Plans in Motion 3/3 – The Lion's Den
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"Ethan I knew you were a despicable person but I thought you were above being a cold-blooded killer."
"Oh come now Rupert." Ethan emerged from a shadow on the catwalk above them. "How do you think I make the money to have all the fun I do in Sunnydale?"
Hobbes tried asking a second time. "Uh again you know this guy?"
"His name is Ethan Rayne. I knew him when I was younger."
"Raines?" Miss Parker had an incredulous look. "This guy's related to Raines? That decrepit monster told me he wasn't involved!"
"I should've known it was you." Giles ignored Miss Parker and kept talking to his old acquaintance. "That book Jarod found. You must've smuggled it out during our encounter with Eighon."
"Very good Ripper. I have gotten a little better since at summoning since our heyday." He pointed down, directly underneath Ethan was a large symbol drawn into the floor. "And Miss Parker my name is spelled with a y not an i like Mr. Raines." Ethan then turned his attention to Jarod. "You're a hard man to kill Jarod. Now I know why Lyle hired me."
"You don't really think Lyle will uphold his end of the
deal?"
"Oh he will Jarod. You see Lyle is
paying me two million dollars for this."
"So you're just doing this for money." The Pretender looked disgusted.
"No I'm doing it for quite a bit of money. I almost wish there were some other casus belli but no the money is enough."
"You won't get it. When I get back to the Centre I'll make sure my father sends a dozen sweepers after you."
"Well that's a shame Miss Parker. I was going to let you go but I guess I'll be forced to tell your father and brother about your horrible accident in Sunnydale."
"On top of all the other people you already killed?"
"What can I say Jarod? Life's not fair. You of all people should know that."
Noises could be heard from the perimeter of the warehouse. Eight vampires, on loan from Mayor Wilkins, were slowly surrounding the Whitehats.
Another one appeared next to Ethan on the catwalk. "This better work."
"Will you stop moaning? Just stick to the plan."
"Easy for you to say. You're not fighting the Slayer and her backup."
"No but I'm doing my part."
Ethan pulled out a page ripped from the book he stole. He recited the spell, causing the symbol to glow. Then a Grappler demon appeared in the center of it.
Miss Parker rubbed her eyes. She was the only one in the group who hadn't seen the supernatural phenomena in Sunnydale yet.
"What the hell is that?"
Jarod gave her that annoying, sarcastic grin. "Why Miss Parker haven't you ever heard of a demon?"
"No way. That has to be some kind of trick."
"Fraid not. That line about Sunnydale being a God-forsaken town was a lot more on target than you realized."
She slowly shook her head. "I hate this town."
"Join the club." Buffy told her.
"Uh Buffy that is a Grappler Demon. They are *extremely* strong so be careful." Giles told her.
The Grappler rushed at Buffy only to be met by a roundhouse kick to the face. Soon after the vampires came at them from all sides.
----
Cordelia and Oz were bound and gagged on the catwalk. Both of them were still struggling when Ethan came over. "Oh stop. You won't get free. Amazing about your friends down there. They won't know what hit them until it's too late.
From behind Ethan somebody said. "You got that right."
"What the…" He turned around only to get hit with a right cross. The killer got back up and looked in front of him but nobody was there.
He warily got back up only to be knocked down again. This time Ethan didn't wait. He pulled his gun out and started firing wildly in front of him.
Since Ethan seemed preoccupied, Oz wiggled around until he was back to back with Cordelia and started working on untying her hands.
After a few seconds Ethan stopped, figuring whoever attacked him was dead.
This is until Darien appeared right in front of him. He was so close some of the Quicksilver that fell of Darien landed on Ethan.
"You missed."
The Invisible Man kicked Ethan in the face and blood started pouring out of the killer's mouth.
Darien pulled him up, bringing Ethan into full view of Darien's blood red eyes. "Hey asshole. Remember me?"
----
Sunnydale Hospital
"Xander will you stop pacing? You're going to make a ditch in the floor!"
Everyone who hadn't gone to the warehouse had relocated in Sydney's hospital room.
