"I know that you've been waiting for this," he said, when the crowd finally
calmed a little. "Tonight, the Bronze is proud to host the debut of a new band
I'm sure you're going to love as much as we do. Please give your warmest welcome
to Oz and the Wolfpack!!"

As the crowd erupted in cheers and shouts of joy, the band's lead guitar and
singer, a red-haired young man with spiked hair, easy smile and cool blue eyes
walked to the microphone at the front of the stage, arranging his grip on his
guitar.

He sent a quick smile and a wink to the red-haired girl that was smiling at him
from the first line of the crowd, and leaned into the microphone, adjusting it
to his somewhat short height.

"This one's for Willow," he whispered to the microphone, making the audience
cheer again, "for being there every time I need her."

Taking a small step back, Oz nodded to the rest of his band and they began to
let the music flow, the soft rhythms of a ballad coming out from their
instruments, quickly and effectively transmitting the mood to the present
public.

Then Oz began to sing, surprising more than one person with his voice, energetic
and full of life but broken and almost haunted at the same time. In a moment it
was as if all those present were captivated into a common trance by the song,
moving almost absent-mindedly at its rhythm.

"And I relate to my best friend, she would advise me
She broke our code and she put on her jacket
Now it scares me because she's really gone
Ooooh-oh-oh

And I relate to my best friend, do you remember?
She was so young and now that we're burning
They're scared because she's really gone
Ooooh-oh-oh"

Then, Oz's guitar practically exploded into a potent solo as the song's pace
quickened, transforming into a living pulse of energy and making the crowd
scream their approval, as they jumped and danced along.

"And if it's going to be my destiny
I don't want to wait till it comes to me
I will work so hard my hands will hurt
I will pay for my sins, if so in hell

Serenade! Serenade me!
They say I'm dry but I'm just sick
Serenade me!
They say I'm cold but I'm just sick
Serenade me!"

With a final burst of notes from his electric guitar, Oz finished the song,
making a little bow when the audience practically exploded in cheers and claps,
clamoring for more and more.

"That's my boyfriend!" Willow shouted from the first line, a big, loving smile
on her lips. She sent a kiss to him and the red-haired musician trapped it in
his hand, smiling back at her.

=Could there be a greater sensation than this?= he wondered.

~~~~~~

Sliding down the steel wire at top speed, Michael Deveraux couldn't help but
scream at the top of his lungs, feeling the full force of the wind in his face
as the street passed in a blur 50 floors beneath his feet.

=This is doing things with style, damn it!= he thought.

Holding himself from the roller only with his left hand and seeing the window
getting closer and closer with each passing moment, the French Immortal took the
rifle in his right hand and pulled the trigger, barely taking aim at all.

The Austrian rifle roared, illuminating the night with a burst of fire as a
cloud of silicon piercing-point bullets perforated the armored window as if it
was made of hot butter, tracing deadly paths into the night.

Inside the room, the bodies of Bobby and his friend shook under the endless
impacts of the projectiles, like puppets in a storm.

Blood splattered everywhere as the other three men dropped to the floor, in
search of protection from the cloud of bullets that was turning everything
inside the room into Swiss cheese.

When he was at less than a meter from the window, Michael abandoned his grip on
the roller, covered his face with his arms and raising his knees to a protective
position, and let his body crash against the glass.

As the window exploded, he smashed head-first into the room in a cloud of
broken, razor-sharp pieces of glass.

The French Immortal let out a grunt when he painfully landed over his shoulder
and rolled over the floor, quickly jumping to his feet. He executed a perfect
360 degree flip over the hole-filled couch, at the same time unsheathing his
silver and gold rapier.

Michael found himself between the three acolytes, who were already scrambling to
their feet and pointing their automatic weapons at him. Moving with the coldness
and surety of an experienced fighter, Michael sank the blade of his sword into
the closest man's stomach.

Grabbing him by his black robe, he then spun him around, holding his shaking
body in front of him as a make-shift shield.

The other two acolytes promptly opened fire with their Uzis and Michael felt the
body of the man shaking in his embrace as the bullets hit him, piercing his
chest and spraying his blood around.

The French Immortal felt a burning pain in his side when one of the projectiles
went through the acolyte's body and hit him; it wormed into his flesh through
his black combat clothes, but the brown-haired man didn't let out a sound, and
his face didn't reflect his physical pain.

Michael grabbed the submachine-gun that hung under the dead man's arm and pulled
the trigger, tracing out a deadly arc of fire and hot lead and practically
shredding the two men into bloody pieces.

When the bullet-filled bodies of the two men finally fell to the ground, Michael
tore his sword out from the first acolyte's stomach and let him fall.

Around him, the feathers of the couch's stuffing were still dancing in the air,
slowly floating down to the floor. One of the remaining pieces of glass still
attached to the window's frame fell down, and crashed against the carpet.

Michael just raised an eyebrow, feeling the wound in his side already starting
to heal, and he sighed deeply.

"Amateurs," he muttered, stepping over the fallen bodies and quickly walking to
the next door.

~~~~~~

The five men in the hallway stared in open-mouthed amazement when the door of
the stairs access was violently kicked open in front of them, and a black
whirlwind jumped into the narrow passage, two twin beams of silver shining in
her hands.

As one the men lifted their automatic guns, ready to open fire against the
beautiful woman. But she, moving between them with the graceful and elegant
precision of a tigress, simply let the bright blade in her right hand flow like
quicksilver – and the throat of the nearest man was suddenly showing a thin red
line, all along his neck.

His eyes reflected his surprise as a thick spray of blood erupted from the
wound, coating his skin and drenching his black robes as his body began to fall
down.

The other men finally reacted and pulled the triggers of their Uzis, confident
in trapping the woman inside a deadly circle of gunfire.

Rachel Curran would have smiled at them, if she'd had the time to do so.

The brunette Immortal simply jumped against the nearest wall and, pushing
against it with her two feet, spun back in the air, taking herself away from the
path of the bullets and letting the acolytes riddle themselves; they stumbled
like puppets, then two of them fell down under their own weapons fire.

Rachel landed smoothly on her feet and practically sank down, flexing her left
leg and executing a roundhouse sweep with her extended right leg, that made one
of the other two men fall to the ground.

She let herself fall forward and rolled over her shoulders, pushing with them
against the floor and launching her two legs up and against the last man's chin
like a pair of stingers, hitting him with all the strength of her boot-clad
feet.

The man practically flew backwards and collided against the wall, as Rachel used
her own momentum to land on her feet like a cat, connecting an immediate
roundhouse kick with his face with enough force to break his neck.

As the man fell down with his head twisted at an impossible angle, the brunette
Immortal observed out the corner of her eye, the last man standing clumsily
aiming at her with his gun.

Rachel began to spin at the same moment that the man pulled the trigger, sending
a cloud of bullets in her general direction.

As if in slow motion, the brunette Immortal felt the little pieces of lead
flying around her and she almost could smell their pungent odor of burnt cordite
and hot steel.

Like a dark whirlwind, Rachel danced between the bullets, dodging them as if she
could predict their paths. She let fly one of her blades, which sailed through
the space between them like a silver lightning bolt, before deeply embedding
itself in the middle of the man's chest.

The acolyte looked in astonishment at the sword stabbing him to the hilt, then
at the beautiful brunette woman, and then just fell down dead.

