Title: Over The Next Horizon (13/?)
Author: Karen
Rating: R Disclaimer: Not mine, not a one. Pairings: A/C, Gu/F, W/S Synopsis: Cordy, Willow and Fred are on the run after being blackmailed by Wolfram and Hart into working for them. Angel, Gunn and Spike are on their tails and less than pleased.
A/N: I know, I know, a horribly long time since I updated. AGAIN. Apologies to all if anyone is still following this fic, all I can say is blame Freakazoid High. All previous parts can be found at the link below.
Dedications: Mel, my pal and no doubt snorting in amazement that this has showed up again. Dawn Wood and Ina, 'cos they'll both be stunned as well and anyone else who's interested in the continuing adventures of this incredibly slow moving fic.
Part 13.
Fred turned the key in the door, shoved it open and then stepped hastily to the side as Lindsey pushed past her and staggered to one of two beds in the room to lay Cordy down. He straightened up breathing heavily and swept his hair back from his forehead with a careless sweep of his forearm. "We need to get her a doctor."
Fred looked up from where she was helping Willow sit in a sagging easy chair, "Y'all know we can't risk that." She flicked concerned eyes over Cordelia and said unconvincingly. "She'll be ok."
Cordelia whimpered on the bed and shifted uncomfortably, plainly unaware of her surroundings. Lindsey dragged the cover off the other bed and placed it over her gently and then turned and looked at Willow. "You really need to see a doctor as well."
"No." Willow shook her head emphatically and then clutched at it as pain exploded behind her eyes and little lights and stars went off. "Ow, dammit. Oh goddess, no doctors." She took several deep gulps of air and blinked to clear her vision. "I've had a lot worse than this. I'll be fine."
Fred twisted her hands together nervously. "You've already suffered a major head trauma once, Willow. We don't know what damage might have been caused."
Willow gave the other girl a twisted smile. "That was years ago and I've been knocked on the head since then. I just need to get rid of the headache and then I'm good to go." She scowled as a thought occurred to her." And Angel and Spike were the cause then, too. Jerks."
Lindsey stared down at Cordelia again. "No argument here." He clenched his fists in impotent rage. "I don't get it. What the hell is happening to her?"
Willow tried to stand up and gave Fred a grateful smile as the brunette leapt forward and slipped a supporting arm around her waist. They made slow progress over to the bed and joined Lindsey in staring down at the insensible seer. Willow slowly lowered herself to the bed and reached out to touch Cordelia's burning forehead. "Spike was right, it's definitely some kind of poison." She leaned forward, whimpering as her head swam protestingly, and peered at the angry cut on Cordelia's collarbone weeping pus and blood. "And I think this is definitely the source." She frowned for a moment in thought and then looked up at Fred. "She's had this for a few months now, but she'd never been sick like this before."
Fred nodded hesitantly, unsure where the redhead was going. "Yeah."
Willow's eyes unfocused as she fought to get her pounding brain to work. "It's never really healed, but it's never been much of a problem." She began to nibble on her thumb. "There's no way she could have hidden it from us if it had affected her like this."
Fred shrugged uneasily. "I don't know, she hid her illness before when she was dying."
Willow eyed Cordelia speculatively. "No, the way we've been living for the past few months, there's no way she could have managed to keep something like this hidden." Her face creased as she reached for the answer floating tantalisingly just out of reach. "No, she couldn't have done." Every nerve in her body throbbed as she chased the answer. "Something happened to trigger this. What is it? What happened to her?"
Fred's chewed her lip as she thought. "She had a big fight with Angel."
Lindsey snarled. "Did he hurt her?" His face flushed with fury. "If he hurt her."
Fred shook her head. "No, he didn't hurt her. She woke up and they started arguing, then she got angry when she saw Willow and then she hurt Angel and he pushed her down." She looked down at Willow when the other girl jumped. "What? What is it?"
Willow pointed an excited finger at Fred. "When she woke up. You said when she woke up." Fred nodded warily. "And they shot her with a tranq gun when they found us." Lindsey exchanged confused glances with Fred as Willow thumped the bed excitedly. "That's it! That's what triggered this. Whatever they used has had some kind of reaction with the stuff that's in her system."
