CHAPTER FIVE
The thing came through the woods, looking like a fur-less, fat grizzly bear. It ran on all fours until it saw us. On its back feet, it was almost eight feet tall. It swiped at the nearest person, Faith, with steely grey claws. Faith cartwheeled away while Buffy raced to where Giles and Willow were tearing through one of the backpacks for weapons.
Faith kicked the leathery thing, her foot bouncing off it. She ducked under those talons as the thing roared, showing thick yellow teeth. Connor leapt at it with the stake Faith had given him earlier. Thank goodness, he had been so intent on taking Angel bare handed that he forgot that he had that thing.
The stake shattered like glass against the bear monster, shocking me. I tried to hobble for the weapons. My knee had stiffened up terribly. I had no idea what I'd do if I had to flat out run. Connor jumped at the thing as Faith and Angel took it from behind. It swatted him away. He spun out in mid air of control , his heel clipping Buffy's head. Connor hit his boundary line and it snapped like a shot gun. Poor Connor got knocked away, nearly landing on Buffy.
Another howl rumbled through the dusk air and a second naked bear monster came tearing out of the woods, then a third. I managed to get to the weapons, finding a crossbow. I wasn't very good with them but it was better than nothing. Buffy and Connor bolted after the second bear thing. Xander shot at the third with a crossbow. He had worked hard this past year to regain his marksmanship after losing his eye and it paid off. He hit the target but it bounced off.
"That is no fucking good," Faith said.
"No kidding," Buffy shot back. "Connor, we've got these things. You guard Dawn. It's her they want, and you. She's too hurt to fight."
Connor looked at Buffy and I expected him to protest. Most days I would have too but not tonight. I wasn't in any shape to fight. I doubted I could even defend myself. He darted over to me, his eyes steely as if being given something to battle had driven out his inner demons. He grinned at me and it was oddly cute.
"Watch out, guys. Gonna try something," Willow said then yelled something in a language I didn't know. A fireball leapt from her fingertips.
I felt like cheering when the fireball set the creature alight. Something stung my shoulder like a bee. Connor jerked like something had stung him, too. I heard something, like a motorcycle. I wondered what kind of monster made that noise as I felt for the wasp. My shoulder started to burn. My fingers brushed something metallic. I saw it fall to the ground, bright bristles glittering in the moonlight. Even as my vision began to cloud, I saw Connor going down, three of the bristle bunches visible on his back. I collapsed, seeing ATVs rocketing along the tree line. See them, Buffy! Stop them!
* *
*
My head hurt so much that waking up was a misery. The room spun and it was all that I could do not to throw up. I startled as I felt hands on me. Connor put his long fingers over my lips, nodding at the wall, which was a thick netting of wire and beyond that heavy bars. Standing guard in the corridor, like bookends were two creatures that looked like a cross between the Hulk and the Thing. I didn't like our chances of getting past them especially with my injuries.
Wolfram and Hart had captured us again. I didn't need to see Lilah to know that. The tranquilizers that hit me in the woods had told me that much and waking up in a cell confirmed it.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered and I shook my head.
"We're someplace different than before." Connor took a tentative sniff. "Or at least I think so. Smells different...sweeter."
I quivered. "What if they took us out of state again?"
He closed his hand over mine, sitting next to me. "We'll escape again. But I don't think we're that far from where we were."
"You don't know how long we were drugged this time," I argued, starting to shake.
"Not long. You still smell good." He smiled at me.
I took a deep calming breath. "I guess Lilah did say I was supposed to be opening a portal. It was probably here in Wisconsin."
Connor pulled me closer to him, his body stiffening. "She's coming."
I guessed he could smell Lilah before I could hear the click of her heels. She wasn't smiling when she reached our cell. I hoped she'd gotten in huge gobs of trouble for letting us escape.
"You two gave us a merry chase. We were afraid the guardians would accidentally kill you before we caught up with you." Lilah studied us. "But I suppose the biggest surprise was Connor's sudden bout of sanity. How'd that happen?"
"I wouldn't say he's sane," I said.
"Cured enough to not kill you and help you out of the forest," Lilah said, crossing her arms like armor. She thought I was lying and even though I was, I was willing to bet Connor was still suffering mentally.
It was hard to argue that and she probably figured out I had come back for him, bringing reinforcements. She had to know Angel, Buffy and Faith were all in the area. I doubt she'd care about the others, not knowing how dangerous they could be. What kind of risk had our recapture put Fred, Spike, Gunn and the others back in Los Angeles at?
"So I guess asking you how to get Connor past the barrier won't do much good," I said.
Lilah snorted, tossing her hair. "Ask away. I don't even know the answer to that, not my department."
"So what now?" I asked.
"Tonight you're going to perform that little service for us." Lilah tapped on the bars with her nails. "And if you two want to take the initiative on that other thing we want you to do for us, please be my guest."
Connor lunged at her. He penetrated all the way through the metal webbing nearly getting her through the bars. Lilah jumped back. One of the Hulk- Thing's grabbed Connor's hand and yanked him hard against the webbing. Connor braced himself against it and tugged back, nearly bending the bars with the creature's body.
Lilah pulled something from her jacket and pressed it against Connor's hand. It crackled with electricity and the TASER which almost dropped him, barely giving him time to cry out. Lilah had a hold of his shirt, keeping him from falling as she continually zapped him. I snagged him, pulling him out of reach.
"When he's done twitching, we really would like it if you got on that other project, so to speak. If the smell's stopping you, we can scrub him down." Her smile could have frosted all of California.
"Go to hell," I spat.
"Already there, sweetie, but have it your way. You'll enjoy it less if we have to do it."
With that, Lilah left. I stroked Connor's hair. He moaned, his body shaking from the assault. I let him lay quietly, cradling his head in my lap. There was nothing I could do to speed along his recovery. Now that we weren't charging the cage, the Hulk-Things went back to their bookend positions.
It didn't take long for his eyes to start focusing again. They flicked down to where my hand rest on his bare belly. I hadn't even realized I had been rubbing it, trying to be comforting. I snatched my hand away and he sat up.
"Are you okay?" I asked
"I hate those things," he mumbled, getting to his feet. He looked around our bare cell. It only had an exposed toilet, which I'd rather explode than use, and thin cot attached to a wall, that we'd have to be really friendly to share. He crawled under the cot and waved for me to follow.
Curious, I did, having to press up against him. I had gotten used to how bad he smelled. "Why are we under here?"
"Harder to see us if they're spying," he whispered.
"Oh." I figured I could be just as quiet as him in case they were listening in.
"I'm sorry," he said, his fingers brushing my arm.
"For what?"
His eyes went morose, their blue deepening. "You were free. You're back here because of me and I think..." He swallowed hard, looking like he wanted to slip back into those long silences of his. "Our talk in the woods, you're afraid now...afraid of me."
The pain in his voice echoed inside me. I touched his face. "I don't regret trying to rescue you."
"Why?"