Rachel just wiped a thin layer of sweat from her forehead with the back of her
gloved hand and closed her dark eyes for a second, breathing silently and trying
to control the fast pace of her pulse.

She moved to retrieve her sword, and felt a piercing pain in her left thigh.
With surprise she looked down and found that one of the bullets had scratched
her smooth skin, leaving a red trace.

Pushing the ripped fabric of her black jumpsuit aside, she watched as small
bolts of blue electricity flew across the wound. As she looked, the severed skin
seemed to knit itself together and, a few seconds later, there was no sign of
the gash anymore.

Shaking her head, Rachel just pushed the dead man's body with her feet, leaning
down to take the handle of the short wakizashi and gently yank at it. "I hate
this part."

With a disgusting sucking sound, the brunette Immortal finally tore the blade
out, wiping its bloodied surface on the black robe of the man.

"I need to find a new job," she muttered between clenched teeth, before walking
away.

~~~~~~

"Cover the kids," ordered the main guard to a pair of his men, as the other two
and himself began to run to the upcoming elevator.

The men nodded sharply, and promptly directed the mouths of their Uzis to the
tight group of scared children, whose screams of panic were muffled by the
fabric of the gags around their faces.

The two acolytes looked down at the tear-streaked faces and bulging eyes of the
kidnapped kids, their hard faces not showing any compassion or regret and their
fingers tightly closed around the triggers of their weapons.

The three-man firing squad stood in front of the elevator's door and patiently
waited, while the digital panel changed its display as the cabin climbed up the
floors.

...47... 48... 49... 50...

"Fire!" commanded the leader and the three submachine-guns immediately began to
vomit burning lead and fire, perforating the metal doors of the elevator even
before they began to open, eliciting golden sparks with the contact.

When the guns finally ceased their screams of death and remained silent, the
leader took a step towards the cabin. He tried to dissipate the thick smog and
awful smell of the burnt cordite with his hand, as the elevator automatic doors
opened and closed in front of him, with a chipper 'ding'.

The acolyte pushed both doors open, and took a look at the elevator's interior.
It was shredded to pieces, filled with bullet holes; its fluorescent light had
been torn away from its place on the ceiling and was flashing on and off, sparks
coming from the place where it should have been attached to.

But, otherwise, nothing at all.

Then, the ceiling's trap door suddenly burst open and a dark bulk fell in front
of his face. Startled, the man jumped back and, for an endless second, found
himself looking straight at a pair of blue-eyed pools full of merriment and a
shark-like smile full of perfect white teeth.

"Surprise!" the upside-down man exclaimed cheerfully, as he drew a pair of
compact MAC-11 submachine-guns and aimed them directly at him.

The acolyte didn't have time to utter a word before the man, still hanging
upside-down from the trap door on the ceiling, began to spray the hallway with
automatic fire, sending a hot wave of bullets towards the three men.

The leader's face and chest exploded into a disgusting mist of gore and blood,
as he received the point-blank impact of the projectiles. He flew backwards,
smashing against the ground and being closely imitated by the two men under his
command.

Kyle White Owl let his empty weapons fall free and he nimbly unhooked his legs
from the trapdoor, spinning in the air and landing on his boot-clad feet. He
quickly unholstered his black .44 Magnum revolver and carefully advanced along
the hallway, his back against wall and the gun extended in front of him like a
living extension of his body.

He reached the corner and dared to take a fast look, quickly retreating back to
avoid a rain of bullets from the remaining two guards, but enough to have a
clear impression of his surroundings.

He had the blueprints memorized, but there was nothing like having first-hand
experience of the fire zone. The place in which they were was an ample waiting
room, with thick marble columns supporting the high ceiling and a fountain in
the middle, currently dry.

A new rain of bullets tore off some plaster and wooden chunks from the corner,
too close to his face for his own comfort, and the tall Texan sighed deeply,
cocking his revolver's hammer and adjusting the twin microphones on his throat.

"This is Archangel Four," Kyle chipped, "where are you guys? I'm kinda stuck in
a jam here."

Across the ample room a door burst open and Michael jumped into the place,
rolling over the ground, dodging a new wave of shots and taking shelter behind
one of the pillars.

"Nice moves, Mickey," Kyle shouted, flashing an enormous smile to him.

"Shut up and tell me how things are!" the French Immortal shot back. "And for
the thousandth time, mon ami, don't call me Mickey! I'm no stinking rodent!"

The French Immortal shouldered his rifle and released a short burst over the
heads of the acolytes, making them sink down for cover. When the AUG was finally
empty, he tossed the rifle away and unsheathed the sword from the scabbard on
his back.

"Merde!" he cursed between clenched teeth, when a new burst of machine-gun fire
tore out a chunk of marble over his head. "I hate those damn guns!"

"Oooh, come on!" his Texan friend laughed. "Don't be harsh with these guys,
they're just exercising their constitutional rights!"

Michael just glared at him coldly. "Talk to me, Kyle."

The tall Texan took a new quick look, before retreating back into security
behind the corner before the bad guys could spot him. "Two black-robed baddies
with Uzis, about fifteen meters behind your pillar. They're covered behind the
fountain's structure, and the kids are all around them."

Michael risked having a quick look of his own and slowly rose to his feet, his
back sliding up the pillar. "Do you have a clear shot?"

"Negative," Kyle shook his head, with a grimace on his handsome face. "I'm not
going to run the risk of hitting one of the hostages with..." his tirade was
suddenly cut off, when the door next to him opened without warning. His hand
moved smoothly, aiming at the upcoming figure and tensing his index finger on
the gun's trigger.

Rachel burst into the hallway, and found herself facing the wrong end of Kyle's
revolver. She lost no time in raising her arms, showing that she was no threat
and the tall Texan quickly drew back the weapon, letting out a sigh of unease.

"Hold your horses, Cowboy," she told him with a smile, quickly taking a look at
the situation and spotting Michael behind the pillar, taking cover from the
endless wave of bullets that was raining over them. "What's going on?"

Taking a flash-bang from one of the seemingly endless pouches in his jumpsuit,
Kyle stared at her with amusement. "Bad boys with automatic weapons, innocent
hostages and Mexican standoffs. You know, the usual... oh, and I think your
boyfriend is about to do something really stupid."

Rachel frowned at this and looked at Michael who, noticing her, winked at the
brunette and playfully waved at her with a lopsided smile.

"Oh, for Pete's sake," she growled, "he has the look."

The Texan nodded with a snort. "You've noticed, huh?"

"Michael!" she called the French Immortal, loud enough to make herself heard
over the deafening thunder of the men's guns. "Don't you dare do anything...!"

Her tirade was cut short when the French Immortal looked at her with those dark
blue eyes of his and his trademark half-smile, barely showing his white teeth.
The brunette Immortal just knew that nothing she could say would change his mind
about his decision.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, sighing. "Michael..."

The French Immortal clenched his teeth and, taking his sword with both hands,
raised the blade until its cold surface touched his forehead, closing his eyes
and muttering a silent prayer.

"Cover me!" he shouted, rounding the pillar and beginning to close the fifteen
meters that separated him from the two acolytes with long, fast steps.