"Willow, you don't know that." Fred stared apologetically at her friend. "Without a lab and a lot of tests we can't be sure of anything."
Willow jumped to her feet, her headache and nausea forgotten in the excitement of her theory. "No, listen to me." She began to pace in the small space. "The poison's been in her system for months and we made the mistake of just thinking that she was being slow to heal, right?" She paused to wait for her companions confirming nods and then continued as her eyes brightened and her face flushed with triumphant colour. "But we forgot that Cordy isn't like us." She rolled her eyes at their blank looks. "She's not human! Or at least she's only human based. We don't know what her physiology is like now she's a higher being or demon or whatever, and the poison may not have had the chance to work the way it normally would in her system." She twisted a lock of hair thoughtfully as she stared into space. "I'm willing to bet that if you or me had been cut with whatever it was then we'd have been taken out of the game pretty quickly, but Cordelia's system is a lot more resistant than ours if she's a demon." Willow bit her lip as she thought and then nodded decisively. "Right, game over. Everything's changed and we're making our own rules now."
Lindsey jumped as she jabbed a finger at him. "I need the bag of mystical who-ja-ma-whatsits from the truck, stat." Willow turned to Fred. "You need to cast a concealment spell, just something basic but I need it with enough kick to disguise what I'm about to do."
"Um." Fred exchanged wary looks with Lindsey. "What are you going to do?"
Willow shook off the last of her head pain and straightened her shoulders. "I'm letting me out to play."
****************************
Connor read the numbers off the pad beside the phone and very carefully punched them into the keypad. He listened carefully as the phone began to ring and then jumped as the phone was picked up at the other end, "Hello?"
Dawn Summers stuck her tongue out as Xander stole the piece of toast in her hand and spoke cheerily into the phone, "Hellmouth House of Horrors, how can I help you?"
"Oh.sorry.I was looking for the Summers residence." Connor went to put the phone down and stopped as he heard an unapologetic giggle sound down the receiver.
"You found us, this is Dawn. Who's speaking please?" Dawn judged her moment and then faked Xander out to snaffle the last chocolate croissant on his plate.
"Um.this is Connor." Connor cleared his throat uneasily and said in a slightly firmer tone of voice. "Connor Angel."
Dawn danced the dance of someone who is victorious in the art of pastry stealing and spoke warmly into the phone. "Oh hey, how ya doin'? What's shakin' in the land of the tan and fake boobs?"
Connor, thoroughly bewildered, took a stab in the dark as to what she meant and replied politely. "I'm fine. How are you?"
In Sunnydale, Dawn rolled her eyes and treated Xander to an enthusiastic mime of someone with a large stake up their butt and an Angel glower but much nearer the ground. Xander thought for a second and then nodded. "Angel's kid?" He slapped Dawn's raised hand triumphantly. "Score one for the Xan-man."
Connor frowned as he heard the other voice and muttered nervously into the phone. "Is this a bad time?"
Dawn shook her head and then rolled her eyes in exasperation when she remembered she was on the phone and couldn't actually see her. "Nope, just having breakfast before heading out to school. What's the what?"
Connor frowned again and wished, not for the first time, that he'd paid more attention to Cordelia when she'd tried to educate him in the ways of a twenty-first century teenager. Patently he still had a lot to learn. "I er.I.can I speak to the Slayer?"
"Sorry, slick. She of the stakes and bad attitude has left for another fun- filled day of demon tracking and full on slayage." Dawn boosted herself up onto the counter and eyed her boots thoughtfully as she wondered how much whining it would take to get Buffy to spring for a new pair. "Can I help?"
Connor sagged dispiritedly. "Oh." He wound the phone wire around his finger tightly. "No. I just wondered whether she had any, um." Belatedly he remembered he wasn't meant to discuss the current situation over the phones just in case Wolfram and Hart were listening in. "Um.sugar. I can't er.find ours."
Dawn blinked in confusion for a moment and then the sad, lost tone in Connor's voice registered and she realised what he had stopped himself from saying. "Oh, right. We're fresh out of sugary goodness here too." Her voice lowered sympathetically. "We're definitely looking into getting some soon though."
"Oh. Ok." Connor worried his lower lip and sighed. "Well, sorry for bothering you."
