***
The ringing of the door to the shop caused Dillon and Anya to look up from their studies. "Who could that be at this hour?" Dillon asked her. He closed the arcane text he'd been studying
"Maybe the guys are back." Anya said as she headed toward the door.
"According to you, they would have the devil himself at their heels if they made it back. Don't tell me you were exaggerating." The man joked
"You have not been here long enough or you wouldn't think it was a joke." Anya looked out into the street. "It's one of Dawn's little friends the mousy looking one who whines about her looks all the time."
"TMI madam TMI, if I can get out of this town without becoming involved with the soap opera that is your lives here I'll paint myself lucky."
Anya stuck her tongue out at him and then unfastened the door. "Its late and Dawn isn't here you should go home."
I'm sorry Ms Jenkins but I was supposed to meet up with Dawn…about some homework and since she isn't at home." the child said pleadingly
"Well we are doing grown up boring things here. Stuff that would be of no interest to you." Anya insisted.
The girl put on the best pout she could manage and eventually Anya relented. She sat at the table piled high with books.
Dillon slipped away from the table, heading for the stacks. Anya met him there when she had insured that the young girl would neither touch anything nor read any of the texts.
"Explain to me again why Buffy took her sister along." Hyles asked
"In case The Cenobites are locked on to Dawn…. If they are tracking her, better they have to go through Buffy, then come here searching for her. I can't say I'm not altogether sad about that. This place gets wrecked way too often dealing with these little crisis's." Anya griped
"Little crisis, you call the unloosing of the Cenobites a little crisis. I'm dying to know what gets your blood pumping if this is just -- a little crisis." Dillon muttered incredulously
Anya shrugged her shoulders. "Well the Hell god was pretty hectic. In fact, Glory's minions wrecked this place a few times. Of course it belonged to Giles so it wasn't really my problem then but still it bothers me"
Dillon did a double take. "Glory, you are the guys who took down the Hell Goddess. I'm impressed, they talk about that one in some pretty out of the way places."
"Well it was much scarier in person. Her chasing us around town always screaming about The Key, The Key, she was nuts."
"I heard the Slayer lost her life to that one. Why didn't she just toss the key through the portal that would have closed the gates and no harm done? Plus the key would be lost in the Places In-between for all eternity. You can't get safer then that."
"Well she was all attached to Dawn at that point so there was no talking her out of it. Do you know she actually threatened to kill us if we so much as looked at Dawn the wrong way."
"Dawn, what has Dawn to do with the key. Was she wearing it or something."
"What you mean you don't know…. I thought you could see through spells and auras"
"Yeah when I concentrate. But, what does that have to do with…" suddenly Dillon realized the import of what Anya was hinting at and cursed loudly
"Quiet the annoying teen will hear us."
"Are you serious, Dawn is The Key, made flesh. We have to get after Buffy and the others and bring them back here right now."
"Why I'm sure that they can protect Dawn."
"Are you willing to risk everything on that faith…the one thing that Leviathan wants more then anything else is to expand his realm and bring order to what it sees as chaos. If the Cenobites get Dawn and twist her as they have so many others, she would become the means for Leviathan to spread itself across the multi-verse. It would no longer need the LeMarchand Keys or anything else. Dawn, or whatever she became, would open doorways to world upon world. The cenobites would flow through those doorways like a river. Coming after them would be the tortured souls. The ones who have been sitting around Leviathan's world with nothing to do but dream of what it would be like to inflict their pain and torment upon a world of innocents."
"Buffy would give her life to stop that from happening."
"You just said Buffy threw herself into a portal rather then risk Dawn. Can you honestly say that if push came to shove she wouldn't make the same choice."
A noise cut into their conversation. The two turned to see Celeste looking at them. In her hand was the LeMarchand key.
"Put that down." Anya shouted slowly
"You have no idea what you are screwing around with." Dillon said moving toward the girl who backed away from him.