~~~~~~

In the main hall, the five acolytes guarding the tower's entrance could barely
remain standing up, as the cold inside the room quickly began to be unbearable.
So much so, in fact, that their hands were glued to the metal of their guns,
their arms were rigid and there were small traces of frost on their noses and
under their lips.

"We-we ha-have to get-t a-away fro-from here," one of the men managed to say,
between his chattering teeth.

At that very moment the low sound of something breaking, like rocks sliding
against each other, began to fill the room. It made them turn around to the
entrance and watch in helpless silence, as a web of cracks began to slowly
extend all along the frozen wall as if invisible spiders were weaving them.

The sound rose higher and higher to breaking point, until the men there thought
that their eardrums were going to explode with the pressure, blood coming out
from their ears and noses. But then, nothing more than silence.

"Too late," whispered one of them.

The whole wall exploded over them with the rumbling scream of a dam breaking, a
rain of sharp fragments of stone, glass and steel piercing their black-robed
bodies at supersonic speed.

It made them fly backwards and fall to the floor as the shock-wave hit them
square in the face, practically shredding them into pieces.

The five men were dead before any of their bodies actually hit the ground, so
none of them could see the ghostly, almost unreal apparition that passed over
the still-settling debris, practically floating on the thin and cold air.

If they could have seen her fiery red hair, her marble skin and deep green eyes,
they would had thought that they were looking at the face of a Celtic goddess.

With the gauzy white clothes floating around her like a halo, Crystal Parker
looked at the fallen bodies and shook her head with sorrow, offering a silent
prayer to the Goddess for their troubled souls, so they knew in death the peace
they hadn't known in life.

"The entrance is clear," she softly spoke to the microphones around her throat,
uncomfortably shifting under their synthetic grasp. "I'm waiting for you."

~~~~~~

Fifteen meters is usually a very short space, but to Michael Deveraux it felt
like the distance to the moon. He managed to complete the first five meters
before the first bullet hit him on his left shoulder, practically making it
explode in a cloud of blood and bone fragments, leaving his arm hanging useless
beside his body.

Even when his mind screamed in pain at the wound, Michael just clenched his
teeth and kept on running, concentrating in just making the next step and the
next one.

The two acolytes observed aghast as the man in the black jumpsuit practically
shrugged their shots off as if they were nothing, his face a mask of
determination as he took the bullets, closing the space that separated them more
and more.

They let their Uzis loose over him and watched as the projectiles impacted in
his body, drawing thin clouds of blood, but it was like trying to stop a tornado
with a garden hose.

Michael reached the fountain practically blinded by the pain, feeling his energy
flowing out of his body with his spilled blood, his Immortal healing factor
working overtime.

His blurred sight was focused on the nearest man, the one who was practically in
the middle of the group of kids, which were now looking at Michael with scared
eyes.

Not without a good dose of irony, he thought that it wasn't strange; he could
feel the blood flowing freely from his nose and the corners of his mouth, and
most of his inner organs were quickly collapsing under the multiple impacts.

He could easily imagine himself as some kind of nightmare, emerged from the
depths of Hell.

Well, no plan was ever perfect.

With a last supreme effort, the French Immortal jumped over the fountain's rim
and pushed himself up and forward over the acolyte, with his rapier extended on
his only-working arm like a silver stinger.

The last thing he saw before a burst of bullets hit him in his chest, was the
expression of surprise on the man's face.

Michael's dead body fell on its intended target, impaling the acolyte with the
blade of his sword and pushing him down against the ground, the two bodies
ending in a knot of still limbs on the floor.

The other acolyte couldn't help but watch in mute astonishment as the black-clad
man trapped his partner into a lethal embrace, and understood too late that he
had just made his last mistake.

His head turned around in slow motion, and practically found himself lost inside
the wide void of Kyle's barrel.

There was an endless second of almost-silence in which the only thing that could
be heard was the soft sobbing of the kids, the thundering heart of the acolyte
and Kyle's ragged breath.

"Say your prayers, buddy," the tall Texan spat, pulling the trigger.

The black, infinite hole of the barrel's mouth exploded into a cloud of dust and
fire as the acolyte's world first turned red-hot with pain and then black-cold,
as a bullet the size of a fist hit him in the chest. It dragged him five meters
back, making him collide with the nearest wall.

"Michael!" Rachel shouted, quickly kneeling down beside her lover's torn body,
as Kyle began to free the tied kids around them, soothingly speaking to them so
they wouldn't start screaming and running away.

Laying her twin swords down beside her, she gently took Michael's head on her
lap and lovingly caressed his face, cleaning the blood from his handsome
features.

"Is he dead?" asked a little voice beside her.

Rachel raised her eyes from the prone form resting on her lap, and saw a girl of
no more than seven years kneeling beside them. Her blue eyes were puffy and
reddened, and dry tears streaked her cheeked face.

The brunette Immortal smiled warmly at her, and rearranged a loose stray of her
dirty golden hair behind her ear. "No, don't worry dear, he'll get better soon."

=And when he does, I'm gonna kick his butt,= she added to herself.

The girl looked at her with a clear expression of doubt on her face, but said
nothing at all and just gently took Michael's light brown hair away from his
forehead. Rachel took a look around herself, and her eyes met with Kyle's blue
ones for a second.

'We have to get out of here,' he mouthed to her in silence and she nodded,
noticing with worry that the kids were beginning to get restless, some of them
openly crying and calling for their mommies.

The last thing she wanted right then, was to have to struggle with a bunch of
scared little kids.

As Kyle quickly finished untying the kids and began to take the bodies of the
acolytes away from their view, Rachel checked her radio, speaking loud and
clear. "Archangel Three here, we need help to take the hostages out. How are you
doing, guys?"

"Archangel Five 'ere," Spike's accented voice came out the earphones along with
his usual snarl. "I'm on clean-up duty, I'll be there in a bloody second."

"Hurry up, Blondie," Kyle said with an evil smile, "you're getting old."

"Cowboy? You still alive?" Spike's voice seemed disappointed. "There's no
justice in this world..."

"Hey," Rachel softly called the girl's attention, "can you do me a favor? It's
very important." The girl frowned, but nodded with decision and energy. "I need
you to talk to your friends, calm them down, OK? We're going to take you out of
here back to your mommies soon, I promise."

"OK," said the girl with a sharp nod, seriously offering her hand to her. "I'm
Lucy, you can count on me."

"I trust in you, Lucy," the brunette Immortal seriously accepted her hand and
shook it. "I'm Rachel."

With a warm smile, she watched as the little girl jumped to her feet and
promptly went to do as she was told, softly speaking to her little friends,
trying to calm them a little.

As had happened many times before, she felt a deep pain somewhere in her belly
when she realized that she would never have a child of her own, that her
otherwise supernatural body wouldn't allow her to know the mystery and wonder of
pregnancy and childbirth.

When the French Immortal's cobalt eyes blinked open, he was rewarded with the
wonderful vision of the woman he loved, looking down at him with worried dark
eyes, her beautiful face surrounded by her dark mahogany mane of hair.

"Hey," he whispered, noticing her mood. "Everything alright?"

She shook her head, barely containing a smile at seeing the deep affection in
his gaze. "Michael, I swear that sometimes I don't understand what I see in
you."

He raised an eyebrow. "If you ever dare to pull this crap on me again, I swear
by everything that's sacred that I'll make you pay for it," she finished up.

He offered a devilish, roguish smile just for her. "Is that a promise, ma
chèrie?"

"Don't push me too far, Jean-Michel," she growled, helping him to his feet.

Raising an eyebrow at hearing her calling him by his real first name, Michael
took a quick look around, examining the situation. At that very moment, the
access to the staircase opened and a fully vamped-out Spike came into the room,
his everlasting cigarette burning itself between the black nail-polish covered
fingers of his right hand.

"Spike!" Michael called him, quickly stepping between him and the kids. "Are you
nuts or what?" he hissed, pointing at his game face.

With a clueless frown, the bleached-hair vampire passed a hand over his edged
features, before allowing his human mask to form.

"Oops, sorry about that, mate," he grinned sheepishly. "Forgot about it, in the
heat o' the moment 'n all."

"Everything clear?" the French Immortal asked, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah," Spike nodded, rearranging his long leather duster on his shoulders,
"green light on all o' the floors. Those bloody wankers were right where the
Cowboy said they'd be. I took good care of..." he looked aside, and not very
politely, hid a burp in his fist. "Sorry about me manners, mate, but I got a
full belly tonight."

Michael closed his eyes and shook his head at the British vampire's full smile,
and turned around to face Rachel and Kyle, who were gathering and organizing the
kids for the evacuation. "D'accord mes amis, we are getting our asses out right
now. Kyle, re-connect the elevators."

As the tall Texan promptly went to do as he was told, Michael turned to Rachel.
"Divide the kids into three groups and take them to the ground floor, where Cris
has cleared the entrance. Once there, I want you to call the police and
paramedics, and clear the site when they arrive."

Rachel nodded sharply and grabbed Spike by the shoulder, practically dragging
him away while the French Immortal went in search of his sword.

"I don't wanna go with you!" he heard one of the kids telling Spike. "You look
weird. And you smell weird too!"

The vampire's grunt of response was cut off by a wave of childish 'he smells
weird, he smells weird'.

Spike soon looked like he wanted to stake himself, completely surrounded by
those little three-feet-tall monsters.

"Quiet!" he finally exclaimed with a roar. "Or I'll 'ave the lot of ya for
dinner!"

"Sure," the first kid snorted with disbelief, rolling his eyes.

Spike knelt down beside the kid and, with his face at less than 10 centimeters
from the boy's nose, let his game face show for a second. "You can bet on it,
runt," he growled through his fangs.

The boy looked at him with wide eyes, and shut his mouth.

"What are you going to do?" Rachel asked Michael, when she finally had the kids
organized and ready to go.

The French Immortal spotted his rapier on the floor and with the instep of his
foot made it jump up, nimbly catching it in mid-air by its handle. Then,
offering a goofy grin to his lover, he saluted her with the sword.

"I'm going to see how the boss is doing," he told her, before quickly starting
to run towards the staircase.

With a frown, Rachel let her dark eyes rise to the ceiling, asking herself what
he would be doing indeed.

