A/N: OK, I'm trying to really work hard at this now! I swear! So, for all of you, another chapter! Oh yes! Feel honoured, lol. Hey, did anyone else have problems getting this site up just after the hardware problems? I did and so did my friends. Just wondering.
Disclaimer: **Dancing around, hands over ears** Lalalalala! If I can't hear you, it's still legal!!!
Dedication: Rainbow Dreamer for looking up all those Latin things for me for a fic in planning. You're the best sweetie!
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For a moment, all the quartet could do was stand there, stunned. This couldn't be happening. But the sharp acrid stench of the gas was a constant reminder that it was happening- and all too fast.
Suddenly, as if a lock had been released on him yet again, Luke ran towards the large windows on the wall opposite the door. Leaning over the side workbench and pushing away bottles of chemicals with a his free right hand, he used his left to try to unscrew the lock on the window nearest to him and to push it open. Nothing. Not even when he tried it with two hands. That was wrong. He knew for a fact that none of these locks were stiff.
And yet none of them wanted to come free and let the window open.
There was a rhythmetical pounding coming from somewhere behind him and to his right. Keisha was throwing her entire weight against the door again and again in a futile attempt to make it spring open.
Willow and Tara were pounding and yelling. Nobody was there to come to their assistance, not even the caretaker. That was another strange factor that registered somewhere far away in a distant chamber of Luke's mind, and yet he paid it no attention.
Because the gas was filling the room and polluting their air at an alarming rate and all he could think of doing was surviving. Breathing was already hard, and to do so without choking was becoming steadily impossible.
Luke slammed his fists against the windows to try to push the windows open- nothing.
From behind him, the thumps at the door were becoming uneven and weaker. Then they ceased all together.
Luke spun around just in time to see his sister's eyes roll back up into her head and her body crumple to the tiled floor, leaning against the wall. As the smallest of the four, she had found it the hardest to breathe.
"Keisha!" he yelled, forgetting the windows and trying to run to her aid even as Tara knelt at her side. He hadn't even gotten halfway across the room when he began to choke again.
"Throw something...at the..." Willow wheezed, breaking into racking coughs. "At the window..."
Of course! Why hadn't he thought of it before?
Luke seized up a lab stool and hurled it crazily at the window he had been trying to open. His aim was poor and his throw was feeble, but the metal stool still smashed straight through the glass enough to leave a large jagged hole gaping there. Then he turned to help Tara carry Keisha between them to the window. Willow, who had leaned over to peer out of the window, suddenly turned to them looking grim.
"We can't get out this way." she stated hopelessly. "It looks like a sheer drop, nothing we could climb down or anything."
"At least get her to the window." Luke said. "She can't breath."
Willow helped them to drag Keisha up to the broken glass when suddenly something smashed through.
Not something. Someone.
Someone tall and dark.
Angel.
"What happ-" he started, before his gaze fell on the unconcious Keisha. "Pass her to me."
They didn't even question it as they struggled to hand her over. Angel pulled the girl up into his arms, then said, "There's a way you can get out. About six feet down and far to the right, there's a ledge you can probably jump down onto. It's not clearly visible at first. I'll get Keisha out now."
They watched as, without even a moment's hesitation, the souled vampire leapt back out through the window and down two storeys onto the lawn below. He held Keisha out so that, as helanded hard and rolled slightly, she didn't get hurt. He laid her gently down, still supporting her head with his hand, and gestured for them to come down.
Hand concealed by his jacket sleeve, Luke broke away some of the jagged glass projections still clinging to the window frame and leaned out to see better. There, he could see it now! A small ledge that appeared to have not much purpose at all, but for which he was grateful now. It wasn't much more 15 cm wide, barely enough to perch on, but he still climbed out through the ruined window and cautiously swung himself out onto it. Once there, he helped Willow and then Tara get their footing.
From this position, he was all too aware of the drop to the lawn below. It wasn't high enough to kill, but could cause a trip to the hospital with a few broken bones and severe concussion. Hardly something he wanted, having just had a near collision with death with a demonic looking freight truck. Angel couldn't help them- all he could do was just sit there, cradling Keisha's head, and watch them.
Not them. Tara.
Then Luke realised. Tara was chanting again, her eyes closed in concentration. Even just as he realised it, Luke felt a tingling sensation spreading all over him, from head to toes. He closed his eyes momentarily...
Then opened them again to find himself, Tara and Willow standing down on the lawn beside Angel and Keisha. Luke's eyes widened almost to the size of dinner plates as the realisation of the teleportation spell hit him.
"Wish I could have done that at the start." Tara was muttering. "Something in there blocked my powers."
