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The things we leave behind
Chapter eleven-Power
By Slaya
«…scientists and philosophers administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference and made fun of people who believed the creatures felt pain and therefore pitied them. They insisted that the animals were like clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noises of some little spring that had been triggered by the blow, but that the animal itself has absolutley no feeling…»
Jean de la Fontaine s journalistic account of experiments
He went back to the «gathering» asking himself why did he spear her life. He was getting old. And soft. He wanted to be human for so long.
He forgot the taste of it.
It s not empty pain. It s living and breathing.
It s emotions that you don t get while you re a demon.
Lumiere started seriously question the last part. What was he thinnking? It couldn t be a feeling. Or maybe……how couldn t he think of it sooner.
The girl must be a telepath. Cause he reacted in such way. To them. Telepaths.
All the way. Since he was human.
A boy actually, barely twenty years old. In gay Parie, France.
He was a thief. Picked pockets all his life.
Never learned anything else. Never could.
He was maturing quite quickly. So from a mear thief he became a murderer. But that wasn t all. He did all sorts of nasty things. Torture, rape, murder….there wasn t anything that he didn t trie. Anything that he didn t want to do.
And then there was that night.
He and his pals robed a wealthy nobleman. Came crashing into his home. They weren t afraid of anything.
Along with the money they took his daughters.
But there was a special bonus inside.
A slayer. A telepath.
«Marie-Christine Du Lac. Flaming red hair and esquisite manors. She dreaded the filth zhat we were walkin thru. Even so…..she got dirty in the mud. She saved her sisters and royally kicked our asses. Lumies as well.
Killed the lot of them. A deadly girl.
Then she look at Lumie….and put the sword down.
Didn t know then, but know now. She was a telepath.»
«I hear that your girl s gone patroling. That wasn t the deal. There are demons out there who will kill her and get their reward.»
«No! You said that she ll stay bloody well, alive and all nancy dandy fine.»
«Then why are you betraying her?»
A scream interupts their conversation.
«Caus I m a bloody vamp. My days helping the slayer are gone. Now all I wanna do is just get out of her bleeding theder.»
«A question well answered my dear William.»
Blair was one of the most popular girls in school.
But her eyes were closed all along. It wasn t till the day that she met Elena that they got wide open. For the first time.
She brought her into the whole magic biz. It was her who lead her to her path of sacrifising herself to save the many that have been left behind.
And as the demon with a steaming red iron handle aproaches her, she knows that it s all for the good of it. More will come. And more will sacrifice.
So that the rest can live.
Caus it feeds on fear and blood and screams. And pain and torchure and hope washed away in dreadfull tears.
«We must sacrifice for they must live.»
Dawn. A new day arrives.
Cassie had spent it by acting like not at home. Her sister Blair was back. And she took mom and das for the ride. They kept on knocking and knocking at least an hour.
It was very anoying.
Then they left. And silence finally came alive.
She was flying thru the old books from Red s bookshelf. Nogthing in there made sence to her. And most of it was in latin and some other strange languages.
She drew a complete blank.
«If only Red would wake up, feeling all better.»
She stood up to make breakfeast. She ll probably be starving when she wakes up.
Fried eggs. Some salad. Beacon. Ham. And that s it.
Here ends the culinary depths of one Casandra Lewis.
The broken wrist didn t look or feel that broken.
It was in perfect shape, maybe even better than ever.
And he, that demon refering to himself from the third persona healed it. Why?
«He needs me dead. Not healed. Maybe I trigured some old wire from the past, maybe some quick fuck with a fellow demon or something like that.
Eww.
I m not thrilled of thinking that way about myself. Creepy.
And I almost died. But he saved me. It makes sence if there s a reward out on my head or something. Then he must make sure that I die from his hand.
But…why didn t he kill me then?»
«Ever hear of Slayerfest?», a voice behind her gets her up and about.
«No.»
«Good. But you re about to.
«In short: people and demons wanting to get rid of you for the prize. They are the hunters. And you are the hunted one.
You just godda put your foot down where it hurts and show them who the real hunter is.