~~~~~~

"He'll be OK," Buffy said, feeling that it was the thousandth time she had told
Cordelia these exact words. "You know he can take care of himself. All of them
can."

On the stage, Oz and the Wolfpack were now playing a new song, this one much
more potent and quick and the crowd was dancing along, turned into a sweaty mass
of young bodies in search for some natural adrenaline rush.

"Tell you my love where to hide me away
Tell you my love where to find me again
Why cry, leggy smile I never had
Star inner style, golden dreams that passed me by

Tell you my love reckless nights passed away
As I tried not to hate I won't care what they say
Why cry, leggy smile I never had
Star inner style, golden dreams that passed me by
That passed me by..."

The former cheerleader looked at her friend, not very convinced. Turning around,
she faced the rest of their friends that, with the passage of time, had joined
them to witness the debut Oz's new band.

"Having a nice time?" she asked, trying to move her thoughts away from certain
dark-haired vampiric Immortal.

"Certainly," the middle-aged man in the tweed suit said, removing his spectacles
to clean them with an absent-minded expression. "I-I would say that being here,
with all these youngsters who are half my age spasming around me, listening to
this... I'll say music for the lack of a better term, I feel like I'm right at
home."

"Drop the sarcasm, Giles," Buffy told him, "it doesn't look good on you."

Giles just arched his eyebrows and emitted a groan that could mean anything,
from agreement to pure desperation.

"I like them," the blonde woman sat next to him, "I think they're good. And if I
were... a few years younger, I would be out there, dancing."

If anyone noticed the expression of absolute panic that crossed the Slayer's
face and the horrified yelp that was provoked from her by the image of her
mother dancing in the middle of a crowd of quivering teenagers, nobody made any
comment about it.

Nevertheless, the dark-haired and handsome man on whose lap she was sitting took
her slender hand in his large one, giving her a warm smile.

"What do you say, little Angel?" she asked the souled vampire, after softly
kissing him on his cold lips. "Having a good time?"

"With you? Always."

"Ooooh," Cordelia and Joyce cheered.

"Hey," the blonde Slayer warned them, moving her arms around her boyfriend's
shoulders, "Get a life."

"You said I'm on fire
Well I don't think so and she said fine
You said don't lie
Well I don't think so and she said fine
I'll close my eyes and die

Tell you my love where to hide me away
Tell you my love where to find me again
Why cry, leggy smile I never had
Star inner style, golden dreams that passed me by.
That passed me by..."

"Actually," Angel observed once his liplock with the Slayer had ended, "I gotta
admit, they are really good. Well, they aren't the Bay City Rollers but
still..."

"Oh!" Giles practically squeaked at hearing this. "Now, that was music."

The Watcher and the vampire looked at each other with knowing smiles, exchanging
a nod of agreement. Joyce just raised an eyebrow, sipping from her soft drink.

"Well, thanks for making me feel younger, guys," she said with affection. "It's
good to know that you can be still be cool saying that."

She looked at her daughter with worry. "You still say 'cool', right?"

Buffy looked around, trying to find a hole in which to hide herself.

"You said I'm on fire
Well I don't think so and she said fine
You said don't lie
Well I don't think so and she said fine
I'll close my eyes and die."

A sweaty and almost-breathless Willow came out of the crowd, practically
stumbling until she got a good grip on the table. She quickly took her soda, and
finished it off in a few gulps.

"Easy, easy!" Cordelia exclaimed, patting her back when the redhead began to
choke on the soft drink, so quickly was she trying to swallow it. "Get a grip,
girl!"

"I don't want to miss anything!" she squeaked in delight. "It's a success. They
love them! I love them! I'm so proud I'm... I'm... I can't find the word!"

"Y-you're ecstatic," Giles offered.

"You're flipping out," Cordelia muttered under her breath.

"You're babbling," Buffy stated.

But Willow was so excited that she looked high on a caffeine overdose, and
completely ignored them. "What are you doing here?" she almost shrieked, taking
her two best friends' hands and practically dragging them to the dance floor.
"We have to dance! Dance! Dance!"

"Ouch!" Cordelia massaged her pained hand. "Willow, do you know your own
strength?"

"You'd rather... ! You'd rather... !
I couldn't watch you before
Now you play every night!

You'd rather... ! You'd rather... !
I couldn't watch you before
Now you play every night!"