"Because like you said to me, it's the right thing to do." I struggled to move under the cot enough to press my hand to his arm. I needed to touch. "Most of us would have tried to save you just because you're Angel's son. I know you hate him right now, but the rest of us see what he tried to do, how he tried to help."
His lips twisted into a little half-frown. "Like you said about you and your Mom and Buffy."
"Right. You saved my life more than once. I couldn't just abandon you. I knew the risks when I came back. As for being afraid of you, I am a little. I know that probably hurts you but it's true."
"Then why..." He shifted away from me as much as he could, which really wasn't much. "Did you kiss me?"
I heaved a sigh, trying to think of how to answer that. "I don't really know. It felt like the right thing to do. I tried to tell myself it was just the hormones but that's a lie. It's something more. I don't know why but I feel very close to you. I don't believe in soul mates and all that crap but I do know I feel something more for you than I can explain and I don't know why. We barely know each other. And the way you kissed me back...I thought you were feeling something too."
He didn't answer right away. Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe he was just your typical horny teenager who wasn't going to pass on a kiss, but my insides were telling me it was more than that. "I don't know why either."
"Because you're really in love with Cordy?" Oh, stupid. Why did I mention her name?
His eyes shut. "No. I thought I was. She said she loved me but I think...I think something else made her do it...Jasmine maybe, since she needed to be born. I know Angel thought that Cordy made all the badness happen. I think maybe he was right, but I didn't then. I think Cordy was controlling me here." His hand snaked up to tap his temple. "I don't know how."
"You said that before, how things didn't make sense when you left her side."
He nodded. "When I think now on the things she did and said to me...that's not love. She'd kiss me then tell me it was wrong to do it. I just wanted...did you think it was wrong, too?"
I snared his fingers with mine. "No, I don't think my kissing you was wrong," I said, honestly.
"But you're afraid of me...but I guess you kissed me before the scary talk."
"I was afraid of you before that talk. I saw you in that fighting pit, remember? I know you were being controlled and that you had been driven...well, kinda nuts. I've only been as scared as I was in those woods once or twice before, when I was beating your head in with that log."
He smiled faintly. "That hurt."
"I bet. I was afraid afterwards, too, because I didn't know if Hitcoga could make you un-insane, but I guess she helped. Or maybe it was only a temporary kind of madness that Angel saw in you and tried to fix. But when we were trying to get out of the woods, I got less scared. You did your best to help me. I think...I think you're just as scared only you can't admit it. This world frightens you. I think you scare yourself."
The tip of his tongue flicked over his upper lip. "Maybe. I don't know this world...my place here. But fear gets you killed."
"Sometimes...sometimes it saves your life, too. You did scare me again with what you said to Faith. The look in your eyes when you talked about murder scared all of us."
I couldn't describe the expression that fell over his face. He dropped his gaze away from mine. "It was like I told you in the woods but I didn't tell you all of it. I don't know...I have memories of Cordy killing someone...telling me the blood of an innocent was needed to birth our child. I think I argued with her. I didn't want to do it but I think I helped. I just...I just can't remember. Maybe it's part of the madness...the things I only think happened. This past year, what little I remember, can't be real. I don't think this memory of Cordelia is real because my mother was there. She was trying to stop me. She was telling me how much she loved me and I was listening to her. I tried to do what she asked." He shivered against me.
"Maybe it wasn't real. I don't like thinking that it could be," I said. It was more than that. I didn't want to think he could be a murderer. Worse, could I love someone who was? No, scratch that. Of course I could. I loved Anya, Angel and Willow and they were all murderers, if I were honest about it. I had had feelings for Spike until I found out what he pulled on Buffy. The truth was, if I really did have feelings for Connor, his past wouldn't change that. I'd somehow adapt to it.
"But since I'm the son of two dead things and you're energy made flesh, real and unreal doesn't have much meaning," he said.
"Exactly." I smiled wryly. "But if it happened, it doesn't mean you can't be forgiven."
"Like Angel and Faith?"
"Yeah." A weird bubble of laugher welled up. "Sorry. I was thinking of a math problem Tara and Willow were helping me with. Math is so not my thing. Anyhow we were working out some practice problems and I figured out that Spike, that's one of Angel's grandchildren so to speak."
"I know how vampires usually breed," he interrupted.
"Um, okay. Sorry. Anyhow, we figured out that if Spike had only killed one person a day every day, he would have killed about forty thousand people and somehow we forgave that."
"Dad would have killed more then," he said.
"Yeah, but Angel was souled so he wasn't killing for two hundred years, just part of that time...way to really muddy the waters, Dawn." I made a face. "But the point I'm trying to make, the same one Buffy tried to make when Angel tried to kill himself, is if you really want to make amends you can. Maybe not everyone believes that, but I do."
"Dad tried to kill himself...I didn't know that." He seemed so surprised. "Father told me many times what I needed to do. I promised him I would cling to the good and lay waste to the evil. I don't think I did a good job."
I could feel his disappointment in himself. "Well, since I'm thinking your father would have bundled Angel into that evil you were to lay waste to, I'm glad you weren't the perfect Destroyer."
He made a face. Did he still feel bad about not killing Angel? Did he think his adoptive father, I'd think of him that way since Connor obviously did, thought less of him because of it? "Father was disappointed that he thought I had feelings for Angel. He tried to pretend he wasn't, said that it was natural that I should but I could tell it hurt him."
"It shouldn't have. He knew you loved him, too."
"Angel made him kill his own daughter. My parents slaughtered his family and turned his daughter into one of them and left her for him to find," Connor said, the heat trickling back into his voice.
I pressed a finger over his lips. "I'm not saying that isn't horrible. It is. And we can debate that another time. Right now, we need to think of a way out of here."
His lips pursed against my finger. I felt the tip of his tongue against my flesh. I moved my fingers and replaced them with my lips. The kiss was quick but tender. I put my face against his shoulder, feeling the curve of his collarbone against my cheek. He tensed.
"Don't worry, Connor, I'm not looking to get on Wolfram and Hart's second project and jump you." I shifted so I could meet his eyes.
He made another face. "I didn't think that."
"But I guess I am kinda scared of maybe dying tonight. I really don't want to die a virgin." I squirmed out from under the bed before I did do something stupid. "But I certainly don't want to do that here."
He slithered out, too. "I understand. That's part of why Cordy did it. She thought the world was ending with the rain of fire. She wanted me to have something real, she said. Like she thought I'd never been happy a day in my life, which is kinda true."
I glanced over at him, hearing that anguish. "But it was kinda empty, wasn't it?"
He nodded. "Well, not when it was happening. But the next morning everything changed and she threw me out." His eyes narrowed. "It was my bed, too."
Leave it to Cordelia to toss him out of his own place and take over, but I didn't tell him that. Instead, I got him thinking about how to get out of our cell. I only wished I could say we did it, that we escaped, laughing all the time. Instead, we got no where and in due time, Lilah returned, dressed more casually than I had ever seen her. She was even wearing jeans and sneakers. She pointed a shotgun at Connor. It took several tries, but she managed to pump two tranquilizers into him. After all, he couldn't exactly run. She stood back and let the guards come in and shackle Connor up.