They re not.»
«I am.»
«Yes. Welcome to the Slayerfest. Have fun.»
Buffy. She came again.
She always does.
She s like a light that shines through the dark. She never stops suprising.
She s the one who s always….there.
«Things may not be as they seem.»-some new slayer said. Cassie saw her for the first time now.
«You don t know me yet. I m Samantha Kane. You can call me Sammy.
It s okay to call me that, be sure of that.»
«What isn t as it seems?»
«Nogthing is.
You re seeing of us. can you be sure that we re really the real slayers that once were? How do you know that we re not demons or mear ilusions?
How do you know that you re in good hands?
For how long are they gonna stick around? Do you think you could manage without them? What if they would have left? Right this very moment.
What if your whole family got killed off. Because of you. How would you live with the guilt?
Think about it.»
Cassie put the breakfast on a plate and brought it up to Red. She was still asleep.
It would be a shame to wake her. She s so beautiful when she sleeps.
Her red hair gets all these strange out-of-this-world kinda shades. Caus it s not natural.
Red has short hair. She made it long with a spell.
Punch, punch, punch and punch again.
The punching bag was really getting the living daylights kicked out of it.
Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit and hit again.
There was no mercy.
«The word mercy can t egsist in my damn dictionary!
I know that I m alive here to punch the bag because of mercy, but no. Lumie made a big mistake. It s gonna go back on his head.
And it s gonna be bad.»
Somekind of a horned demmon barges in the room. Cassie prepared for the fight, put her fists up, but she wasn t fast enough, Spike apeared behind the demon and really kicked his ass.
«Bloody she ll be alright bullshit.»
«What?»
«A…? Nogthing, nogthing, just dribleing nonsence.
Where s Red?»
«She s probably still in bed. I haven t heard her come down.
It must have got her bad.»
«What got her?»
«The vision.»
«Yeah, yeah…the bleeding vision.»
«Let s go up there.»
«Sure duck.»
«Wait, what about him?»-she points to the ground where a dead demon body was laying.
«Let him be. Maybe he vanishes or does some nancy-girl thing.»
«Okay.»
They walked up to Red s room.
«So….for how long have you and Red been fulling me?»
«Say what?»
«Okay. I can get more graphical, really I can.
No listen very carefully.
For how long have you two been screwing.»
Spike looked astonished. Like he was blaimed for something that he didn t do.
«Where in the bloody hell did you get those filthy words out of your mouth?!»
Cassie managed not to answer to his question. She opened the door.
But it was strange. Quiet. It s almost dark.
There s no inoscent Willow-laughter.
The food, the breakfast from the table is untouched. And Red is semingly asleep.
Cassie walks up to the bed with a cold dread in her heart and butterflies of anticipation in her stomach. Spike gives her a cold glare.
She puts her hand on Red s shoulder. Tries to wake her up. Then she checks her pulse that wasn t there.
And she turns her cold body face forward.
«She died in her sleep.
No! It s not fair. I didn t get to say goodbye. Not even goodbye.»-Cassie said falling down on her knees.
«They bloody said that she ll just get weakend, not bloody dead.»
A red alarm gets trigered in Cassies head. She stops crying and forget everything about anything.
«Are you shure that it will work?»
«Offcourse it will. You see….the slayer is just like a clock, just like a maschine of some sort. It depends on what butons do you press till she goes completley mad….and falls into our arms.»
«The girl no animal mon ami. No maschine either.»
«And behold! This comes from a man who faled to kill her, who actually saved her.
I m tired of your fooling around. I choose not to have you on my pay rool anymore.
There s no use.»
«You know dat if Lumi don work for you, he be working against you.»
«I m completley aware. So…what are you gonna do?
Join the slayer. She s gonna dust you in a heartbeat. You don t know what a mad one looks like.»
«O…o…there you wrong mon ami. Lumie knows a mad slayer all too well.»
«We hit her where she hurts and we get what we want.»
«And what du you want?»
«I m gonna tell you just because I have complete trust in dead people to not share a secret.»