The three adults watched in amusement as the three younger girls danced and
swung along to the chords of the music, the three of them so physically
different and yet so similar in their joy for life, in the way that they gave
their feelings and inner strength to those who surrounded them.

In the middle of that faceless crowd, the three friends shone out like a
precious diamond in a pile of coal.

"It's difficult to believe," Angel whispered, to nobody in particular.

Joyce looked at her daughter's boyfriend with a frown. "Believe what?"

The dark-haired vampire shrugged. "That there are things out there right now.
Vampires, demons, the forces of the darkness. At moments like this, it's
difficult to believe that things like me exist."

The middle-aged woman just took his large hand in her smaller one and squeezed
it warmly, offering him a look of understanding. "You know what they say, Angel.
'For every shadow...'"

The vampire nodded, smiling. "'...there's a light to make it vanish.'"

~~~~~~

Cecil turned to his Mistress, with his eyes full of concern. "It seems that
there are problems in the building, maybe we should..."

"We'll start the ceremony right now," Myriam sharply cut him off with a dry
gesture, walking to the makeshift altar. "Call the guards, and tell them to get
the first offering ready. You!" she shouted to the rest of her acolytes, "take
your positions around the table, the time has come!"

The black-robed men quickly adopted their prearranged positions inside and
around the circle, copying with their bodies the positions of the constellations
at that precise moment.

Myriam took out a sacrificial dagger from the dark insides of her robe, lifting
the obsidian blade over the tied-and-gagged boy who looked at her with terrified
eyes, his breath coming in and out so fast that he was hyperventilating.

Thunder roared. Lightning crashed.

"Oh, my dark Lady," she chanted with a convinced, fanatical voice as her
acolytes' low voices rose around her, their chant a hypnotic murmur coming from
under their black hoods.

"Hear my call on this night of a thousand years, hear my call and accept this
offering of innocent blood that is spilled in your name. We will drink it and
the way will be opened for you to come. Come to us!!"

"Are you there?" Cecil spoke quietly into his walkie-talkie, shaking it as if it
were broken when he didn't get any response at all. "Is anyone receiving me?"

He fumbled with the controls of the walkie-talkie, searching on the different
frequencies, but receiving only static as a response.

With a frown, the huge acolyte turned around to his Mistress. And his mouth went
dry. "Oh, shit!"

Myriam was about to let the stone dagger sink into the boy's body when her
acolyte's voice cut through her ears like a knife, making her look at the man
with eyes full of anger. But his expression prevented her from shouting at him.

Cecil was beyond pale, he was cerulean. His big, bovine eyes were lost somewhere
behind her, directly over her shoulder; and his mouth was hanging open in a
stupid grimace, a mix of surprise and fear.

Very slowly, Myriam turned around and all her acolytes with her, facing where
Cecil was looking at.

A new burst of thunder dramatically rumbled in the dark skies above them, making
her jump a little with surprise. A lightning bolt again stabbed the darkness
with blinding blue-white fury, striking the antennae on the other roof and
provoking an explosion of yellow electric sparks, that slowly floated down like
feathers.

From the electric light of the storm, all she could see of the man standing on
the roof's edge was his dark silhouette, outlined against the blue and golden
glow of the electric light show.

He was tall and well-built, with broad shoulders covered by a long coat that
reached down to his knees, hiding the rest of his features inside a blanket of
darkness.

He looked like a ghost, more than anything else.

Myriam was clueless about how he had managed to climb up to the roof; the little
structure that housed the roof access was at the other end of the building, and
there was no other way of getting up here... unless he could fly, of course.

But the most amazing thing was the power that she was perceiving from him,
coming out from the dark silhouette in deep crimson waves that were almost
overwhelming. Such darkness, such potential...

The light provided by the explosion slowly faded away, and the still form of the
man became more and more visible as the darkness enveloped him like the embrace
of a lover.

Not without a little surprise, Myriam noticed that he was barely more than a
boy, his young and handsome features a surprising contrast with his dark clothes
and attitude.

A cold gust of wind flowed over them, making the man's coat flutter like a cape
at his back and snap like a whip.

His clothes were completely black under his long leather coat. Black jeans,
black boots, black untucked silk shirt... his pale, almost marble skin stood
against them and his dark hair gleamed, shining with inner light.

But his eyes... =Oh my, his eyes...=

They were like bottomless pools of darkness – sad, ancient beyond belief. As if
they had seen too much, lived too much. He had the eyes of a dark god, boring
into her body with slow, quiet rage.

Myriam Archer understood then that she was the one who was being examined like a
bug under a microscope, maybe even being judged at this very moment.

That was when she saw the sword.

It was a Japanese katana that he was almost casually holding in front of himself
in his left hand, his long slender fingers around the top of the black,
silver-topped scabbard, near the silver hilt of the sword.

The handle of the katana was wrapped in black silk, and the silver pommel had
been exquisitely carved in the form of a roaring dragon.

"Who are you?" Myriam asked, practically captivated by the intense gaze of the
stranger's dark eyes. "Have you come to witness the coming of the dark Lady?"

The stranger slowly shook his head, closing his eyes almost with a sad
expression. Very slowly, he pushed the hilt of the sword with his thumb, showing
a few inches of the sword's dark gray blade, which shone under the effect of the
pale moonlight with a menacing glow.

Myriam's mouth slowly extended into a sick, twisted grin. "My own dark
exterminating angel," she whispered, tilting her head to one side.

"Kill him!" the adept then shouted.

Alexander Lavelle Harris wondered how many times he had heard those same words,
in the last few years. And, not without a twisted feeling of irony, how many
times he would hear them again in the future.

He was moving even before the woman's lips were completely closed, launching
himself forward and tracing an arc with the sword as he unsheathed its long,
curved blade.

Half a second later and he already was over the first man, making him fall under
the silent wind of the katana, jumping aside and spinning over the ground, in
search of the next target even before the first one knew he was dead.

No sound accompanied his movements but the soft whisper of the wind, sliding
over his sword and clothes.

No war cry, no smug shout of superiority, no expression on his face as his dark
blade danced its deadly dance, slashing and cutting in a whirlwind of blood and
death. Brutal, savage, merciless.

Another man fell, and then another, and yet another as Xander flowed between
them with graceful precision, not stopping a moment to allow himself the luxury
of thinking, just feeling the thrill of the carnage pumping inside his veins
like molten lava, fueling him like pure adrenaline.

He felt his fangs beginning to form under his lips, his features melting and
rearranging when his true face came to show. A growl was born in the pit of his
belly, climbing up his esophagus and turning into a roar that could not be
denied.

His body moved even faster, to a point where it was nearly impossible to follow
him with the naked eye. Xander felt blood splattering his face when his sword,
edged like a razor, opened the throat of a man and his vital liquid came out
like the spray of a fountain.

Sweet, coppery, delicious.

One second more, a turn, a jump and a spin and he was face to face with the dark
Mistress, breathing heavily not because of the physical effort but by the
thrilling, almost sexually arousing feeling of the hunt.

He had one hand around the handle of the katana and the other one still holding
the scabbard that, like a makeshift garrote, had caused its own amount of
destruction.

The sword's bloody blade was leaning on the woman's throat, even before the last
of the bodies hit the ground, his red-gold eyes were locked with the woman's icy
ones and he could feel the men's blood on his skin, coating his hair and
clothes.

He could taste its sweet, coppery flavor on his lips, so rich, so full of life
and energy that it made him crave for more. To drink, to feed until that
burning, dry sensation in his throat was alleviated, until he was finally
satiated.

The only thing that kept him from beheading the woman was the fact that she had
the edge of her dagger to the boy's throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander
saw the last man remaining moving behind him, an automatic Uzi in his hands.

"Vampire," she hissed with unadulterated hatred. "You have gained nothing here,