Broots and Willow had the idea that they could fix whatever damage Stiletto had done when he hacked into the power grid and thus restore electricity to the town.
They were feverishly working on doing just that. Xander, not being a computer genius like the other two, just kept busy doing whatever he could think of.
Claire was much claimer, and finally told the young man point blank to claim down.
Xander finally stopped and looked at her. "Sorry. Its just…well today's been very strange."
That got a look from the Keeper. "This is strange? Compared to the weird stuff that happens here all the time?"
"Actually this pretty out there. Even for Sunnydale." Xander looked at Broots. "So what exactly are you guys trying to do?"
Broots looked up from the table in the room. "Well uh…we figure when Stiletto hacked into the network he locked everyone out of the system. If we can find a way to get in ourselves we can
"Okaaay. Somebody want to explain that in English."
Willow took pity on her old friend. "If the lockout can be overridden the system will reboot."
"Oh."
"Well if you all are doing alright in here I should go check on some of the other patients." Claire said. "I also need to check in at the Agency but my phone's dead."
Broots fumbled through his pockets. "Oh uh…let's see…" He pulled out a pen and the lighter Miss Parker gave him earlier. He dropped those on the table then pulled out his cell phone. "Here."
"Thank you." She left the room leaving the three of them alone.
----
The vampire that phoned Trick from the lobby waited outside Sydney's room.
Once Claire disappeared down the hall it made its move. Nobody noticed at first when he appeared in the doorway to Sydney's room with his vampiric face on
It wasn't until Broots looked up that somebody did see him.
"AHHHHHH!" Broots jumped twenty feet in shock, looking incredibly scared.
The vampire wasted no time. He threw Willow into Xander and he crashed into the table knocking most of the items on it to the floor.
The vampire looked at Xander then smirked, taking out time to pull the boy up and get another shot to the head in.
It pulled away the long strands of hair in front of his face to show him a long red mark across his face. "Think it was funny when you did that to me earlier ya brat?"
Xander quickly realized this was the surviving vampire from their fight with Trick. The same one he smashed in the head with a lead pipe.
Man this is gonna suck… Was all Xander thought before his opponent slammed his head into the floor and Xander's world went spinning.
With that small amount of revenge out of the way, the vampire looked to finish Trick's assignment. But it also had heard the entire conversion his four opponents had made and figured Broots' hacking attempt had to be stopped. So the monster came up with the most logical solution for a soulless monster, kill Broots.
It grabbed the man and pinned him against the small medical table in the corner while slowly beating the life out of him.
Broots desperately reached for anything to help him. By sheer coincidence he grabbed one of the tongue depressors on the table and tried stabbing his opponent to no avail. When that didn't work he used his arm to sweep all of the items on the table into the vampire's face. Alcohol bottles and other items flew into the vampire's face and he put his hands to eyes to stop the burning.
With all the noise coming from the room, Claire had come back to see what was going on.
Oh God not again. When she saw the vampire, she grabbed one of the hospital's large metal fire extinguishers and slammed the butt of it into the blind vampire's face.
Their opponent stumbled back a few steps next to where Xander was on the floor. "I'll kill all of you!"
Xander reached for Miss Parker's lighter and lit the vampire's jeans on fire. "Blah blah blah!"
The vampire went up like kindling, thanks to his clothes being soaked with alcohol. He wildly flailed around his arms in an attempt to put himself out before turning to ash.
"W-wha…what the hell was that?" Broots still looked shell-shocked.
Xander just smiled. "That Broots was a vampire."
----
Darien slammed Ethan's face against the metal guardrail while the fighting was raging on below them. "I wonder if that's how it felt? You know, when you killed her. My cousin Dana, that cop in the apartment complex. When you blew her apart with a bomb." He picked him up and slammed him a second time. "Now trust me this is gonna hurt me just as much as…oh who am I kidding? This is gonna hurt you a hell of a lot more!"
----
Sheer chaos reigned on the ground below. Buffy was trying to hold off the Grappler leaving the others to deal with the vampires. The Grappler demon was just as strong as Giles indicated and she soon learned fighting it with no weapon was not a good idea. Buffy quickly found a solid steel bar on the ground and was using it as a quarterstaff.