Angel seemed as though he was going to reply, but just then Keisha stirred and broke into a fit of racking coughs. They patiently waited until they had ceased, and Keisha's eyes fluttered open to look at Angel bending over her.
"Angel?" she murmured, then choked again. When she stopped, she rose into a sitting position, Angel's hand on the small of her back to steady her. She glanced around at all of them somewhat meekly.
"Sorry." she said, pushing back some stray strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.
"It's OK." Angel said softly. Then, more seriously, he asked, "Have you seen any of this in a dream or premonition?"
"What?" Luke's face was creased in a frown of confusion. "Sorry, I'm lost here. What do you mean, dream or premonition?"
Keisha shook her head and looked up at the standing trio. It was now she had to explain. Never wasn't an option. She took a deep bretah.
"I sometimes...well, lately, I've been having dreams that didn't make a lot of sense. Then they seemed come true, and I didn't know what was happening, so..."
"Second Sight." Willow breathed. Everyone looked at her. She continued in her almost awed tone, "It's very rare. There aren't many records of it at all, and the ones that exist don't say a lot. But it should enable the person with it to have dreams of the future and to be able to communicate with ghosts. And it usually occurs in one or both of a set of twins."
"That's what Buffy said." Keisha told them, not realising immediately what that would mean. Then Angel looked at her with such mixed emotion that she explained the answer to his unworded question.
"Buffy's a ghost who's come to see me a few times. She said she was one of the Slayers before Gracia. And she-" Keisha's eyes widened suddenly. "Gracia! We have to find her! She went off to fight all these vampires, and...and..."
"It's not safe." Luke finished her sentence. "We have to help her."
"Where are they?" Angel asked as he stood up and helped the recovered Keisha to her feet.
"An industrial area." Keisha answered. "It's probably the one a few blocks away, it's not far. Let's go now."
The four set off quickly, Angel still slightly supporting Keisha as if he were scared she would suddenly collapse again. As they hurried down the street, somebody appeared in front of them. Somebody dressed in a black leather trench coat with bleach blonde hair.
"Spike!" Willow exclaimed. It was a shock seeing him after so long. He blinked at the witches, then studied the entire group.
"Well, what a turn out." he said, smirking. Then he realised who was missing. "Where's the Slayer?"
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Pain.
That was the first thing Gracia knew- an almost overwhelmingly dull ache that filled her skull but became sharper close to her left temple. Something had half encrusted itself from around there and mostway down her cheek.
Her immediate thought was 'What happened?', followed quickly by 'Ouch!'. The only solution was to open her eyes.
She soon found out that it was easier said than done. Her eyelids felt like two tonne sandbags each, but she still, after a little struggle, she managed to lift them very slowly to take in her surroundings.
She appeared to be in one of the factories that she was close to investigating before she had been attacked. It was clear that she was in the main workspace- an enormous hall littered with broken crates and useless trash including shattered televisions and what appeared to be a mangled shopping trolley. A large staircase led up to a second balcony-type level with four or five doors leading off to separate offices. The only windows in the place, broken and mainly boarded, were at this level.
Gracia herself was on a raised platform at one end, a hastily constructed yet strong wooden stage upon which sat a regal throne. It was gruesome though, looking as though the tortured grey substance it was made of was probably genuine human bones. She was seated not far from it, back against a blunt wooden post with her arms taken back behind her and her wrists tied firmly with some kind of rope. Her legs were out at a slightly curled angle to her left, also bound at the ankles. She tried to shift her wrists out, to wriggle her ankles free.
Nothing. The ropes held sturdy and fast.
"So, the Sleeping Beauty awakens at last."
The voice was male- cold and mocking and hatefully anticipating. She turned her head towards it, earning herself a sharp jolt in her skull and her first glimpse of the slowly approaching man.
He was both tall and broad, with jet black hair and thick, well-trained muscles. He was dressed in dark colours and didn't seem to be more in his early twenties. Not that that meant anything, of course- his face was twisted in the mask of a vampire. His lip curled back from his long razor fangs in an evil smirk and his glowing golden eyes swept over her in a freezing stare. She watched him straight back, even and forcibly calm. Neither said anything until he broke the silence, halting as he stood in front of her, looking down.
"Allow me to introduce myself." he continued sarcastically. "My name is Zachary."
"Gracia McCormick." she answered with equal derision, giving him a small nod. "To what do I owe this honour of you allowing me to visit?"
He, Zachary, gave something close to a laugh. "You're really quite bold for such a little girl."
"I'm sixteen, nearly seventeen. Not that that would mean much to a guy who probably saw the Bronze Age."