but you've spoiled everything... why have you done this?"

Xander's vampire eyes settled on the woman's face for a second, before shaking
his head sadly. Very slowly, he took his sword away from Myriam's neck and
sheathed it, carefully wiping the blade between his thumb and forefinger as it
was slid inside the scabbard.

For the first time, he spoke. "You wouldn't understand it."

"Why don't you try anyway?"

Letting out an unnecessarily long sigh, Xander indicated the captive boy with
his head. "For him," he simply said.

"Him?" She looked incredulous. "He is nothing, nobody – he doesn't matter in the
slightest."

Xander's dark eyes looked at her, with a expression that was a mix of pity and
resignation. "I told you that you wouldn't understand it."

Then he began to move again, letting himself fall backwards with an smooth
movement that seemed to flow like water.

Leaning down on his right hand, his body spun around like a winch, one of his
feet kicking the woman's arm up and away from the boy's throat and the other
ripping the gun from the acolyte's big hands.

Before any of them knew what was happening, the young vampire was already on his
feet again, his black katana emerging from its scabbard blade-down and slashing
across Cecil's chest.

With a cry of pure rage and hate towards the man that had ruined everything she
had been waiting for all her life, Myriam jumped at Xander's back; her
sacrificial dagger tracing a deadly arc towards him, directly towards his heart.

Xander felt her moving even before she actually started to do so; closing his
eyes with a expression that was pure heart-wrenching sadness, he just spun his
katana, trapping the blade between his waist and right elbow.

He let the woman impale herself on the dark gray edge with a sound of ripped
fabric and flesh, until her chest touched his back, the red-colored blade coming
out of her body.

The young vampire felt her dying breath, half-pain, half-surprise, caress his
ear and neck. Clenching his pointed teeth together, he yanked at the sword,
extracting it from the woman's body, which fell to the ground as a dark
shapeless pile of meat.

Slowly turning around, Xander took a look at the carnage that he had caused in
just a few moments, the torn and broken bodies on the ground, the rich scent of
blood floating in the air, and he couldn't help but shudder at the scenario.

At what he had done.

Pushing away all negative thoughts, knowing that they would reemerge later to
haunt him, the young vampire sheathed his sword in its scabbard and quickly
walked to the mahogany table, checking on the boy's state.

He looked scared, a thing he couldn't be blamed for, but otherwise unharmed.

Using his razor-sharp claws, Xander cut his bonds, quickly freeing him and
taking off his gag while he let his human mask slip over his vampiric features.

"Are you alright?" he gently asked the boy.

He nodded, with saucer-wide blue eyes. "Are you a superhero? Are you Batman?" He
looked really impressed.

Despite himself, Xander chuckled with true amusement. "No, I'm just..."

He couldn't find the right word to define himself. Shaking his head, he made the
sword vanish inside his coat and took the boy in his arms, gently resting his
head on his shoulder. "What's your name?"

"I'm James, but everybody calls me Jimmy."

"OK, Jimmy, listen to me very carefully," Xander's voice had suddenly acquired a
deep tone, vibrating and mesmerizing. "All of this, all these people, everything
you've seen, including myself, it's just a bad dream, OK?"

The boy yawned, and felt his blue eyes beginning to close. "I'm not sleeping,"
he protested, "not yet."

"Oh yes you are," Xander gently insisted, swiftly rocking him as he walked to
the stairs access. "You just don't know you're sleeping. Tomorrow, you'll wake
up in your bed and you'll have forgotten everything. You don't need to..." the
boy's soft snore nuzzled his ear, "...worry."

The door opened at that very moment, and Xander's whole being was assaulted by a
not-exactly-unpleasant 'buzz' that made him shiver before it made itself
comfortable at the back of his neck. Michael practically jumped onto the roof,
his rapier shining gold and silver under the weak light of the moonlight.

A burst of thunder crashed violently above them, and the two men jumped with
surprise.

"Why does everything always have to be so fittingly dramatic?" the French
Immortal asked with a smile.

Xander just shrugged, adjusting his grip on the sleeping child in his arms.
"Just lucky, I guess."

He took a slow and complete look at his friend's attire, noticing his
bullet-riddled clothes, and raised a dark eyebrow. "Don't tell me, you had a
fight with a vending machine and you lost."

Michael just passed a finger over Xander's cheek, and showed his reddened
fingertip at him. "Mon frère, those who live in glass houses..."

The young vampire snorted, beginning to walk past him. "The difference is that
this blood is not mine."

"It won't make any difference if it is yours or not, when you try to clean it
out of your clothes. Merde," the French Immortal softly cursed with a frown.
"Wait a moment, s'il te plait."

Michael quickly ran to the mahogany table, and the figures fallen beside it.
Kneeling down beside them, he took the sacrificial dagger from the woman's dead
fingers and a card from the interior of his jumpsuit that he examined, checking
that no bullet had damaged it.

It was a Tarot-sized card, but instead of the usual drawings, it featured a
white-clad angel with wide-spread wings, a lopsided halo and a devil's tail that
was smiling crookedly and trying to conceal a red trident behind his back.

With a smug grin, the French Immortal used the sacrificial dagger to nail it to
the surface of the table and stepped back, contemplating his work.

"That's for you to remember us," he whispered, before turning around to where
Xander was waiting for him.

"Help me," a ragged voice said near him. "It hurts."

Michael turned around, looking at the broken bodies of the men and the black
Mistress and noticed that one of them was still barely breathing, a pink foam
coming from his mouth as his lungs quickly collapsed.

The French Immortal carefully knelt down beside him and, taking off one of his
gloves, checked the pulse on the acolyte's carotid, feeling the erratic beat of
his heart. He barely had minutes left.

"Help me," he repeated, a thin stream of blood slowly flowing from the corner of
his lips.

Michael's first impulse was to tell the man off but, instead, he closed his dark
blue eyes and took a deep breath, shaking his head as he made a gesture towards
Xander. The young vampire nodded, and walked to the structure of the stairs
carrying the now-sleeping child in his arms.

"What's your name?" he asked the man, gently opening his robe and looking at the
terrible wound caused by the razor-sharp edge of Xander's katana. The blade had
cut flesh, muscle and bone, exposing the interior of the man's chest and
probably opening up one of his lungs.

"Cecil," the acolyte whispered with an effort.

"Very well, Cecil," Michael said, trying to gather all his self-control. "I'm
not going to lie to you. You're going to die, and there's nothing I can do about
that. You have a punctured lung; I don't know if it's from the sword or one of
your own ribs, but I guess that doesn't really matter."

"What matters," he continued, taking the fallen man's Uzi from the ground and
extracting its magazine, checking that there was still one bullet remaining in
the gun's chamber, "is that in a few moments you'll begin to choke on your own
blood and you'll die, slowly and painfully. Don't ask me how I know that, but I
know it for sure."

Placing the weapon in the man's hands, Michael slowly stood up. "There's one
bullet left," he said coldly. "Use it wisely."

Then, he began to calmly walk away, tossing the clip far away into the darkness
of the roof. He could almost physically feel the eyes of the man boring into his
back, and the mouth of the gun wavering, as the man doubtfully aimed at him.

Michael didn't slow his pace or look back but, when the roar of the gunshot
finally rumbled in the night like the thunder of the rising storm, he couldn't
avoid flinching. Even when he knew that the acolyte had taken the only right
decision.

The French Immortal walked into the stairwell of the roof access and looked
sadly at his younger friend, who was waiting for him.

"Was that really necessary?" the young vampire asked him, as they began to climb
down the stairs.

Michael shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Non, mon ami. It wasn't
necessary, but it was the most honorable thing to do. If there was one thing
that my teacher taught me, it was that even the worst of your enemies deserve
your consideration, at the time of your victory in battle."

He let out a long, tired sigh. "That and the granting of a quick, clean death."

After a few moments of tense silence, Xander raised his eyebrows. "And what
about the card?"

Michael finally smiled at him with his habitual goofy grin. "Now, mon frère,
that was fun. And it will help to tell the rest of them who really rules this
place."

With a crooked smile, Xander offered his hand to his Immortal friend, which he
softly accepted with a slap. "Archangels rule, Jean-Michel."

"Archangels rule, Alexander."