Jarod was flanking Buffy's blind side to keep the vampires from attacker her from behind. He used his combat training from several Pretends in a defensive fighting technique to keep attackers away and push back.
Miss Parker was to doing her best to help Jarod fight these things but was beginning to wish she didn't wear high heels. She was also constantly scanning the warehouse looking for her gun.
Angel was trying to hold off as many of the vampires as possible. His formidable vampiric skills were much stronger than most of these fledglings as the two piles of dust near his feet would indicate. He managed to fight three of them and whoever ones Jarod was pushing into him.
Giles and Hobbes were left to themselves about fifty feet away from the main group. Both of them were very efficient fighters but they both were having trouble. Giles was having trouble being all by himself against a stronger opponent. Hobbes had never fought a vampire before and that was not even taking his injured hand into account.
Eventually the two previously mentioned fighters managed to link up out of desperation since the two vampires they were fighting had a sizable advantage against them.
For Bobby Hobbes, When you work for the Agency, you have to keep an open mind, but this entire fiasco on Sunnydale was bordering on insane even for him. He definitely felt like he needed more meds. At the moment though he was currently fighting for life.
"Here."
Hobbes caught the stake Giles had tossed to him. "What the hell am I supposed to with this? Whittle?"
Giles continued to explain when fighting. "I know this will come as a shock but these are vampires Mister Hobbes. The only way to kill them to drive a wooden stake through their heart."
Sure why not. Hobbes half-jokingly thought to himself. I mean I deal with Invisible people and women who turn into water every day. How's this any stranger than…wait a sec… "These guys ain't alive?"
"Precisely."
Hobbes quickly tripped up his foe and disappeared from Giles' sight.
"Mister Hobbes?"
A gunshot rang out a minute later and one of the vampires went cross-eyed and held his groan in pain before tipping over. Giles quickly staked his other opponent before finishing the wounded one off.
A grinning Hobbes walked over holding his gun up to Giles. "This works too."
He scanned the rest of the fight noticing Buffy fighting the Grappler one on one. Hobbes didn't know what was stranger: That a waif of a girl was fighting this giant thing or that she holding her own.
Girl's been eating her Wheaties. "Hey kid! Duck!"
Buffy managed to turn around for a split second. It was just long enough to see Hobbes pointing a gun in her direction. Oh boy…
She dropped to the floor and Bobby fired. He emptied nearly half a clip into the Demon before it finally stopped struggling and fell.
"That was rather crude."
Hobbes smirked at the Watcher. "Yeah but it works."
Buffy chuckled until she heard a noise coming from the pentagram. She looked to her side to see another Grappler standing there. The slayer did a double take at the one demon corpse next to her and the unexpected new demon.
"Uh guys?"
Bobby had a confused look too. "Didn't we just kill that thing?"
Giles had an idea what was going on. "It has to be Ethan. That spell he used must summon another demon every time we kill one."
Hobbes groaned. "Sadistic bastard ain't he?"
You have no idea. Giles thought to himself.
----
On the catwalk, Oz had finally gotten Cordelia's hands untied. The first thing she did was pull the gag out of her mouth and yell, "Giles!"
----
"Up there look!" Giles pointed toward the catwalk to Ethan getting pummeled by Darien.
Hobbes and Angel both looked over. "He'll kill him."
Angel realized Hobbes was right. In Darien's state he'd do it without thinking twice.
And as much as Angel would love to do the same, they didn't kill humans.
"Ah shit. Darien!" Angel tried to get the Invisible Man's to no avail. He quickly got up to the catwalk faster than any of the others could have while Giles and Hobbes tried to deal with the leftover vampires.
Angel grabbed Darien and slammed him against the wall just before the he was about to kick Ethan in the gut.
"Think about what you're doing Darien."
Darien shut eyes for a second, as if he was having a splitting migraine. "I know exactly what I'm doing. Get out of my way!"
"No you don't! Just calm down for a second!"