He just gave that harsh sound nearly like a laugh again. "Not quite, Slayer. But what does it matter? Here we are, quibbling over little unimportant matters, when there's a much more pressing issue to attend to."
He turned his back on her briefly to walk around the throne. As he stopped opposite her, his eyes glinted when they met hers. He slapped a hand onto the arm of the throne.
"This," he explained. "Is the throne of our rightful leader, the Anointed One."
"Oh, the Annoying One." Gracia put in. Even she didn't know why she was quoting Spike. It just came into her mind and although it probably put her in even more danger, the memory of those words made her feel somewhat calmer in herself. Another mystery was why.
He said nothing in reply to that, just gave a small but poisonous hiss and carried on.
"He rose from the blood of five in the days of the Master, an ancient vampire just clinging to his power as it was. When the Master was felled at the hands of the Slayer three before you, the Anointed One took his place. The year was 1997, and the good times had come.
"Until an arrogant vampire, claiming to have eliminated two Slayers in his time, arrived in this town, sure he could get rid of the current one. He failed and killed the Anointed One to avoid rightful punishment."
"Spike." Gracia said, voice low but steady. Zachary might have seemed unnerved by her knowledge for a split second, but regained his composure almost immediately.
"Of course, I'm sure he's told you already. He always likes to ally himself with Slayers now to avoid his death. He is weak, powerless, useless. He ought be killed. He's almost as bad as the other freak of vampiric nature you have alligned yourself with."
Gracia bit her tongue to prevent the tirade of infuriated words building in her throat. Zachary's evil smirk grew at her glare.
"But what am I doing, talking of past events like this? It was way before your time- you must have been just a small child at the time. But soon ancient wrongs will be set right, and all in one simple ceremony."
"Guess I'm taking part, right?" Gracia asked, eyes following Zachary's progress around the throne.
"But of course, Slayer." He crouched beside her and reached out as if to chuck her under the chin. She leaned back from his touch, annoyed more than ever at the condescending tone in his voice.
That annoyance was swept away by a freezing rush of fear as Zachary stood up and ended his speech.
"We're going to exchange your life for that of the Anointed One."
And that was when she saw the vampires moving out from the shadows.
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More soon! Promise! Now that the holidays are almost here **random cheers and celebratory nosies** I should be able to devote most of my time to fanfiction! Whoohoo!
Now please don't shy away from that cute little button below- click on it and review to tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: **Dancing around, hands over ears** Lalalalala! If I can't hear you, it's still legal!!!
Dedication: Rainbow Dreamer for looking up all those Latin things for me for a fic in planning. You're the best sweetie!
********************************************************************************
For a moment, all the quartet could do was stand there, stunned. This couldn't be happening. But the sharp acrid stench of the gas was a constant reminder that it was happening- and all too fast.
Suddenly, as if a lock had been released on him yet again, Luke ran towards the large windows on the wall opposite the door. Leaning over the side workbench and pushing away bottles of chemicals with a his free right hand, he used his left to try to unscrew the lock on the window nearest to him and to push it open. Nothing. Not even when he tried it with two hands. That was wrong. He knew for a fact that none of these locks were stiff.
And yet none of them wanted to come free and let the window open.
There was a rhythmetical pounding coming from somewhere behind him and to his right. Keisha was throwing her entire weight against the door again and again in a futile attempt to make it spring open.
Willow and Tara were pounding and yelling. Nobody was there to come to their assistance, not even the caretaker. That was another strange factor that registered somewhere far away in a distant chamber of Luke's mind, and yet he paid it no attention.
Because the gas was filling the room and polluting their air at an alarming rate and all he could think of doing was surviving. Breathing was already hard, and to do so without choking was becoming steadily impossible.
Luke slammed his fists against the windows to try to push the windows open- nothing.
From behind him, the thumps at the door were becoming uneven and weaker. Then they ceased all together.
Luke spun around just in time to see his sister's eyes roll back up into her head and her body crumple to the tiled floor, leaning against the wall. As the smallest of the four, she had found it the hardest to breathe.
"Keisha!" he yelled, forgetting the windows and trying to run to her aid even as Tara knelt at her side. He hadn't even gotten halfway across the room when he began to choke again.
"Throw something...at the..." Willow wheezed, breaking into racking coughs. "At the window..."
Of course! Why hadn't he thought of it before?
Luke seized up a lab stool and hurled it crazily at the window he had been trying to open. His aim was poor and his throw was feeble, but the metal stool still smashed straight through the glass enough to leave a large jagged hole gaping there. Then he turned to help Tara carry Keisha between them to the window. Willow, who had leaned over to peer out of the window, suddenly turned to them looking grim.