"Wait!" Thoroughly surprising herself, Dawn felt a tug at her heart strings at the mournful sigh echoing down the phone and spoke hurriedly. "I don't have to leave for school just yet, you wanna talk for a while?"
Connor took the phone away from his ear, looked at it suspiciously and then said cautiously. "What about?"
Ignoring Xander making frantic hang up motions, Dawn shrugged. "Whatever. I figure as the up and coming demon killing talent we should get to know each other. What do you like to do?"
Connor relaxed slightly, that was easy. "Kill things."
Dawn's mouth fell open. "What?"
"Demons, I like to kill demons." Connor felt the slow burn of embarrassment creep up his neck and was profoundly grateful there was no around to witness his social failure.
"Oh." Desperately relieved and again ignoring Xander, now nodding his head sagely and mouthing 'I told you to hang up!', Dawn shrugged. "Ok. What else?" She waited expectantly as the silence on the other end of the line stretched from seconds to minutes and sighed in resignation. "Demons, huh? Gotta love a dedicated professional."
*************************************
Fred bit her lip and danced from foot to foot as she watched Willow sit in the middle of a circle of lit candles and prepare herself for her spell. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Willow?" She looked at Lindsey sponging Cordelia's burning face by the bed and shooting intermittent anxious glances of his own at the redhead as she double-checked she had everything she needed for her spell. "Y'know I don't really mean to tell y'all your business but you did say that you shouldn't really be doin' the magic."
Willow rolled her shoulders and prepared to centre herself. "We've moved a long way past 'shouldn't' and entered the realm of 'have to' a few miles back, Tex." She rested her upturned palms on her knees and closed her eyes, only to pop one open and grin reassuringly. "It'll be fine. Just cast the concealment charm and stand ready with the bat in case I go all Darth Willow again." The eye closed and Willow took several deep steadying breaths as she forced her body and racing heart to calm and prepare for the first touch of magic since the horrible days of Tara's death. Despite her bravado in front of Lindsey and Fred, Willow was prepared to admit in the privacy of her own head that she was scared spitless by what she was about to do, but with memories resurfacing of Angel after Faith had shot him before the Mayor's ascension she also had a sneaky suspicion that Cordelia was running out of time. The soft whispering of Fred's concealment spell died away and Willow could feel the charm settle around her like a protective blanket as she began the words of her own spell, her hands reaching for her trusty 'stinky herbs' and ritual knife like it had been only yesterday instead of months and another lifetime since she had felt the magic rush through her.
Lindsey reached for Fred as soon as she stopped chanting and pulled her protectively to his side. "Look after, Cordy." He gave the slender Texan a comforting squeeze on her arm and then moved to take up his place behind Willow, baseball bat cocked ready over his shoulder to take Willow out at the first sign of spanking new dark highlights and/or creepy black vein 'thingies' as she so eloquently put it.
The temperature in the room dropped sharply as Willow's muttering increased in intensity and Fred hurriedly took off her jacket and draped it over the already well-covered Cordelia as the Seer began to shiver uncontrollably. Fred yelped as Lindsey acted on nervous reflex and tensed to swing at Willow and waved her hands. "No, not yet!"
Lindsey shivered in the arctic air of the room and nodded at Willow's head where black strands of hair were becoming clearly visible through the vibrant red. "Fred, I have to! She said it would be bad."
"Not yet!" Fred looked at Willow's calm face and laid a protective hand on Cordelia's head on the pillow. "She's holdin' it! Just another minute, this is Cordy's only chance!"
Lindsey bit his lip indecisively and then yelped as Cordelia's body suddenly began to glow white. Fred stumbled back and he moved to catch her and then they both had to turned their faces away as the white changed to a vicious red colour and threatened to blind them. The chill and light faded abruptly and Lindsey raised his head to look back at Cordelia, now resting peacefully, and then at Willow still sitting on the floor holding a writhing ball of poisonous red light. The Wiccan smiled wearily up at her friends and both Fred and Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her eyes were her normal shade of moss green. "You guys wanna get me a bottle or somethin'? This little fella's not exactly chipper to get dragged out of Cordy."