"Let's go, little miss." she said to me.
"I'm not going anywhere." I tried clinging to the bars even though I knew it was hopeless. All she would have to do was sedate me. Instead, she had a few human guards pluck me free and tie my hands behind my back.
She had them bring Connor with us and I couldn't figure out why. We were loaded into a Hummer, a military looking one, not those 'I've-got-too-much- money-and-no-environmental-conscience' kind that Yuppies bought. Connor had been right; we weren't at the complex. It looked like we had been held in a mansion in the woods. Lilah had them drive us out to a small lake, ringed with roses. I could smell them. They looked dark in the pale moonlight.
There was a gazebo under lights near the lake. The Hummer parked a few yards from it with some of the other vehicles that were there. Under the artificial lights I could see the roses were black. There was a literal forest of them. On the gazebo stood this really wizened old woman in a bright purple gown. It looked so ridiculous on her, obviously made for someone her great granddaughter's age.
"I see you've brought her," the old woman said, her voice like sandpaper.
"Did you have doubts, Mrs. Hogarth?" Lilah said as I was muscled out of the Hummer.
The old woman's thin lips pulled into a line. "Yes, I did Ms. Morgan." She walked over to me, grabbing my chin with her knobby fingers. "Such a little thing. Her ceremonial dress is right there." She pointed to a black robe draped over the gazebo railing.
"Don't think I'll be putting that on," I said.
Hogarth shrugged. "If you insist on being stubborn, we can handle that." She nodded at Lilah, the thick bun she wore her white hair in bobbling.
"Hold her," Lilah instructed my guards.
Realizing she meant to strip me herself, I kicked and screamed and fought, but I couldn't hold them off. Between them all of my clothing was torn away and they pressed me naked into the grass. Lilah tossed the robe at me. I pulled it on frantically. It was soft against my bruised skin.
"Tie her in the gazebo," Hogarth said and some of their muscle men dragged me into it. There were runes of some kind carved in the flooring. The black roses covered the bare spots of the floor. In the center of all the carving was an altar. They hoisted me up on it and strapped me down.
"Buffy's going to find me," I said helplessly, wishing Connor would wake up. He could break through the ropes they tied him with. I knew he could.
"Oh, I trust that the Slayer might do just that," Hogarth said. "Inside the mansion we could shield you two from locator spells, but they'll interfere with the magic here at the lake. But we're prepared for that."
The old bitch pointed at some of the guards who opened the vans we had parked by releasing more of those Splinter Cats.
"Buffy can tear through those," I said.
"We know," Lilah said. "That's why we have him." She took a whistle from Hogarth and blew it.
The lake water bubbled and hissed and this thing rose from it. It came ashore, water pouring off it. It looked like a dragon almost, with lots and lots of horns. They covered its head and back all the way to the long snaky tail. Its heavy fangs couldn't be contained insides its jaws, poking out like a walrus. Its huge protruding eyes were Lorne's orange-red shade. Its skin was Lorne colored too, only wartier.
"Meet the Hodag. Believe me, he'll give them plenty to worry about. We only need to hold them off long enough to cut you," Lilah said. "And if he's not enough, we have Connor."
I didn't say anything. Now I knew why they hadn't left him behind. They were going to use him as leverage. I followed Lilah's movement with my eyes the best I could tied down as I was. She had them drag Connor to the nearest tree. I could see her as she tied his knees and ankles together. She hammerlocked his wrists and pulled them behind his shoulder blades. My own shoulders ached in sympathy. He was starting to come around as she hitched his ankles to his wrists with a stout rope, pulling his feet almost to his butt. She fastened both to a noose she slipped around his neck. Her guards slung that around the heavy tree branch and they hiked Connor up by his neck until he was balancing on his knees. If he tried to squirm free, he'd fall over and choke.
Lilah slapped his face a few times. "Wakey, wakey. You might want to concentrate on balancing. I'd hate for you to hang before your daddy gets here."
Connor just glared at her and Lilah rejoined me and Hogarth.
I looked at the old woman. "Why are you doing this?"
"For all the shallow reasons," she said. "What comes through that portal can make me young and powerful again."
"Guess that's better than trying to make hell on earth," I muttered.
"Oh, no profit in that," Hogarth assured me.
"Now what?" I asked.
"We wait. It's not quite time, then you bleed a little. Mrs. Hogarth goes back to being young and you and Connor go back to your cells and we can work on project number two," Lilah said.
And so we waited. I tested my bonds enough to know I wasn't going anywhere. Still, I kept working at it. It hurt a lot, but if I could get my wrists bloody enough I might be able to slip free. I might open the portal in the process, but at this point I didn't care.
I watched Connor squirming a bit as one of the cats licked him. He had to be in so much pain. Suddenly I saw a subtle change in his body language, a flicker of something on his face. He heard something, something we didn't, at least not yet. The cats bounded away towards the edge of the black rose forest and the Hodag lumbered away from the lake's edge. The first thing we heard was the twang of a crossbow and one of the cat's screeched. I wanted to cry. They did it, they found us. I couldn't see most of the battle, but I could hear it. I heard Willow's spell chants, Buffy barking orders, Faith, well grunting or something as she killed things. Angel and Xander were there. I had no doubts that Giles and Wes were somewhere, too.
"Hurry up and just do it," Lilah snapped at Hogarth.
The old woman looked at her harshly. "It's not time. It won't work until the moon is at its zenith."
"Damn it," Lilah said.
Something roared so loud the noise felt like it was bouncing off my ribs. It was the Hodag. Faith was riding its back, her feet balancing on the horns. It twisted, slinging her off against a tree and its tail twitched, catching my sister, knocking her off her feet. It went to impale her on its horns and Angel jumped in the way. I winced seeing the horn sprout out of his back. I knew that wouldn't kill him but it had to hurt; even Connor cried out in protest of that treatment.
Angel stumbled back off the thing's horn as Buffy stabbed the creature. It wasn't enough to kill it, but the Hodag retreated some. Angel caught Lilah's gaze. "I'm going to mount your head on my wall, Lilah!"
"I think he means that," she muttered, looking up at the moon. "We're not going to make it."
"Have faith," Hogarth said then collapsed onto the floorboards. Giles was there behind her, having used the pommel of his sword to knock her out.
"Dawn said your head is easy to knock off," Giles said and I could almost imagine him tacking on a Spike-like 'bint' to that, his face was so dark and angry.
"Harder than you might think."
Lilah had the TASER out before Giles could move. I strained against my shackles as poor Giles hit the gazebo floor. Lilah turned to me. "Well, this is a waste. Time to get you out of here."
She zapped me, too, quickly and not for long. I could hear the battle still but I couldn't focus. Lilah released me, slinging me over her shoulders. I couldn't move. My body felt like ants were crawling inside it. "What are you idiots waiting for?" she snapped. "Hang him!"