"Make me!" He head butted Angel, causing the vampire to let go of him. But just as soon as he got free Angel had grabbed hold of him again.
Darien went invisible and attacked Angel. Since Angel couldn't see him, he kept staggering backward after every hit.
Get Darien to stop trying to kill Ethan by getting him to kill you…Real smart Angel
----
Cordelia managed to untie the ropes keeping her legs tied. She promptly kicked Ethan in the gut with the pointed end of her high heels. Ethan rolled around in pain again while a small paper fell out of the breast pocket of his shirt.
The cheerleader looked at it and from the old writings on it assumed it had to be from the stolen book. "Giles!"
She dropped the paper over the edge and it fell next to the Watcher. He picked it up and instantly knew what is for. This is the spell Ethan just used.
Giles ran over to the symbol and started reciting from the page. After he finished reading, the pentagram went up flames turning it into ashes.
----
Angel's attempt to stop Darien had given Ethan a chance to recover from the beating he had just taken.
He wiped away the blood from his mouth as a scowl formed on his face. You'll pay for that Fawkes. Just a few more minutes and they'll be wiping you and your pals off the wall with a sponge.
----
Jarod had gotten a glimpse of Ethan at free moments when he wasn't fighting off vampires. Something's not right. He's still acting like he's going to win even though we beating him…
----
The Invisible Man knocked Angel into one of the interior rooms of the warehouse while he taunted him. "You know I never liked you Angel. That whole 'Oh poor me I'm a brooding vampire with a soul!' Act gets pretty thin after a few hours.
Darien was just toying with Angel at this point. After Darien jabbed him again, the vampire tried throwing several punches in a wide arc. They all missed and Darien effortlessly threw him into a stack of boxes near the door they just came through.
"Too bad, huh Deadboy? It must suck when you can't see the guy you're fighting."
Angel looked over on the wall and hit the light switch near him then slammed the door shut. With no widows, being an interior area, or other light source the entire room went black.
"Yeah?" Angel voice had a nasty tone to it. "Now you can't see me either."
----
Sunnydale Hospital
"Is everyone alright?" Claire asked.
"Yeah. I think so…the laptop!" Willow yelled. She dashed to where the computer had been knocked over. After making sure it wasn't broken, she starting rapidly typing.
All their efforts the four of them made earlier were rewarded when the lights came back on. The power was restored.
Shortly after, Sydney started making grunting noises from the bed.
Claire ran over and shined her penlight in his eyes to get some type of response. "Doctor Greene? Doctor Greene can you hear me?"
"Sydney?" Broots was behind the Keeper.
"Broots." The older man answered his young friend.
"Yeah?"
"How is someone supposed to rest with all this…racket going on?"
Sydney gave a weak smile. Broots, for the first time in hours, smiled back and started laughing.
----
Back at the warehouse, several of the remaining vampires had congregated into one large group while the Buffy and the others were busy dealing with Ethan.
"This is bullshit! I didn't sign up to be Angelus' punching bag. I'm outta here!"
"Get back here! Wilkins is gonna have your head if you run Davis!"
"He'll believe what we tell him! Or do you wanna get dusted?" The vampire turned tail and ran. Most of them followed him out.
----
Buffy was working on finishing off the last Grappler Demon. She was feeling exhausted after fighting two of these things. Giles was right. These things are *way* too powerful.
The brainless monster finally made a mistake and Buffy, using all of her strength, shoved the metal quarterstaff she was using through the Grappler Demon's chest.
The impaled demon took a few steps back before falling backwards over a couple of boxes.
Buffy looked one of the boxes. There was something underneath it. It only took a second to realize it was another of Ethan's bombs.
"JAROD!"
----
"JAROD!"
Buffy's nervous scream got the man's attention and he rushed over. "What is it?" Then he noticed the bomb. Oh no…
"Can you disarm it?" She asked.
He nodded. "I think so. Just keep them off my back."
"Got it."
Jarod kneeled down and began the meticulous job of deactivating an explosive device without blowing them all to hell.