Fred scrambled for a suitable container whilst Lindsey bent to Cordelia on the bed and laid a hand over her forehead. His shoulders sagged in relief as he realised that the skin beneath his hand was cool and dry, the fever having disappeared. Just to make sure he tugged down the blankets and coats heaped on Cordelia and stared at the thin, red mark where her open wound had been. His eyes closed in silent thanks and he turned his head as Willow staggered up, holding onto Fred for support, and beamed at him. "I kick some serious black magic booty." She tumbled onto the bed when her knees gave out and nodded in satisfaction at Cordy's peaceful face. "She'll be ok now."
Fred accepted Lindsey's joyful hug gratefully and grinned. "So what now? We get the hell out of Dodge?"
Willow's face fell. "Well, one of us does." She smiled uneasily at Lindsey's suspicious face. "You aren't gonna like this."
********************************
It turned out Willow was absolutely spot on, Lindsey didn't like it and it took the combined efforts of Fred and Willow and then ten minutes weepy begging from the brunette before he'd even left the motel room they were hiding in. He jumped from the cab of his truck and snatched his trusty tranq gun from behind the seat and then turned to glower at the little wooden cabin standing innocently in the dappled sunlight of the clearing. "Goddamn it!" The truck door slammed shut with a satisfying bang as Lindsey kicked it with all his might and he stomped towards the cabin with a face like a smacked ass. "Goddamn, stupid, reckless, fuckin' idiotic women." The door to the cabin flew open as Lindsey kicked it in and he stormed inside, slamming it shut behind him to glare at the floor where he'd left Angel and the others. Who were no longer there. "Oh SHIT." Lindsey spun back to the door but had only taken a step when a snarling, rage filled Angel blindsided him and they both went crashing to the floor. "Angel, listen to me!" Lindsey struggled frantically beneath the enraged vampire and fought with all his might to pry the large hands off his throat. "Listen to.me!"
"I'm going to kill you!" Angel's furious howl shook the cabin walls as he tightened his grip. "I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to feed you to Spike!"
"You.stupid.bastard." Lindsey gasped for breath and pummelled Angel's shoulder. "I'm.tryin' to.save you."
Angel's eyes flashed gold as he snarled. "From what, bruising my fists on your face?"
"No. From us." Angel and Lindsey froze on the floor and both heads turned slowly to see three huge, blue skinned demons standing smirking in the cabin doorway.
Lindsey swatted the side of Angel's head. "See? I told you!" He prised Angel's fingers from his windpipe and sucked in a grateful breath of air. "They're trying to kill Cordy and the others. Go get 'em, ass-face." He lifted his head as the pressure on his torso eased and Angel hurled himself at the demons with a roar. "Vampires. Always thinkin' with their teeth and dicks." He rolled as a startled blue head landed beside him sans body and screwed up his face in distaste. "Ugh. I hate that guy."
End Part 13.
Author: Karen
Rating: R Disclaimer: Not mine, not a one. Pairings: A/C, Gu/F, W/S Synopsis: Cordy, Willow and Fred are on the run after being blackmailed by Wolfram and Hart into working for them. Angel, Gunn and Spike are on their tails and less than pleased.
A/N: I know, I know, a horribly long time since I updated. AGAIN. Apologies to all if anyone is still following this fic, all I can say is blame Freakazoid High. All previous parts can be found at the link below.
Dedications: Mel, my pal and no doubt snorting in amazement that this has showed up again. Dawn Wood and Ina, 'cos they'll both be stunned as well and anyone else who's interested in the continuing adventures of this incredibly slow moving fic.
Part 13.
Fred turned the key in the door, shoved it open and then stepped hastily to the side as Lindsey pushed past her and staggered to one of two beds in the room to lay Cordy down. He straightened up breathing heavily and swept his hair back from his forehead with a careless sweep of his forearm. "We need to get her a doctor."
Fred looked up from where she was helping Willow sit in a sagging easy chair, "Y'all know we can't risk that." She flicked concerned eyes over Cordelia and said unconvincingly. "She'll be ok."
Cordelia whimpered on the bed and shifted uncomfortably, plainly unaware of her surroundings. Lindsey dragged the cover off the other bed and placed it over her gently and then turned and looked at Willow. "You really need to see a doctor as well."