"Tell Dawn I'm sorry, but the Sculptor said he would make me beautiful if I brought him something valuable, more the life. And she wanted this thing back pretty badly." The girl turned and ran to the door throwing it wide and streaked into the night.
"How much do you think she heard."
"I'm thinking that anyone who will take a LeMarchand box for payment will know what The Key is what it can do." Anya snapped and she ran for the door with Dillon racing behind her.
Celeste fled into night. She had no idea what the box was; or why the shopkeeper and strange guy were saying those things about Dawn. The only thing that mattered though was her goal. When she was beautiful, she could have all the friends she ever wanted. Money, influence, power all of it would be there for her, all she had to do was get back to Clotho's sanctuary.
She fled in the direction of a group of youths. She figured what was the harm in a little misdirection. She cried out as she ran up to them. "Help me please, those people are chasing me," she said to the person at the head of the group.
"Really, well you don't have to be afraid anymore. They won't hurt you." His face blurred and changed. His mouth sprouted fangs and his eyes became more bestial. "That's going to be our pleasure."
The rest of the vampire gang hooted and hollered. Some changed faces to match their leader. As the group moved to surround Celeste, Anya and Dillon caught up with them.
Dillon looked at the crowd of bloodsuckers. "In the event we survive this, you'll tell me please, why a town with a vampire Slayer, still has Vampires?"
"Cause it's a Job with a future?" Anya retorted
"Good point." He said as the crowd rushed them
Anya had been learning from Xander how to defend herself so she could hold her own. She was surprised when Dillon after a split second was throwing punches left and right. Somehow he eventually got his hands on a stake and began stabbing at his opponents dusting them one by one. Nevertheless, for every one the duo put down two would raise in their place and in tribute to Anya's comparison. They seemed to stream out of the woodwork appearing like vermin to surround the three humans. Dillon was growing tired and could see that Anya was also slowing. The sheer numbers they were fighting were forcing the energy from their bodies.
Then Dillon saw him. A black clad angel striding out of the dark moving swiftly toward them. Any who touched him died quickly. Some attacked him singly others tried to gang up on him, but it never slowed him down. The single fighter moved with grace swiping his blade through the air, Cutting swiftly and surely. Vampires found themselves handless in one breath, headless in the next. His eyes burned as he approached the tightly packed group of humans. The crowd of vampire pulled back; Dillon stuck out his hand in greeting. "Thanks, I don't know who you are but you saved us."
The man nodded turned to the child crouched on the ground. "Found your payment you have. Secured for Master Clotho, his fee."
Celeste nodded
Then leaving we are." Keene suddenly backhanded Dillon viciously sending him crashing in to the crowd of mystified vampires.
Anya dashed after the swiftly departing pair and bodychecked the tall man. He cursed her and swung his blade around. The sound it made as it narrowly missed Anya as she jumped back was sharp. Dillon punched his way clear of the team of vampires that had hold of him. Keene turned and looked the man coming toward him. He then snarled at Anya. Rearing backward Keene cried out "Agonistes guide my hand." He threw his blade, which spun and glittered through the night. It slashed through the throats of several vampires as it spun. It homed in the Tattooed detective slashing at his arms before spinning clear. Then there was a sickening thud. The glittering thing had lodged itself in Anya's side. She looked at it as if it was a strange and foreign thing. Keene held out his hand and the blade flew to his hand like a falcon returning from a hunt. Dillon looked at his arms. The blade had slashed at the sleeves of his jacket. However, his arms remained uncut.
"Cursed words protect you cursed one, but they also bar you from aiding the girl …die she will, unless dark magic you would use." Keene sneered as he and the girl swept away. The vampires scattered as one of the piles of dust littering the street belonged to the leader. Dillon raced to Anya's side and probed gently at the wound. As his hands neared the deep cut, he felt an all too familiar buzz. Keene was right the wound would not close without magical assistance and he no longer possessed the ability to use the magic that might help. That left him with the option of using dark magic to save her and that was a costly option. "So Dillon" he thought to himself. "Is the life of a stranger worth the cost to your soul."
***