~~~~~~

With a tired grunt, Oz finished arranging the instruments and equipment in the
back of his van, closing the sliding door before turning around to say goodbye
to the rest of his band.

"Well, guys," he said, slapping everyone's hand, "nicely played tonight. But we
still can do better." A collective groan emerged from the four men, and Oz
couldn't help but smile.

"Come on, Oz," objected Nino, the bass player. "We did great tonight." The rest
of the band muttered their agreement.

Oz just shrugged. "We managed not to make them puke, and some people would be
satisfied with that, but I'm one of those freaks who actually likes to do his
music right. Anyway," he added, sending a quick glance at the almost-full moon
above them, "I'm gonna be... busy for the next three nights, so we can take a
break for a while."

Before he could change his mind, the Wolfpack quickly said goodbye to their
leader and walked away, practically stepping on each other's toes in their haste
to get the hell away from the red-haired tyrant.

"Take care!" Oz shouted at their vanishing backs, before adding in a lower
voice, "you don't know who you could stumble into in the dark."

"Maybe a vampire," said a deep male voice behind him.

Oz just smiled, while slowly turning around and facing his friends. "Or a
werewolf."

Willow practically jumped in his arms, kissing him long and sweetly on the lips.
"But you could always be lucky, and find an apprentice of Wicca."

The red-haired musician hugged his girlfriend tight, and kissed her back. "I
only know one of those in this town, and she's mine."

"You can bet on it."

As they rubbed their noses together, lost in their own world, the blonde Slayer,
her arm around Angel's waist, turned to the rest. "Well, I hate to leave this
way, but the American Undead here and myself are going to do a fast patrol
before it starts to rain again."

"It's Irish Undead," Angel corrected her. "I'm proud of my origins, you know."

Ignoring him, Buffy quickly kissed her mother on the cheek and hugged the rest
of her friends, playfully messing with Oz's spiked hair when his turn came.
"Well done, Wolf-man Jack. You got real talent."

The red-haired musician was about to blush when, with a final goodbye and good
night, the Slayer and her vampire boyfriend walked away, in search of any vamp
stupid enough to cross their path.

"Well," Cordelia finally said when they were out of sight, "I hate to be the
spoilsport, but it's like cold, dark and wet out here, there's classes tomorrow,
I'm tired and I wanna go home."

"And considerably angry," Oz observed with the slightest raising of his red
eyebrows, "from what I can see."

Indeed, there was something that surprisingly resembled a dark cloud hanging
over the brunette girl's head. All the friends present trembled looked at her,
so well did they know her.

"Well, I would be better if certain guy whose name I'm not going to mention but
who is a
'I'm-so-powerful-a-vampire-that-I-don't-need-to-call-my-girlfriend-to-tell-her-I'm-gonna-be-late',
would have called to tell his girlfriend that he was going to be late!"

Oz shared a look with his girlfriend, and arched slightly his eyebrow. "That has
to be the longest nickname I've ever heard." Willow just giggled in silence.

"But nooo," Cordelia continued her tirade in spite of the looks on her friends'
faces, "he has to play the macho man, and make us wait as if he's some kind of-"

"Cordelia!" Giles cut her off, massaging the bridge of his nose, to prevent his
upcoming headache. "I think that if Xander and the rest said that they had
something more important to do, it was because they certainly had something more
important to do. Please, don't take that personally, Oz," he added with a last
thought.

"No problem," the werewolf shrugged.

Cordelia practically snorted. "Yeah, something more important like what? I
mean," she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow with a sarcastic expression,
"you can't really expect me to believe that there's a world-wide threat out
there every week!"

~~~~~~

Barely a block from the twin Kobayashi Towers, a sewer lid moved seemingly by
itself, just a little at first. Until it was finally pushed up from the ground
and put aside, as if it didn't really weigh anything at all.

One by one, the six figures emerged from the dark interior of the sewer and
quickly walked away, moving between the shadows as if they belonged to them,
until they reached two vehicles that were parked nearby.

"I hate to leave like this," Kyle protested, tiredly leaning his tall frame on
the hood of his cherry-red Nissan Pathfinder.

"You mean without saying goodbye?" Rachel opened the door, and took a pair of
small binoculars that she used to watch the entrance of the now-distant towers.

"Well, that too, but I was thinking more along the lines of walking through the
sewers. That may be good for the blonde princess – but for those of us who
actually need to breathe, it's just plain nauseous."

"Yeah, like steppin' into the bathroom after you've used it." Spike propped
himself over the hood, lighting up a new cigarette.

Kyle just gave him the finger. "Screw you, Spike."

The bleached-hair vampire smiled at him mischievously. "Is that a proposal,
Cowboy?"

"Enough, people," Xander cut them off before their tirade got out of hand.
"Crystal, any residual effects?"

The white-clad witch shook her head, making her fiery red locks swim around her
face. "I've blessed the place, and performed a warding ritual; any residual
energy from their ceremony will have vanished by now."

Nodding his agreement, the young vampire turned to Rachel. "What do you see,
Rach?"

"The paramedics are evacuating the kids," the brunette Immortal told him,
carefully examining the scene, "and the guys in blue seem to have everything
under control."

"Bloody smurfs," Spike laughed aloud. "Wonder what they're gonna write in their
stupid reports?"

"I'm having a vision," Kyle announced, closing his eyes and moving the back of
his hand to his forehead, as if he were about to faint. "'Street gangs' fight
for control of the PCP market ends in carnage.' How do you see it?"

"A little long for a newspaper's front page," Michael said, taking a long
trenchcoat from the interior of his 1978 Cadillac Coupe DeVille's trunk before
closing it. "I'd give it the third page."

Spike shook his bleached head. "Naah, a column in the local section."

"Hey!" Xander snapped at them, causing his friends to look at him with surprise.
"I said that's enough. We have nothing left to do here, so let's go."

Sharing looks like a group of kids lectured by their father, the men and women
of Team Archangel promptly followed their leader's example, silently climbing
into the two vehicles, whose engines quickly came to life before they drove off
into the night.

Then it started to rain again. Xander relaxed in his seat beside Michael and
closed his eyes, trying not to think at all, just focusing on the almost-warm
sound of the rain falling on the metallic frame of the car.

"Let's go home," he whispered so low, that nobody heard him.