"No." Willow shook her head emphatically and then clutched at it as pain exploded behind her eyes and little lights and stars went off. "Ow, dammit. Oh goddess, no doctors." She took several deep gulps of air and blinked to clear her vision. "I've had a lot worse than this. I'll be fine."
Fred twisted her hands together nervously. "You've already suffered a major head trauma once, Willow. We don't know what damage might have been caused."
Willow gave the other girl a twisted smile. "That was years ago and I've been knocked on the head since then. I just need to get rid of the headache and then I'm good to go." She scowled as a thought occurred to her." And Angel and Spike were the cause then, too. Jerks."
Lindsey stared down at Cordelia again. "No argument here." He clenched his fists in impotent rage. "I don't get it. What the hell is happening to her?"
Willow tried to stand up and gave Fred a grateful smile as the brunette leapt forward and slipped a supporting arm around her waist. They made slow progress over to the bed and joined Lindsey in staring down at the insensible seer. Willow slowly lowered herself to the bed and reached out to touch Cordelia's burning forehead. "Spike was right, it's definitely some kind of poison." She leaned forward, whimpering as her head swam protestingly, and peered at the angry cut on Cordelia's collarbone weeping pus and blood. "And I think this is definitely the source." She frowned for a moment in thought and then looked up at Fred. "She's had this for a few months now, but she'd never been sick like this before."
Fred nodded hesitantly, unsure where the redhead was going. "Yeah."
Willow's eyes unfocused as she fought to get her pounding brain to work. "It's never really healed, but it's never been much of a problem." She began to nibble on her thumb. "There's no way she could have hidden it from us if it had affected her like this."
Fred shrugged uneasily. "I don't know, she hid her illness before when she was dying."
Willow eyed Cordelia speculatively. "No, the way we've been living for the past few months, there's no way she could have managed to keep something like this hidden." Her face creased as she reached for the answer floating tantalisingly just out of reach. "No, she couldn't have done." Every nerve in her body throbbed as she chased the answer. "Something happened to trigger this. What is it? What happened to her?"
Fred's chewed her lip as she thought. "She had a big fight with Angel."
Lindsey snarled. "Did he hurt her?" His face flushed with fury. "If he hurt her."
Fred shook her head. "No, he didn't hurt her. She woke up and they started arguing, then she got angry when she saw Willow and then she hurt Angel and he pushed her down." She looked down at Willow when the other girl jumped. "What? What is it?"
Willow pointed an excited finger at Fred. "When she woke up. You said when she woke up." Fred nodded warily. "And they shot her with a tranq gun when they found us." Lindsey exchanged confused glances with Fred as Willow thumped the bed excitedly. "That's it! That's what triggered this. Whatever they used has had some kind of reaction with the stuff that's in her system."
"Willow, you don't know that." Fred stared apologetically at her friend. "Without a lab and a lot of tests we can't be sure of anything."
Willow jumped to her feet, her headache and nausea forgotten in the excitement of her theory. "No, listen to me." She began to pace in the small space. "The poison's been in her system for months and we made the mistake of just thinking that she was being slow to heal, right?" She paused to wait for her companions confirming nods and then continued as her eyes brightened and her face flushed with triumphant colour. "But we forgot that Cordy isn't like us." She rolled her eyes at their blank looks. "She's not human! Or at least she's only human based. We don't know what her physiology is like now she's a higher being or demon or whatever, and the poison may not have had the chance to work the way it normally would in her system." She twisted a lock of hair thoughtfully as she stared into space. "I'm willing to bet that if you or me had been cut with whatever it was then we'd have been taken out of the game pretty quickly, but Cordelia's system is a lot more resistant than ours if she's a demon." Willow bit her lip as she thought and then nodded decisively. "Right, game over. Everything's changed and we're making our own rules now."
Lindsey jumped as she jabbed a finger at him. "I need the bag of mystical who-ja-ma-whatsits from the truck, stat." Willow turned to Fred. "You need to cast a concealment spell, just something basic but I need it with enough kick to disguise what I'm about to do."
"Um." Fred exchanged wary looks with Lindsey. "What are you going to do?"
Willow shook off the last of her head pain and straightened her shoulders. "I'm letting me out to play."
****************************
Connor read the numbers off the pad beside the phone and very carefully punched them into the keypad. He listened carefully as the phone began to ring and then jumped as the phone was picked up at the other end, "Hello?"