Two men grabbed Lumiere from behind.
«We want the despair of a slayer. That is the secret ingredient.»
After that…all Lumie has seen was dark.
«She is a clock, a ticking time-bomb. And she s gonna go off.
If anybody thinks that she really feels pain if we destroy the world…you re wrong!
She s a dirty human. She can t posibly sence like that. She can be sorry but it won t be pain. It won t be pain.
It doesn t matter what we do to her. She won t feel pain!»-Black yelled to the people and the wariors that just came.
«I don t understand.»
«What s not to understand? Cause the slayer pain, get the hellmouth open.»
«But didn t you just say….?»
«I said a lie.»
Sound of a sharp violins voice cut right thru them. It was cooming…from somewhere…maybe from nextdoor.
Cassie runs off into her room. Puts on a pair of throusers that won t bother her while she slays.
Grabbed a bag.
Started puting weapons in it, some herbs and things that may be useful to her if she s going to do a spell. She closes it and puts it on her back. A couple of stakes along with holy water goes in her pockets. A little spring-off knife too.
And a big sword cames flashening in her hand.
She was ready. She hoped.
They made him mortal. Human. And they made fun of it.
Then they tried to kill him. It was supossed to be easy. «But dey don t know Lumiere LeBeau like dey thought.»
He escaped.
Somehow he managed to keep the aperance of his flaming red eyes and he also kept the power of chargin objects with energy.
«Dis gonna be a wild ride for Lumie. He not gon let this off so easy.»
Spike entered the room.
She turns to face him.
«Cassie, sweetie, duck…you got the wrong picture.»
«O I got the egzact picture. You filthy traitor!»
«No!»
«Then what are you? You tell me! What are you then?»
He had nogthing to say.
«Nogthing is as it bloody seems.»
«What?»
«Nogthing is as it seems. She shouldn t get bloody dead. They promised me.»
«And you trusted them?»
«Yes…..we can go bout it together duck. You can t go there alone.»
«Quite the contrare Spike.
I can and I will go bout it alone.
Caus I m a slayer….»
«For barely a friggin month!»
«…and that s what we slayers do. We kill the badies, the demons…but most of all:
we kill the vampires.
And you my dear Spke are a vampire.»
She cuts his head off with the sword.
Nogthing but ashes remains.
This was for Red.
Spike gave her her first fighting lessons. He taught her how to stay alive. Too bad that he didn t taught himself the same thing.
«I shouldn t have trusted him from day one.»
«Learn to trust no one.»
His own bloody words. Escalate to be eateen by the monster of nogthingless.
As she turned around to go a book falls down from the shelve. One of Red s. She kept them all over the house.
Cassie felt bad for not being able to burry her, just to leave her in that cold room, in that cold bed alone.
«We have the power over her. And she will come, as she s been told.»
She picks up the book. All in a language that probably doesn t egsist anymore.
She should find some translation of it or something in the Magic box, she thought while she put the book in the bag.
She went out and walked the streets that are gonna get dark soon. Alone.
Till the thought of it didn t make her stop, it almost got her hit by a car.
«What if I go away somewhere far, far away. Where i won t need feelings, where paople won t be dying, where I won t be the slayer and won t be in charge of their life or death.
It wouldn t be on my shoulders.
Why shouldn t I just go?
Caus…let s not kid ourself, I wanna go. I so desperatly wanna go away. Leave all this shit behind. Way behind.»
It was an apealing thought. Right till Cassie remembered last night, the way she madly enjoyed the slaying.
It wasn t normal, but it felt so natural. So beautiful.
«I can t go. I m the slayer. I m the hero. And i m all alone on this one. All I have are weapons, a book and me.»
«You still have us.»
«And yes…I still have you. Thank you.»
«We are the first. We are the last.
I am the first. I am the last.»
She can t quit. Not now. It wasn t about her, about what was it like for her.
It was about the power that she had.
About the world that she had to save.
It was about moral, about a promise given and a promise kept.
It was about keeping her guard while entering the now ruined Magic box and to anticipate the atack that came from behind.