Upside down, I could still see Connor and that Lilah didn't have a clear escape route but with those words she did. Two of the guards raced for him and hauled him up. Oh, God, they were hanging him. Angel bellowed something I couldn't make out and suddenly everyone's attention was on trying to stay alive and cutting Connor down before he died.
Lilah tossed me into the Hummer. I managed to pull myself up enough to see out the window as she started the engine. A sword hit the rope strangling Connor, splitting it at the tree branch. He fell. Faith was cutting him free as Buffy and Angel ran for me. Lilah gunned the engine. I tried to scream but couldn't do more than moan as Buffy was tackled by a cat. The Hodag trampled Angel just as he neared the Hummer.
As we raced into the woods, I saw Wes slicing the throat of a cat, saving Xander. Where was Willow? A fireball suddenly exploded on our windshield. Lilah slammed on the brakes and I bounced off the dashboard. Willow was there, readying another spell. Lilah reached between the seats and pulled out another gun. From its sound, it was a real pistol, not a tranq gun. Willow dove aside. I don't think Lilah hit her but she wasn't stupid enough to stand there and be a target.
Lilah gunned the engine and something hit the Hummer even as we drove on. She smiled at me. "Well, I guess we'll just have to find what else you can open later."
"You aren't getting out of these woods," I said as something pounded on the roof of the vehicle. I could move my mouth but my limbs were still in business for themselves.
"That's what you think," Lilah said but she didn't look convinced.
More pounding sounded then the tearing of metal. Someone was ripping straight through the roof of the Hummer. I looked up and there was Connor. If I ever doubted he could do murder, all that was erased by the look in his eyes. He was more than ready to do to Lilah what he had just done to the Hummer.
Lilah hit the brakes again trying to dislodge him. Connor half fell into the hole he made, striking his head on the jagged metal, and Lilah gunned the engine again. We didn't get far when someone stepped out of the darkness and winged a stick at us. A stick, I couldn't believe it. What would that do and who was this? No one could have run fast enough to keep up with us. The stick hit ground and a huge rose hedge sprung up. The Hummer slammed into it, barreling through, but it slowed us. Another stick hit ground and this rose hedge slowed us more. The third must have done something to the guts of the Hummer because it smoked and stopped.
"What the fu-," Lilah's curse was broken off by Connor grabbing her hair, yanking. Her head came half off and her pistol went up over head, discharging. Connor screamed and I smelled the gun powder and blood.
"Connor!" I tried to twist to get to him, but my body was still little more than a bag of twitching flesh. He dangled from the hole in the roof, blood running from his head.
Lilah got out of the car, putting her head back on straight. She dragged me out, letting me hit ground hard. I couldn't even get my legs under me to walk as she pulled me along. The stranger with the sticks approached us, another stick in hand. She smelled of roses.
"Hitcoga!" I cried.
"You brought this horror to my land," she said but that was directed at Lilah. "It ends here."
She went to toss another stick but Lilah shot her, too. Hitcoga dissolved into a shower of rose petals. I cried. Lilah grabbed me again, yanking me deeper into the black rose forest. What had I done wrong to have every rescue go awry, like some cosmic force was against me? Then someone hit Lilah and she went down. I recognized Connor's slender frame. She hadn't killed him, thank whoever was listening. He tore her head off, holding it like a trophy. Her body twitched away from him, crawling horrifically like something from a bad slasher flick. Connor tossed Lilah's head into the rose hedge and went after her. The smell of roses permeated the air even stronger and another stick hit. He nearly plowed into the freshly formed rose hedge.
"There's been enough killing," Hitcoga said, her body reformed.
"Connor," I said, holding out a hand to him. He stood there, looking at me, his face a gory mess from where the bullet had creased his head. I had to look like something out of one of Mom's romances, lying on rose petals in a long black robe.
He came over to me, falling at my side. He pulled me into his arms. I kissed him, just as soft as the petals of a rose. There in the forest of the black roses I knew suddenly what I was feeling from Connor, the thing that was drawing me to him. He wanted to be loved so much, I could feel it from the way he held me, the way his tongue pressed against mine. There was a feeling of oneness, of a desperation to know something he needed more than anything. He had love to give. I could feel it flowing into me and he wanted it back so bad it hurt.
A hand touched my shoulder and I broke the kiss, twisting in Connor's arms. Hitcoga smiled down at us. Behind her were Buffy and Angel. Oh great they just saw us kissing. The vampire leaned on Buffy heavily. The wound that went straight through him must really be hurting him badly. Hitcoga stepped aside and Buffy ran in, scooping me out of Connor's arms. Poor Angel nearly fell down without her to prop him up. Hitcoga stepped in giving him her hand.
"Where's Lilah?" Angel asked as Buffy squeezed me too hard.
Hitcoga pointed out where Lilah's body had found her head and was putting it back on. "It's over."
"No, it's not," Angel said, stumbling away.
"Fraid it is," Lilah said. "Got a built in escape clause."
Her body fell over lifelessly. Connor got up and kicked her.
"Where is she?"
"Back in hell," Angel said, touching his son's shoulder. Connor didn't break away.
"She shot him in the head," I said. "But I think the bullet just grazed him."
Angel examined Connor. "Guess being hard-headed worked for you this time," he quipped and Connor wrinkled his nose.
"Hitcoga, can you help him?" I asked, worming free of Buffy.
She nodded but first she let her red, healing light wash over me. My knee and head felt instantly better. She cupped Connor's face as she healed him then she reached for Buffy. "I cannot heal the dead one."
"I'll be fine," Angel assured her.
"Our other friends might be hurt back at the lake. Come with us, please," I said.
Hitcoga nodded. "I need to repair the damage to my lands."
She followed us as we picked our way through the forest. By the time we got back to the lake, all the cats were dead; the Hodag was lying on the shore looking mostly dead and Faith and Willow were patching up the men. Hitcoga healed them all in turn then laid hands on the Hodag.
"Why are you helping it?" I asked.
She looked back at me. In the light, I could see her hair was a glossy black and her skin a warm cinnamon. "He belongs here. He was not for their use." She gestured at the fallen humans. The Ho-Dag slithered back into the lake, all interest in us gone.
"Oh. Thank you again, Hitcoga. She might have escaped with me if not for you."
"As I said before, you are safe on my lands," she said.
Giles and Wes questioned Hitcoga eagerly as Buffy and Faith trussed up all the unconscious Wolfram and Hart cronies. I didn't know for sure what we would do with them, but we weren't leaving them here. I sat down on the steps of the gazebo wearily. Connor sat with me, an arm looped protectively around me.
Finally, once the work was done Hitcoga came back to me and held out two roses, one black and one pink. "They'll stay ever fresh. When you get home, plant them and they shall grow."
"Thank you, for everything," I said and she just smiled and disappeared. I looked over at Buffy. "Can we leave now?"