Dawn Summers stuck her tongue out as Xander stole the piece of toast in her hand and spoke cheerily into the phone, "Hellmouth House of Horrors, how can I help you?"
"Oh.sorry.I was looking for the Summers residence." Connor went to put the phone down and stopped as he heard an unapologetic giggle sound down the receiver.
"You found us, this is Dawn. Who's speaking please?" Dawn judged her moment and then faked Xander out to snaffle the last chocolate croissant on his plate.
"Um.this is Connor." Connor cleared his throat uneasily and said in a slightly firmer tone of voice. "Connor Angel."
Dawn danced the dance of someone who is victorious in the art of pastry stealing and spoke warmly into the phone. "Oh hey, how ya doin'? What's shakin' in the land of the tan and fake boobs?"
Connor, thoroughly bewildered, took a stab in the dark as to what she meant and replied politely. "I'm fine. How are you?"
In Sunnydale, Dawn rolled her eyes and treated Xander to an enthusiastic mime of someone with a large stake up their butt and an Angel glower but much nearer the ground. Xander thought for a second and then nodded. "Angel's kid?" He slapped Dawn's raised hand triumphantly. "Score one for the Xan-man."
Connor frowned as he heard the other voice and muttered nervously into the phone. "Is this a bad time?"
Dawn shook her head and then rolled her eyes in exasperation when she remembered she was on the phone and couldn't actually see her. "Nope, just having breakfast before heading out to school. What's the what?"
Connor frowned again and wished, not for the first time, that he'd paid more attention to Cordelia when she'd tried to educate him in the ways of a twenty-first century teenager. Patently he still had a lot to learn. "I er.I.can I speak to the Slayer?"
"Sorry, slick. She of the stakes and bad attitude has left for another fun- filled day of demon tracking and full on slayage." Dawn boosted herself up onto the counter and eyed her boots thoughtfully as she wondered how much whining it would take to get Buffy to spring for a new pair. "Can I help?"
Connor sagged dispiritedly. "Oh." He wound the phone wire around his finger tightly. "No. I just wondered whether she had any, um." Belatedly he remembered he wasn't meant to discuss the current situation over the phones just in case Wolfram and Hart were listening in. "Um.sugar. I can't er.find ours."
Dawn blinked in confusion for a moment and then the sad, lost tone in Connor's voice registered and she realised what he had stopped himself from saying. "Oh, right. We're fresh out of sugary goodness here too." Her voice lowered sympathetically. "We're definitely looking into getting some soon though."
"Oh. Ok." Connor worried his lower lip and sighed. "Well, sorry for bothering you."
"Wait!" Thoroughly surprising herself, Dawn felt a tug at her heart strings at the mournful sigh echoing down the phone and spoke hurriedly. "I don't have to leave for school just yet, you wanna talk for a while?"
Connor took the phone away from his ear, looked at it suspiciously and then said cautiously. "What about?"
Ignoring Xander making frantic hang up motions, Dawn shrugged. "Whatever. I figure as the up and coming demon killing talent we should get to know each other. What do you like to do?"
Connor relaxed slightly, that was easy. "Kill things."
Dawn's mouth fell open. "What?"
"Demons, I like to kill demons." Connor felt the slow burn of embarrassment creep up his neck and was profoundly grateful there was no around to witness his social failure.
"Oh." Desperately relieved and again ignoring Xander, now nodding his head sagely and mouthing 'I told you to hang up!', Dawn shrugged. "Ok. What else?" She waited expectantly as the silence on the other end of the line stretched from seconds to minutes and sighed in resignation. "Demons, huh? Gotta love a dedicated professional."
*************************************
Fred bit her lip and danced from foot to foot as she watched Willow sit in the middle of a circle of lit candles and prepare herself for her spell. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Willow?" She looked at Lindsey sponging Cordelia's burning face by the bed and shooting intermittent anxious glances of his own at the redhead as she double-checked she had everything she needed for her spell. "Y'know I don't really mean to tell y'all your business but you did say that you shouldn't really be doin' the magic."