~~~~~~

The silver Aston Martin DB7 Vantage stopped in front of the mansion's fence, and
the driver's tinted window rolled down with nothing more than the whisper of the
electric motor.

A slender male arm came out from the car, clad in expensive black cashmere and a
bronze ring on his finger, and gently pressed the call button of the intercom.

"Yes?" a deep voice came through the speaker grill.

The man driving the luxury British sports car gently leaned on the window frame,
half-closing his ebony black eyes when a potent torch switched on, engulfing the
car in a circle of light. "Damon Frost to see Mr..."

The electric buzz and rusty creak of the main gate opening in front of him cut
off his voice, making him look forward again, to the dark bulk of the ancient
mansion.

"Please come in, Mr. Frost," the voice said.

Frowning at the whole scenario, a little over-dramatic for his taste, Damon
Frost drove his Aston Martin across the threshold and to the building. He let
out a snort of ironic amusement when the car's headlights illuminated the
house's front face, and its overdone decorations and gargoyles.

He parked in front of the main door and killed the engine, quickly getting out
and running under the rain to the protective refuge of the large porch,
shivering under his cashmere coat because of the chill and wet air of the night.

He knocked on the large wooden door three times with the heavy knocker, which
thundered on the empty halls of the mansion like a church bell.

"For Pete's sake..." he growled.

The door opened and Damon found himself face to face with one of the tallest men
he had ever met, looking down at him as if he were some kind of bug and he was
trying to decide whether to stomp him or not.

Finally, after some moments of tense silence, the tall and black man stepped
aside, inviting him in with a movement of his arm.

"Mr. Frost," he simply said to him. "I'm Mr. Smith."

With a slight raising of his sandy eyebrows, the shorter man stepped into the
house, all the time observing his host out of the corner of his eye.

"Original name," Damon whispered in sarcasm, "did you get it at Anonymous 'R
Us?"

The black man pointedly ignored him and began to walk away with long, decided
steps, not waiting to see if Damon followed him or not. Sighing, the shorter man
did so, the two of them walking the seemingly endless dark hallways.

Until they arrived at a large room presided over by an equally large fireplace,
whose crackling fire seemed to be the only source of light and heat in the whole
building.

In front of the dancing flames, the almost shapeless figure of an old man in a
wheelchair immediately captured his attention. His bent body seemed so old, so
worn out that he wasn't able to calculate his age; for a second the man's blue
eyes locked with Damon's black ones, and he would have sworn that the man was a
thousand years old.

"Welcome to my home, Mr. Frost," the old man greeted him with a voice that
seemed to came from the interior of a tomb, waving with a hand to the
comfortable-looking seat that was placed in front of him.

Damon took off his coat and walked to the man, slowly sitting in front of him as
his eyes moved almost at lightspeed, capturing all the details of his
surroundings and companions in a second.

"You may retire, Mr. Smith. Mr. Frost and myself will have a nice chat alone."

Nodding sharply with his head, the large black man went out of the room, closing
the two wooden doors behind himself. Then the old man turned his attention
towards Damon, while his fingers played with one of his chess figures.

"I thought you would be taller," he simply said.

Damon gently raised one of his eyebrows, before answering. "Appearances aren't
everything."

The truth was, that his figure wasn't really impressive. A young man in his
mid-twenties with sandy hair and slightly tanned skin, more attractive than
handsome, proportionally weighted and built to his medium height.

The only feature that stood out in his whole appearance were his eyes, so black
that there was no difference between the pupil and the iris, cold and hard like
the wing-cases of a beetle.

Eyes that held no mercy or remorse. He had the eyes of a killer. "I prefer to
rely on my other... abilities." he said.

"Such as?"

Before his lips had stopped moving, Damon had a fully automatic Beretta 93R in
his right hand, its laser-sight painting a red spot on the old man's forehead.
His cold expression hadn't changed in the slightest.

The old man just smiled, never stopping his play with the figure that he had in
his hands. "That's not going to be necessary, Mr. Frost."

"I'll be the one to decide that," Damon observed, cocking the gun. "I want some
answers."

The old man nodded, with an open smile that showed his yellow teeth. "You want
to know why you're here. You want to know why I've requested your special
services."

Damon relaxed a little in the seat, adopting a more comfortable position and
crossing his legs, but never stopping to aim at the man with his gun.

"I must admit that I'm curious about that," the gunman said. "When someone
requests the services of my... employers, it's highly unusual they ask for a
name in concrete. They just give the target's identity and the money, and they
wait for the apple to fall from the tree, as it were."

"And you want to know why I want you, and not anybody else."

The younger man nodded slowly. "One of my business' main prerequisites is
discretion; my employers aren't very happy to know that my name is... how shall
I put it?" he frowned, as if he was making an effort to find the right words.

He finally said, "Out in the open. That makes them feel insecure, and that
leaves me in a very uncomfortable position. So," he said, slightly raising his
weapon, "give me one good reason why I shouldn't splatter your brains all over
this nice Persian carpet."

If the old man felt some amount of fear at Damon's unsubtle threat, his wrinkled
face didn't show it. "It's a very expensive carpet," he observed with a smile.

Damon offered him an edged smile, and shrugged. "I'm not the one who's going to
have to take care of the cleaning bill. And my patience is running short."

Releasing a sigh that sounded like a rusty flute, the old man shook his head. "I
hate to be so prosaic, but it's best to stick to terms you can understand."

Damon looked at him through half-closed eyes, full of curiosity. "Such as?"

"Money."

The younger man smiled like a shark. "The love of which is the root of all
evil," he whispered with a knowing smile. "I'm listening."

"How much do you usually get paid for a job, Mr. Frost?" the old man asked,
rolling his wheelchair away and around Damon's seat. "Say, $100,000? $200,000?"

"More like $250,000 per target," he confirmed.

"I'll pay you $500,000 if you just hear my proposal, another $500,000 more if
you accept the job, and $1,000,000 more for each needed killing you have to
commit during its execution," he simply stated.

Damon's eyebrows shot up like a scalded cat and he finally uncocked the gun,
hiding it under his jacket. "Now we're speaking the same language," he grinned
from ear to ear. "Who do I have to kill? Literally speaking, of course."

Rolling beside his seat, the old man placed the small chess figure in Damon's
left hand, gently making him close his fingers around it.

"That's the best part, Mr. Frost," he whispered in his ear, conceding him the
dubious pleasure of his putrid breath. "Somebody I know you'd kill for free."

Rolling away from him, the old man finally allowed him to take a look at the
figure. The White King's Bishop was a handsome man in his early thirties, with
short but thick hair and a charming smile. He wore a suit with a long
trenchcoat, and carried a rapier in his right hand.

Damon felt himself becoming breathless, as his heart pounded in his chest with
the fast pace of a drum.

"My, oh my..." he whispered, rolling the figure between his fingers to capture
all the exquisite details in his retinas, and unconsciously beginning to smile
with absolute delight.

~~~~~~

To be continued...