Miss Parker came running over shortly after Jarod had met up with Buffy. The Pretender noticed she had found her gun. "If you're going to shoot me, do after I finish this."
"Finish what?" Miss Parker asked. Then she saw just what Jarod was working on. "Oh give me a break! What is this guy a pyromaniac?"
"It almost makes me appreciate the lackluster job you do trying to catch me."
Jarod just smiled as Miss Parker scowled.
----
Just then an airborne body, Darien's to be specific, went crashing through the door on the catwalk and the Invisible Man slammed into the floor on the main level.
Even though Giles surmised that would've hurt, Darien was still trying to get up. The watcher ran over and held him down. "Mister Hobbes!"
Hobbes saw Giles struggled to hold the young man down. He got over to them as quickly as he could. Hobbes pulled out the counteragent shot with his good hand and bit off the plastic guard.
"Hate to do this to ya partner." Was all the man said as he jabbed the needle into Darien's leg and depressed the plunger.
Darien screamed in pain while Hobbes and Giles tried to hold him down. After a minute or so Darien stopped struggling and his body went limp. His eyes went back to normal indicating he was no longer suffering from Quicksilver Madness.
----
Sweat was pouring down Jarod's face as he worked on the bomb's wiring.
"I hope this works…"
After taking the necessary steps, he finally cut a wire and the timer turned off.
Jarod and Miss Parker both let out a sigh of relief. Then the lights turned back on.
Miss Parker looked up. "Thank you Broots. So now what?"
"Now we end this." Was all Jarod said.
One of the stray vampires in the warehouse, one that didn't have the common sense to run away once the fight went sour, rushed at Jarod. The Pretender was ready for him and when the vampire threw a punch Jarod caught his arm and judo-flipped his still running opponent to the floor.
----
Ethan grunted in pain as he got back up.
He noticed Jarod's group was beginning to overcome his little trap. But this time he saw an opening.
Giles, Hobbes and Darien were less than twenty feet away from him on the ground. Best of all, they were so focused on Darien that he could fire off a few shots before they even noticed. At least if Jarod survived, he could fulfill his agreement with Wilkins and kill Darien Fawkes.
He slowly climbed down a ladder attached to the wall. Making a point to be quiet as he approached them, when Ethan got close enough he leveled his gun just as another shot rang out.
A bullet caught him in the left shoulder, spinning him around before he grabbed it in pain.
Miss Parker was to Ethan's right, smoking gun in hand.
Ethan slowly started to stumble backwards then ran into another room with Miss Parker close behind.
The room was filled with boilers and pipes. There wasn't much room for maneuvering as all of the equipment in the room only allowed small corridors. One stray shot could cause severe damage.
Ethan quickly made his way down one of the corridors.
Miss Parker was searching through the walkways for the killer. She finally spotted him at the far end of one of the corridors.
"ETHAN!"
The man in question quickly turned around and pointed his gun after hearing Miss Parker's yell. She fired but missed. Ethan kept firing wildly like he had done with Darien earlier not caring about the ramifications. He missed her as well but one of the shots struck a pipe near her causing it rupture open.
Steam from the pipe shot into Miss Parker's eyes blinding her. She fell with her head hitting the concrete floor hard.
----
Jarod's fight ended almost abruptly as it began. The vampire rushed him and Jarod sidestepped it while plunging a stake into his passing opponent.
The fight was pretty much over. The other vampires ran that were still alive had ran off.
He looked around the room, everyone was accounted for expect one person.
"Where's Miss Parker?"
"She followed Ethan into that other room."
Giles yelled.
Jarod rushed into the room after her. He kept his head low and swept through the room looking for her.
He found Miss Parker in one of the corridors not moving. Jarod rushed over in such obvious concern he didn't see that Ethan was only seven feet away with his gun pointed at Jarod. Stiletto's face didn't even flinched for the few seconds he stared his prey.
The Pretender looked up and found himself staring down the gun of a killer.
Since Jarod didn't have time to check on her, the only thing that went through his mind was that Ethan had just killed Miss Parker.
Ethan decided this was it and pulled the trigger.