"Yes, we can."
The thing came through the woods, looking like a fur-less, fat grizzly bear. It ran on all fours until it saw us. On its back feet, it was almost eight feet tall. It swiped at the nearest person, Faith, with steely grey claws. Faith cartwheeled away while Buffy raced to where Giles and Willow were tearing through one of the backpacks for weapons.
Faith kicked the leathery thing, her foot bouncing off it. She ducked under those talons as the thing roared, showing thick yellow teeth. Connor leapt at it with the stake Faith had given him earlier. Thank goodness, he had been so intent on taking Angel bare handed that he forgot that he had that thing.
The stake shattered like glass against the bear monster, shocking me. I tried to hobble for the weapons. My knee had stiffened up terribly. I had no idea what I'd do if I had to flat out run. Connor jumped at the thing as Faith and Angel took it from behind. It swatted him away. He spun out in mid air of control , his heel clipping Buffy's head. Connor hit his boundary line and it snapped like a shot gun. Poor Connor got knocked away, nearly landing on Buffy.
Another howl rumbled through the dusk air and a second naked bear monster came tearing out of the woods, then a third. I managed to get to the weapons, finding a crossbow. I wasn't very good with them but it was better than nothing. Buffy and Connor bolted after the second bear thing. Xander shot at the third with a crossbow. He had worked hard this past year to regain his marksmanship after losing his eye and it paid off. He hit the target but it bounced off.
"That is no fucking good," Faith said.
"No kidding," Buffy shot back. "Connor, we've got these things. You guard Dawn. It's her they want, and you. She's too hurt to fight."
Connor looked at Buffy and I expected him to protest. Most days I would have too but not tonight. I wasn't in any shape to fight. I doubted I could even defend myself. He darted over to me, his eyes steely as if being given something to battle had driven out his inner demons. He grinned at me and it was oddly cute.
"Watch out, guys. Gonna try something," Willow said then yelled something in a language I didn't know. A fireball leapt from her fingertips.
I felt like cheering when the fireball set the creature alight. Something stung my shoulder like a bee. Connor jerked like something had stung him, too. I heard something, like a motorcycle. I wondered what kind of monster made that noise as I felt for the wasp. My shoulder started to burn. My fingers brushed something metallic. I saw it fall to the ground, bright bristles glittering in the moonlight. Even as my vision began to cloud, I saw Connor going down, three of the bristle bunches visible on his back. I collapsed, seeing ATVs rocketing along the tree line. See them, Buffy! Stop them!
* *
*
My head hurt so much that waking up was a misery. The room spun and it was all that I could do not to throw up. I startled as I felt hands on me. Connor put his long fingers over my lips, nodding at the wall, which was a thick netting of wire and beyond that heavy bars. Standing guard in the corridor, like bookends were two creatures that looked like a cross between the Hulk and the Thing. I didn't like our chances of getting past them especially with my injuries.
Wolfram and Hart had captured us again. I didn't need to see Lilah to know that. The tranquilizers that hit me in the woods had told me that much and waking up in a cell confirmed it.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered and I shook my head.
"We're someplace different than before." Connor took a tentative sniff. "Or at least I think so. Smells different...sweeter."
I quivered. "What if they took us out of state again?"
He closed his hand over mine, sitting next to me. "We'll escape again. But I don't think we're that far from where we were."
"You don't know how long we were drugged this time," I argued, starting to shake.
"Not long. You still smell good." He smiled at me.
I took a deep calming breath. "I guess Lilah did say I was supposed to be opening a portal. It was probably here in Wisconsin."
Connor pulled me closer to him, his body stiffening. "She's coming."
I guessed he could smell Lilah before I could hear the click of her heels. She wasn't smiling when she reached our cell. I hoped she'd gotten in huge gobs of trouble for letting us escape.
"You two gave us a merry chase. We were afraid the guardians would accidentally kill you before we caught up with you." Lilah studied us. "But I suppose the biggest surprise was Connor's sudden bout of sanity. How'd that happen?"
"I wouldn't say he's sane," I said.
"Cured enough to not kill you and help you out of the forest," Lilah said, crossing her arms like armor. She thought I was lying and even though I was, I was willing to bet Connor was still suffering mentally.
It was hard to argue that and she probably figured out I had come back for him, bringing reinforcements. She had to know Angel, Buffy and Faith were all in the area. I doubt she'd care about the others, not knowing how dangerous they could be. What kind of risk had our recapture put Fred, Spike, Gunn and the others back in Los Angeles at?
"So I guess asking you how to get Connor past the barrier won't do much good," I said.
Lilah snorted, tossing her hair. "Ask away. I don't even know the answer to that, not my department."
"So what now?" I asked.
"Tonight you're going to perform that little service for us." Lilah tapped on the bars with her nails. "And if you two want to take the initiative on that other thing we want you to do for us, please be my guest."
Connor lunged at her. He penetrated all the way through the metal webbing nearly getting her through the bars. Lilah jumped back. One of the Hulk- Thing's grabbed Connor's hand and yanked him hard against the webbing. Connor braced himself against it and tugged back, nearly bending the bars with the creature's body.
Lilah pulled something from her jacket and pressed it against Connor's hand. It crackled with electricity and the TASER which almost dropped him, barely giving him time to cry out. Lilah had a hold of his shirt, keeping him from falling as she continually zapped him. I snagged him, pulling him out of reach.
"When he's done twitching, we really would like it if you got on that other project, so to speak. If the smell's stopping you, we can scrub him down." Her smile could have frosted all of California.
"Go to hell," I spat.
"Already there, sweetie, but have it your way. You'll enjoy it less if we have to do it."
With that, Lilah left. I stroked Connor's hair. He moaned, his body shaking from the assault. I let him lay quietly, cradling his head in my lap. There was nothing I could do to speed along his recovery. Now that we weren't charging the cage, the Hulk-Things went back to their bookend positions.
It didn't take long for his eyes to start focusing again. They flicked down to where my hand rest on his bare belly. I hadn't even realized I had been rubbing it, trying to be comforting. I snatched my hand away and he sat up.
"Are you okay?" I asked
"I hate those things," he mumbled, getting to his feet. He looked around our bare cell. It only had an exposed toilet, which I'd rather explode than use, and thin cot attached to a wall, that we'd have to be really friendly to share. He crawled under the cot and waved for me to follow.
Curious, I did, having to press up against him. I had gotten used to how bad he smelled. "Why are we under here?"
"Harder to see us if they're spying," he whispered.
"Oh." I figured I could be just as quiet as him in case they were listening in.
"I'm sorry," he said, his fingers brushing my arm.
"For what?"
His eyes went morose, their blue deepening. "You were free. You're back here because of me and I think..." He swallowed hard, looking like he wanted to slip back into those long silences of his. "Our talk in the woods, you're afraid now...afraid of me."
The pain in his voice echoed inside me. I touched his face. "I don't regret trying to rescue you."
"Why?"