"We can't get out this way." she stated hopelessly. "It looks like a sheer drop, nothing we could climb down or anything."
"At least get her to the window." Luke said. "She can't breath."
Willow helped them to drag Keisha up to the broken glass when suddenly something smashed through.
Not something. Someone.
Someone tall and dark.
Angel.
"What happ-" he started, before his gaze fell on the unconcious Keisha. "Pass her to me."
They didn't even question it as they struggled to hand her over. Angel pulled the girl up into his arms, then said, "There's a way you can get out. About six feet down and far to the right, there's a ledge you can probably jump down onto. It's not clearly visible at first. I'll get Keisha out now."
They watched as, without even a moment's hesitation, the souled vampire leapt back out through the window and down two storeys onto the lawn below. He held Keisha out so that, as helanded hard and rolled slightly, she didn't get hurt. He laid her gently down, still supporting her head with his hand, and gestured for them to come down.
Hand concealed by his jacket sleeve, Luke broke away some of the jagged glass projections still clinging to the window frame and leaned out to see better. There, he could see it now! A small ledge that appeared to have not much purpose at all, but for which he was grateful now. It wasn't much more 15 cm wide, barely enough to perch on, but he still climbed out through the ruined window and cautiously swung himself out onto it. Once there, he helped Willow and then Tara get their footing.
From this position, he was all too aware of the drop to the lawn below. It wasn't high enough to kill, but could cause a trip to the hospital with a few broken bones and severe concussion. Hardly something he wanted, having just had a near collision with death with a demonic looking freight truck. Angel couldn't help them- all he could do was just sit there, cradling Keisha's head, and watch them.
Not them. Tara.
Then Luke realised. Tara was chanting again, her eyes closed in concentration. Even just as he realised it, Luke felt a tingling sensation spreading all over him, from head to toes. He closed his eyes momentarily...
Then opened them again to find himself, Tara and Willow standing down on the lawn beside Angel and Keisha. Luke's eyes widened almost to the size of dinner plates as the realisation of the teleportation spell hit him.
"Wish I could have done that at the start." Tara was muttering. "Something in there blocked my powers."
Angel seemed as though he was going to reply, but just then Keisha stirred and broke into a fit of racking coughs. They patiently waited until they had ceased, and Keisha's eyes fluttered open to look at Angel bending over her.
"Angel?" she murmured, then choked again. When she stopped, she rose into a sitting position, Angel's hand on the small of her back to steady her. She glanced around at all of them somewhat meekly.
"Sorry." she said, pushing back some stray strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.
"It's OK." Angel said softly. Then, more seriously, he asked, "Have you seen any of this in a dream or premonition?"
"What?" Luke's face was creased in a frown of confusion. "Sorry, I'm lost here. What do you mean, dream or premonition?"
Keisha shook her head and looked up at the standing trio. It was now she had to explain. Never wasn't an option. She took a deep bretah.
"I sometimes...well, lately, I've been having dreams that didn't make a lot of sense. Then they seemed come true, and I didn't know what was happening, so..."
"Second Sight." Willow breathed. Everyone looked at her. She continued in her almost awed tone, "It's very rare. There aren't many records of it at all, and the ones that exist don't say a lot. But it should enable the person with it to have dreams of the future and to be able to communicate with ghosts. And it usually occurs in one or both of a set of twins."
"That's what Buffy said." Keisha told them, not realising immediately what that would mean. Then Angel looked at her with such mixed emotion that she explained the answer to his unworded question.
"Buffy's a ghost who's come to see me a few times. She said she was one of the Slayers before Gracia. And she-" Keisha's eyes widened suddenly. "Gracia! We have to find her! She went off to fight all these vampires, and...and..."
"It's not safe." Luke finished her sentence. "We have to help her."
"Where are they?" Angel asked as he stood up and helped the recovered Keisha to her feet.
"An industrial area." Keisha answered. "It's probably the one a few blocks away, it's not far. Let's go now."
The four set off quickly, Angel still slightly supporting Keisha as if he were scared she would suddenly collapse again. As they hurried down the street, somebody appeared in front of them. Somebody dressed in a black leather trench coat with bleach blonde hair.
"Spike!" Willow exclaimed. It was a shock seeing him after so long. He blinked at the witches, then studied the entire group.
"Well, what a turn out." he said, smirking. Then he realised who was missing. "Where's the Slayer?"
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Pain.
That was the first thing Gracia knew- an almost overwhelmingly dull ache that filled her skull but became sharper close to her left temple. Something had half encrusted itself from around there and mostway down her cheek.