*click*
He squeezed it again only to hear the same clicking sound. Ethan looked down realizing he was out of ammunition.
"Bloody hell."
Jarod didn't waste time. He ran and threw a hard punch to Ethan's face then buried his other fist into the bullet wound on Ethan's shoulder.
Ethan cried in pain as Jarod continued attacking him.
This man had caused so much pain and suffering to the people Jarod cared about.
A man who had killed several innocent people in his attempt.
A man who had hunted Jarod worse than any other person since he escaped from the Centre.
The Pretender just kept punching him in a rage, his emotions were taking over at this point.
Buffy had found them by now. After seeing Jarod beating on Ethan, she closed her eyes and looked away.
The pain was too much for the killer and Ethan slowly fell to the floor unconscious.
Jarod finally stopped when he heard Miss Parker made a noise. Realizing she was still alive, he let go of Ethan and went over to tend to her.
----
Everyone in the warehouse waited for Ethan to wake up. When the man in question did, he realized he was handcuffed to the chair he was sitting on.
Everyone he had fought in the warehouse were in front of him with the exception of Miss Parker, who was still unconscious and lying on top of a long wooden crate a few feet away along with Jarod, who was watching over her.
"Hey Sleeping Beauty's up!" Hobbes yelled.
Jarod, upon hearing this, walked over to confront the man who had destroyed so many lives in his attempt to hunt Jarod. Only this time it was on the Pretender's terms. "We wanted to wait until you were awake before we left."
Ethan didn't say anything. Maybe he thought not answering Jarod was some last form of spite. He just gave all of them a cold stare.
Jarod didn't seem to care and continued talking. "While you were out we contacted of some of the people who aren't exactly fond of you. Relatives and friends of those killed by Stiletto. Guess what? They're going to pay us a lot of money to kill you."
Jarod reached behind a crate and pulled out the bomb he disabled. "So we decided the best way was with your own bomb. Ironic don't you think?"
"You don't have the backbone to do it Jarod. There's no way Buffy will let you."
"Oh I don't know about that." The
Slayer replied. "After all, how many
more people would you kill if we let you live?
How many people are already suffering or dead because of you? Let's see:
Oz and Cordelia."
The two friends Buffy just named said nothing. They just stared at Ethan, their eyes
burning a hole into his face.
"My cousin and those cops in San Diego."
Darien added his own personal reason.
"Sydney." Angel had a reason too.
Both men were trying to hold back the anger in their voices when they said that
Ethan was beginning to believe all of them were serious. "You can't do this! Buffy you're a Slayer! You don't kill humans!"
"You know for a fact I'm not like most Slayers. I don't play by all the rules." Buffy told him.
"Well there must be something I can give you.
"Why? You didn't give the people you killed a choice. You didn't give the police officers in San Diego a choice. Isn't that right?"
"ISN'T IT?" Jarod tried again, yelling this time for emphasis.
"Yes. Yes alright I didn't give them a choice when I set the bomb in Mahogany. Are you happy Jarod? Now let me go I'm sure we can come to some kind of agreement."
"No. Like you said before Ethan: Life's not fair."
Jarod crossed two wires on the bomb and the timer started again. He then picked up Miss Parker and carried her out.
"Rupert say something please!"
Giles slowly took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I have nothing to say Ethan. You've brought this on yourself."
The rest of them turned around and walked out of the warehouse. Darien put his arm around Hobbes and limped away. None of them said another word.
"Jarod you can't just leave me here! Jarod? Rupert? JAROD!" Ethan was being ignored by all of them. Soon he was alone with the bomb still counting down.
The killer desperately tried to free himself from his constraints but with a bullet lodged in his shoulder he didn't accomplish much.
Ethan continued to struggle until there was only a few seconds left. There was sweat pouring down his face as he shut his eyes.
The countdown finally went to zero. Much to Ethan's surprise nothing happened.
He slowly opened his eyes to see the bomb just sitting there.
And in the distance, he could hear rapidly approaching police sirens.
----
TBC
Author's note: Sometime soon I'll throw up a revised version as the grammar in some previous chapters are god awful.