"Because like you said to me, it's the right thing to do." I struggled to move under the cot enough to press my hand to his arm. I needed to touch. "Most of us would have tried to save you just because you're Angel's son. I know you hate him right now, but the rest of us see what he tried to do, how he tried to help."
His lips twisted into a little half-frown. "Like you said about you and your Mom and Buffy."
"Right. You saved my life more than once. I couldn't just abandon you. I knew the risks when I came back. As for being afraid of you, I am a little. I know that probably hurts you but it's true."
"Then why..." He shifted away from me as much as he could, which really wasn't much. "Did you kiss me?"
I heaved a sigh, trying to think of how to answer that. "I don't really know. It felt like the right thing to do. I tried to tell myself it was just the hormones but that's a lie. It's something more. I don't know why but I feel very close to you. I don't believe in soul mates and all that crap but I do know I feel something more for you than I can explain and I don't know why. We barely know each other. And the way you kissed me back...I thought you were feeling something too."
He didn't answer right away. Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe he was just your typical horny teenager who wasn't going to pass on a kiss, but my insides were telling me it was more than that. "I don't know why either."
"Because you're really in love with Cordy?" Oh, stupid. Why did I mention her name?
His eyes shut. "No. I thought I was. She said she loved me but I think...I think something else made her do it...Jasmine maybe, since she needed to be born. I know Angel thought that Cordy made all the badness happen. I think maybe he was right, but I didn't then. I think Cordy was controlling me here." His hand snaked up to tap his temple. "I don't know how."
"You said that before, how things didn't make sense when you left her side."
He nodded. "When I think now on the things she did and said to me...that's not love. She'd kiss me then tell me it was wrong to do it. I just wanted...did you think it was wrong, too?"
I snared his fingers with mine. "No, I don't think my kissing you was wrong," I said, honestly.
"But you're afraid of me...but I guess you kissed me before the scary talk."
"I was afraid of you before that talk. I saw you in that fighting pit, remember? I know you were being controlled and that you had been driven...well, kinda nuts. I've only been as scared as I was in those woods once or twice before, when I was beating your head in with that log."
He smiled faintly. "That hurt."
"I bet. I was afraid afterwards, too, because I didn't know if Hitcoga could make you un-insane, but I guess she helped. Or maybe it was only a temporary kind of madness that Angel saw in you and tried to fix. But when we were trying to get out of the woods, I got less scared. You did your best to help me. I think...I think you're just as scared only you can't admit it. This world frightens you. I think you scare yourself."
The tip of his tongue flicked over his upper lip. "Maybe. I don't know this world...my place here. But fear gets you killed."
"Sometimes...sometimes it saves your life, too. You did scare me again with what you said to Faith. The look in your eyes when you talked about murder scared all of us."
I couldn't describe the expression that fell over his face. He dropped his gaze away from mine. "It was like I told you in the woods but I didn't tell you all of it. I don't know...I have memories of Cordy killing someone...telling me the blood of an innocent was needed to birth our child. I think I argued with her. I didn't want to do it but I think I helped. I just...I just can't remember. Maybe it's part of the madness...the things I only think happened. This past year, what little I remember, can't be real. I don't think this memory of Cordelia is real because my mother was there. She was trying to stop me. She was telling me how much she loved me and I was listening to her. I tried to do what she asked." He shivered against me.
"Maybe it wasn't real. I don't like thinking that it could be," I said. It was more than that. I didn't want to think he could be a murderer. Worse, could I love someone who was? No, scratch that. Of course I could. I loved Anya, Angel and Willow and they were all murderers, if I were honest about it. I had had feelings for Spike until I found out what he pulled on Buffy. The truth was, if I really did have feelings for Connor, his past wouldn't change that. I'd somehow adapt to it.
"But since I'm the son of two dead things and you're energy made flesh, real and unreal doesn't have much meaning," he said.
"Exactly." I smiled wryly. "But if it happened, it doesn't mean you can't be forgiven."
"Like Angel and Faith?"
"Yeah." A weird bubble of laugher welled up. "Sorry. I was thinking of a math problem Tara and Willow were helping me with. Math is so not my thing. Anyhow we were working out some practice problems and I figured out that Spike, that's one of Angel's grandchildren so to speak."
"I know how vampires usually breed," he interrupted.
"Um, okay. Sorry. Anyhow, we figured out that if Spike had only killed one person a day every day, he would have killed about forty thousand people and somehow we forgave that."
"Dad would have killed more then," he said.
"Yeah, but Angel was souled so he wasn't killing for two hundred years, just part of that time...way to really muddy the waters, Dawn." I made a face. "But the point I'm trying to make, the same one Buffy tried to make when Angel tried to kill himself, is if you really want to make amends you can. Maybe not everyone believes that, but I do."
"Dad tried to kill himself...I didn't know that." He seemed so surprised. "Father told me many times what I needed to do. I promised him I would cling to the good and lay waste to the evil. I don't think I did a good job."
I could feel his disappointment in himself. "Well, since I'm thinking your father would have bundled Angel into that evil you were to lay waste to, I'm glad you weren't the perfect Destroyer."
He made a face. Did he still feel bad about not killing Angel? Did he think his adoptive father, I'd think of him that way since Connor obviously did, thought less of him because of it? "Father was disappointed that he thought I had feelings for Angel. He tried to pretend he wasn't, said that it was natural that I should but I could tell it hurt him."
"It shouldn't have. He knew you loved him, too."
"Angel made him kill his own daughter. My parents slaughtered his family and turned his daughter into one of them and left her for him to find," Connor said, the heat trickling back into his voice.
I pressed a finger over his lips. "I'm not saying that isn't horrible. It is. And we can debate that another time. Right now, we need to think of a way out of here."
His lips pursed against my finger. I felt the tip of his tongue against my flesh. I moved my fingers and replaced them with my lips. The kiss was quick but tender. I put my face against his shoulder, feeling the curve of his collarbone against my cheek. He tensed.
"Don't worry, Connor, I'm not looking to get on Wolfram and Hart's second project and jump you." I shifted so I could meet his eyes.
He made another face. "I didn't think that."
"But I guess I am kinda scared of maybe dying tonight. I really don't want to die a virgin." I squirmed out from under the bed before I did do something stupid. "But I certainly don't want to do that here."
He slithered out, too. "I understand. That's part of why Cordy did it. She thought the world was ending with the rain of fire. She wanted me to have something real, she said. Like she thought I'd never been happy a day in my life, which is kinda true."
I glanced over at him, hearing that anguish. "But it was kinda empty, wasn't it?"
He nodded. "Well, not when it was happening. But the next morning everything changed and she threw me out." His eyes narrowed. "It was my bed, too."
Leave it to Cordelia to toss him out of his own place and take over, but I didn't tell him that. Instead, I got him thinking about how to get out of our cell. I only wished I could say we did it, that we escaped, laughing all the time. Instead, we got no where and in due time, Lilah returned, dressed more casually than I had ever seen her. She was even wearing jeans and sneakers. She pointed a shotgun at Connor. It took several tries, but she managed to pump two tranquilizers into him. After all, he couldn't exactly run. She stood back and let the guards come in and shackle Connor up.