Her immediate thought was 'What happened?', followed quickly by 'Ouch!'. The only solution was to open her eyes.
She soon found out that it was easier said than done. Her eyelids felt like two tonne sandbags each, but she still, after a little struggle, she managed to lift them very slowly to take in her surroundings.
She appeared to be in one of the factories that she was close to investigating before she had been attacked. It was clear that she was in the main workspace- an enormous hall littered with broken crates and useless trash including shattered televisions and what appeared to be a mangled shopping trolley. A large staircase led up to a second balcony-type level with four or five doors leading off to separate offices. The only windows in the place, broken and mainly boarded, were at this level.
Gracia herself was on a raised platform at one end, a hastily constructed yet strong wooden stage upon which sat a regal throne. It was gruesome though, looking as though the tortured grey substance it was made of was probably genuine human bones. She was seated not far from it, back against a blunt wooden post with her arms taken back behind her and her wrists tied firmly with some kind of rope. Her legs were out at a slightly curled angle to her left, also bound at the ankles. She tried to shift her wrists out, to wriggle her ankles free.
Nothing. The ropes held sturdy and fast.
"So, the Sleeping Beauty awakens at last."
The voice was male- cold and mocking and hatefully anticipating. She turned her head towards it, earning herself a sharp jolt in her skull and her first glimpse of the slowly approaching man.
He was both tall and broad, with jet black hair and thick, well-trained muscles. He was dressed in dark colours and didn't seem to be more in his early twenties. Not that that meant anything, of course- his face was twisted in the mask of a vampire. His lip curled back from his long razor fangs in an evil smirk and his glowing golden eyes swept over her in a freezing stare. She watched him straight back, even and forcibly calm. Neither said anything until he broke the silence, halting as he stood in front of her, looking down.
"Allow me to introduce myself." he continued sarcastically. "My name is Zachary."
"Gracia McCormick." she answered with equal derision, giving him a small nod. "To what do I owe this honour of you allowing me to visit?"
He, Zachary, gave something close to a laugh. "You're really quite bold for such a little girl."
"I'm sixteen, nearly seventeen. Not that that would mean much to a guy who probably saw the Bronze Age."
He just gave that harsh sound nearly like a laugh again. "Not quite, Slayer. But what does it matter? Here we are, quibbling over little unimportant matters, when there's a much more pressing issue to attend to."
He turned his back on her briefly to walk around the throne. As he stopped opposite her, his eyes glinted when they met hers. He slapped a hand onto the arm of the throne.
"This," he explained. "Is the throne of our rightful leader, the Anointed One."
"Oh, the Annoying One." Gracia put in. Even she didn't know why she was quoting Spike. It just came into her mind and although it probably put her in even more danger, the memory of those words made her feel somewhat calmer in herself. Another mystery was why.
He said nothing in reply to that, just gave a small but poisonous hiss and carried on.
"He rose from the blood of five in the days of the Master, an ancient vampire just clinging to his power as it was. When the Master was felled at the hands of the Slayer three before you, the Anointed One took his place. The year was 1997, and the good times had come.
"Until an arrogant vampire, claiming to have eliminated two Slayers in his time, arrived in this town, sure he could get rid of the current one. He failed and killed the Anointed One to avoid rightful punishment."
"Spike." Gracia said, voice low but steady. Zachary might have seemed unnerved by her knowledge for a split second, but regained his composure almost immediately.
"Of course, I'm sure he's told you already. He always likes to ally himself with Slayers now to avoid his death. He is weak, powerless, useless. He ought be killed. He's almost as bad as the other freak of vampiric nature you have alligned yourself with."
Gracia bit her tongue to prevent the tirade of infuriated words building in her throat. Zachary's evil smirk grew at her glare.
"But what am I doing, talking of past events like this? It was way before your time- you must have been just a small child at the time. But soon ancient wrongs will be set right, and all in one simple ceremony."
"Guess I'm taking part, right?" Gracia asked, eyes following Zachary's progress around the throne.
"But of course, Slayer." He crouched beside her and reached out as if to chuck her under the chin. She leaned back from his touch, annoyed more than ever at the condescending tone in his voice.
That annoyance was swept away by a freezing rush of fear as Zachary stood up and ended his speech.
"We're going to exchange your life for that of the Anointed One."
And that was when she saw the vampires moving out from the shadows.
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More soon! Promise! Now that the holidays are almost here **random cheers and celebratory nosies** I should be able to devote most of my time to fanfiction! Whoohoo!
Now please don't shy away from that cute little button below- click on it and review to tell me what you think!