"Let's go, little miss." she said to me.
"I'm not going anywhere." I tried clinging to the bars even though I knew it was hopeless. All she would have to do was sedate me. Instead, she had a few human guards pluck me free and tie my hands behind my back.
She had them bring Connor with us and I couldn't figure out why. We were loaded into a Hummer, a military looking one, not those 'I've-got-too-much- money-and-no-environmental-conscience' kind that Yuppies bought. Connor had been right; we weren't at the complex. It looked like we had been held in a mansion in the woods. Lilah had them drive us out to a small lake, ringed with roses. I could smell them. They looked dark in the pale moonlight.
There was a gazebo under lights near the lake. The Hummer parked a few yards from it with some of the other vehicles that were there. Under the artificial lights I could see the roses were black. There was a literal forest of them. On the gazebo stood this really wizened old woman in a bright purple gown. It looked so ridiculous on her, obviously made for someone her great granddaughter's age.
"I see you've brought her," the old woman said, her voice like sandpaper.
"Did you have doubts, Mrs. Hogarth?" Lilah said as I was muscled out of the Hummer.
The old woman's thin lips pulled into a line. "Yes, I did Ms. Morgan." She walked over to me, grabbing my chin with her knobby fingers. "Such a little thing. Her ceremonial dress is right there." She pointed to a black robe draped over the gazebo railing.
"Don't think I'll be putting that on," I said.
Hogarth shrugged. "If you insist on being stubborn, we can handle that." She nodded at Lilah, the thick bun she wore her white hair in bobbling.
"Hold her," Lilah instructed my guards.
Realizing she meant to strip me herself, I kicked and screamed and fought, but I couldn't hold them off. Between them all of my clothing was torn away and they pressed me naked into the grass. Lilah tossed the robe at me. I pulled it on frantically. It was soft against my bruised skin.
"Tie her in the gazebo," Hogarth said and some of their muscle men dragged me into it. There were runes of some kind carved in the flooring. The black roses covered the bare spots of the floor. In the center of all the carving was an altar. They hoisted me up on it and strapped me down.
"Buffy's going to find me," I said helplessly, wishing Connor would wake up. He could break through the ropes they tied him with. I knew he could.
"Oh, I trust that the Slayer might do just that," Hogarth said. "Inside the mansion we could shield you two from locator spells, but they'll interfere with the magic here at the lake. But we're prepared for that."
The old bitch pointed at some of the guards who opened the vans we had parked by releasing more of those Splinter Cats.
"Buffy can tear through those," I said.
"We know," Lilah said. "That's why we have him." She took a whistle from Hogarth and blew it.
The lake water bubbled and hissed and this thing rose from it. It came ashore, water pouring off it. It looked like a dragon almost, with lots and lots of horns. They covered its head and back all the way to the long snaky tail. Its heavy fangs couldn't be contained insides its jaws, poking out like a walrus. Its huge protruding eyes were Lorne's orange-red shade. Its skin was Lorne colored too, only wartier.
"Meet the Hodag. Believe me, he'll give them plenty to worry about. We only need to hold them off long enough to cut you," Lilah said. "And if he's not enough, we have Connor."
I didn't say anything. Now I knew why they hadn't left him behind. They were going to use him as leverage. I followed Lilah's movement with my eyes the best I could tied down as I was. She had them drag Connor to the nearest tree. I could see her as she tied his knees and ankles together. She hammerlocked his wrists and pulled them behind his shoulder blades. My own shoulders ached in sympathy. He was starting to come around as she hitched his ankles to his wrists with a stout rope, pulling his feet almost to his butt. She fastened both to a noose she slipped around his neck. Her guards slung that around the heavy tree branch and they hiked Connor up by his neck until he was balancing on his knees. If he tried to squirm free, he'd fall over and choke.
Lilah slapped his face a few times. "Wakey, wakey. You might want to concentrate on balancing. I'd hate for you to hang before your daddy gets here."
Connor just glared at her and Lilah rejoined me and Hogarth.
I looked at the old woman. "Why are you doing this?"
"For all the shallow reasons," she said. "What comes through that portal can make me young and powerful again."
"Guess that's better than trying to make hell on earth," I muttered.
"Oh, no profit in that," Hogarth assured me.
"Now what?" I asked.
"We wait. It's not quite time, then you bleed a little. Mrs. Hogarth goes back to being young and you and Connor go back to your cells and we can work on project number two," Lilah said.
And so we waited. I tested my bonds enough to know I wasn't going anywhere. Still, I kept working at it. It hurt a lot, but if I could get my wrists bloody enough I might be able to slip free. I might open the portal in the process, but at this point I didn't care.
I watched Connor squirming a bit as one of the cats licked him. He had to be in so much pain. Suddenly I saw a subtle change in his body language, a flicker of something on his face. He heard something, something we didn't, at least not yet. The cats bounded away towards the edge of the black rose forest and the Hodag lumbered away from the lake's edge. The first thing we heard was the twang of a crossbow and one of the cat's screeched. I wanted to cry. They did it, they found us. I couldn't see most of the battle, but I could hear it. I heard Willow's spell chants, Buffy barking orders, Faith, well grunting or something as she killed things. Angel and Xander were there. I had no doubts that Giles and Wes were somewhere, too.
"Hurry up and just do it," Lilah snapped at Hogarth.
The old woman looked at her harshly. "It's not time. It won't work until the moon is at its zenith."
"Damn it," Lilah said.
Something roared so loud the noise felt like it was bouncing off my ribs. It was the Hodag. Faith was riding its back, her feet balancing on the horns. It twisted, slinging her off against a tree and its tail twitched, catching my sister, knocking her off her feet. It went to impale her on its horns and Angel jumped in the way. I winced seeing the horn sprout out of his back. I knew that wouldn't kill him but it had to hurt; even Connor cried out in protest of that treatment.
Angel stumbled back off the thing's horn as Buffy stabbed the creature. It wasn't enough to kill it, but the Hodag retreated some. Angel caught Lilah's gaze. "I'm going to mount your head on my wall, Lilah!"
"I think he means that," she muttered, looking up at the moon. "We're not going to make it."
"Have faith," Hogarth said then collapsed onto the floorboards. Giles was there behind her, having used the pommel of his sword to knock her out.
"Dawn said your head is easy to knock off," Giles said and I could almost imagine him tacking on a Spike-like 'bint' to that, his face was so dark and angry.
"Harder than you might think."
Lilah had the TASER out before Giles could move. I strained against my shackles as poor Giles hit the gazebo floor. Lilah turned to me. "Well, this is a waste. Time to get you out of here."
She zapped me, too, quickly and not for long. I could hear the battle still but I couldn't focus. Lilah released me, slinging me over her shoulders. I couldn't move. My body felt like ants were crawling inside it. "What are you idiots waiting for?" she snapped. "Hang him!"
Upside down, I could still see Connor and that Lilah didn't have a clear escape route but with those words she did. Two of the guards raced for him and hauled him up. Oh, God, they were hanging him. Angel bellowed something I couldn't make out and suddenly everyone's attention was on trying to stay alive and cutting Connor down before he died.
Lilah tossed me into the Hummer. I managed to pull myself up enough to see out the window as she started the engine. A sword hit the rope strangling Connor, splitting it at the tree branch. He fell. Faith was cutting him free as Buffy and Angel ran for me. Lilah gunned the engine. I tried to scream but couldn't do more than moan as Buffy was tackled by a cat. The Hodag trampled Angel just as he neared the Hummer.
As we raced into the woods, I saw Wes slicing the throat of a cat, saving Xander. Where was Willow? A fireball suddenly exploded on our windshield. Lilah slammed on the brakes and I bounced off the dashboard. Willow was there, readying another spell. Lilah reached between the seats and pulled out another gun. From its sound, it was a real pistol, not a tranq gun. Willow dove aside. I don't think Lilah hit her but she wasn't stupid enough to stand there and be a target.
Lilah gunned the engine and something hit the Hummer even as we drove on. She smiled at me. "Well, I guess we'll just have to find what else you can open later."
"You aren't getting out of these woods," I said as something pounded on the roof of the vehicle. I could move my mouth but my limbs were still in business for themselves.
"That's what you think," Lilah said but she didn't look convinced.
More pounding sounded then the tearing of metal. Someone was ripping straight through the roof of the Hummer. I looked up and there was Connor. If I ever doubted he could do murder, all that was erased by the look in his eyes. He was more than ready to do to Lilah what he had just done to the Hummer.
Lilah hit the brakes again trying to dislodge him. Connor half fell into the hole he made, striking his head on the jagged metal, and Lilah gunned the engine again. We didn't get far when someone stepped out of the darkness and winged a stick at us. A stick, I couldn't believe it. What would that do and who was this? No one could have run fast enough to keep up with us. The stick hit ground and a huge rose hedge sprung up. The Hummer slammed into it, barreling through, but it slowed us. Another stick hit ground and this rose hedge slowed us more. The third must have done something to the guts of the Hummer because it smoked and stopped.
"What the fu-," Lilah's curse was broken off by Connor grabbing her hair, yanking. Her head came half off and her pistol went up over head, discharging. Connor screamed and I smelled the gun powder and blood.
"Connor!" I tried to twist to get to him, but my body was still little more than a bag of twitching flesh. He dangled from the hole in the roof, blood running from his head.
Lilah got out of the car, putting her head back on straight. She dragged me out, letting me hit ground hard. I couldn't even get my legs under me to walk as she pulled me along. The stranger with the sticks approached us, another stick in hand. She smelled of roses.
"Hitcoga!" I cried.
"You brought this horror to my land," she said but that was directed at Lilah. "It ends here."
She went to toss another stick but Lilah shot her, too. Hitcoga dissolved into a shower of rose petals. I cried. Lilah grabbed me again, yanking me deeper into the black rose forest. What had I done wrong to have every rescue go awry, like some cosmic force was against me? Then someone hit Lilah and she went down. I recognized Connor's slender frame. She hadn't killed him, thank whoever was listening. He tore her head off, holding it like a trophy. Her body twitched away from him, crawling horrifically like something from a bad slasher flick. Connor tossed Lilah's head into the rose hedge and went after her. The smell of roses permeated the air even stronger and another stick hit. He nearly plowed into the freshly formed rose hedge.
"There's been enough killing," Hitcoga said, her body reformed.
"Connor," I said, holding out a hand to him. He stood there, looking at me, his face a gory mess from where the bullet had creased his head. I had to look like something out of one of Mom's romances, lying on rose petals in a long black robe.
He came over to me, falling at my side. He pulled me into his arms. I kissed him, just as soft as the petals of a rose. There in the forest of the black roses I knew suddenly what I was feeling from Connor, the thing that was drawing me to him. He wanted to be loved so much, I could feel it from the way he held me, the way his tongue pressed against mine. There was a feeling of oneness, of a desperation to know something he needed more than anything. He had love to give. I could feel it flowing into me and he wanted it back so bad it hurt.
A hand touched my shoulder and I broke the kiss, twisting in Connor's arms. Hitcoga smiled down at us. Behind her were Buffy and Angel. Oh great they just saw us kissing. The vampire leaned on Buffy heavily. The wound that went straight through him must really be hurting him badly. Hitcoga stepped aside and Buffy ran in, scooping me out of Connor's arms. Poor Angel nearly fell down without her to prop him up. Hitcoga stepped in giving him her hand.
"Where's Lilah?" Angel asked as Buffy squeezed me too hard.
Hitcoga pointed out where Lilah's body had found her head and was putting it back on. "It's over."
"No, it's not," Angel said, stumbling away.
"Fraid it is," Lilah said. "Got a built in escape clause."
Her body fell over lifelessly. Connor got up and kicked her.
"Where is she?"
"Back in hell," Angel said, touching his son's shoulder. Connor didn't break away.
"She shot him in the head," I said. "But I think the bullet just grazed him."
Angel examined Connor. "Guess being hard-headed worked for you this time," he quipped and Connor wrinkled his nose.
"Hitcoga, can you help him?" I asked, worming free of Buffy.
She nodded but first she let her red, healing light wash over me. My knee and head felt instantly better. She cupped Connor's face as she healed him then she reached for Buffy. "I cannot heal the dead one."
"I'll be fine," Angel assured her.
"Our other friends might be hurt back at the lake. Come with us, please," I said.
Hitcoga nodded. "I need to repair the damage to my lands."
She followed us as we picked our way through the forest. By the time we got back to the lake, all the cats were dead; the Hodag was lying on the shore looking mostly dead and Faith and Willow were patching up the men. Hitcoga healed them all in turn then laid hands on the Hodag.
"Why are you helping it?" I asked.
She looked back at me. In the light, I could see her hair was a glossy black and her skin a warm cinnamon. "He belongs here. He was not for their use." She gestured at the fallen humans. The Ho-Dag slithered back into the lake, all interest in us gone.
"Oh. Thank you again, Hitcoga. She might have escaped with me if not for you."
"As I said before, you are safe on my lands," she said.
Giles and Wes questioned Hitcoga eagerly as Buffy and Faith trussed up all the unconscious Wolfram and Hart cronies. I didn't know for sure what we would do with them, but we weren't leaving them here. I sat down on the steps of the gazebo wearily. Connor sat with me, an arm looped protectively around me.
Finally, once the work was done Hitcoga came back to me and held out two roses, one black and one pink. "They'll stay ever fresh. When you get home, plant them and they shall grow."
"Thank you, for everything," I said and she just smiled and disappeared. I looked over at Buffy. "Can we leave now?"
"Yes, we can."