Willow rolled her shoulders and prepared to centre herself. "We've moved a long way past 'shouldn't' and entered the realm of 'have to' a few miles back, Tex." She rested her upturned palms on her knees and closed her eyes, only to pop one open and grin reassuringly. "It'll be fine. Just cast the concealment charm and stand ready with the bat in case I go all Darth Willow again." The eye closed and Willow took several deep steadying breaths as she forced her body and racing heart to calm and prepare for the first touch of magic since the horrible days of Tara's death. Despite her bravado in front of Lindsey and Fred, Willow was prepared to admit in the privacy of her own head that she was scared spitless by what she was about to do, but with memories resurfacing of Angel after Faith had shot him before the Mayor's ascension she also had a sneaky suspicion that Cordelia was running out of time. The soft whispering of Fred's concealment spell died away and Willow could feel the charm settle around her like a protective blanket as she began the words of her own spell, her hands reaching for her trusty 'stinky herbs' and ritual knife like it had been only yesterday instead of months and another lifetime since she had felt the magic rush through her.
Lindsey reached for Fred as soon as she stopped chanting and pulled her protectively to his side. "Look after, Cordy." He gave the slender Texan a comforting squeeze on her arm and then moved to take up his place behind Willow, baseball bat cocked ready over his shoulder to take Willow out at the first sign of spanking new dark highlights and/or creepy black vein 'thingies' as she so eloquently put it.
The temperature in the room dropped sharply as Willow's muttering increased in intensity and Fred hurriedly took off her jacket and draped it over the already well-covered Cordelia as the Seer began to shiver uncontrollably. Fred yelped as Lindsey acted on nervous reflex and tensed to swing at Willow and waved her hands. "No, not yet!"
Lindsey shivered in the arctic air of the room and nodded at Willow's head where black strands of hair were becoming clearly visible through the vibrant red. "Fred, I have to! She said it would be bad."
"Not yet!" Fred looked at Willow's calm face and laid a protective hand on Cordelia's head on the pillow. "She's holdin' it! Just another minute, this is Cordy's only chance!"
Lindsey bit his lip indecisively and then yelped as Cordelia's body suddenly began to glow white. Fred stumbled back and he moved to catch her and then they both had to turned their faces away as the white changed to a vicious red colour and threatened to blind them. The chill and light faded abruptly and Lindsey raised his head to look back at Cordelia, now resting peacefully, and then at Willow still sitting on the floor holding a writhing ball of poisonous red light. The Wiccan smiled wearily up at her friends and both Fred and Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her eyes were her normal shade of moss green. "You guys wanna get me a bottle or somethin'? This little fella's not exactly chipper to get dragged out of Cordy."
Fred scrambled for a suitable container whilst Lindsey bent to Cordelia on the bed and laid a hand over her forehead. His shoulders sagged in relief as he realised that the skin beneath his hand was cool and dry, the fever having disappeared. Just to make sure he tugged down the blankets and coats heaped on Cordelia and stared at the thin, red mark where her open wound had been. His eyes closed in silent thanks and he turned his head as Willow staggered up, holding onto Fred for support, and beamed at him. "I kick some serious black magic booty." She tumbled onto the bed when her knees gave out and nodded in satisfaction at Cordy's peaceful face. "She'll be ok now."
Fred accepted Lindsey's joyful hug gratefully and grinned. "So what now? We get the hell out of Dodge?"
Willow's face fell. "Well, one of us does." She smiled uneasily at Lindsey's suspicious face. "You aren't gonna like this."
********************************
It turned out Willow was absolutely spot on, Lindsey didn't like it and it took the combined efforts of Fred and Willow and then ten minutes weepy begging from the brunette before he'd even left the motel room they were hiding in. He jumped from the cab of his truck and snatched his trusty tranq gun from behind the seat and then turned to glower at the little wooden cabin standing innocently in the dappled sunlight of the clearing. "Goddamn it!" The truck door slammed shut with a satisfying bang as Lindsey kicked it with all his might and he stomped towards the cabin with a face like a smacked ass. "Goddamn, stupid, reckless, fuckin' idiotic women." The door to the cabin flew open as Lindsey kicked it in and he stormed inside, slamming it shut behind him to glare at the floor where he'd left Angel and the others. Who were no longer there. "Oh SHIT." Lindsey spun back to the door but had only taken a step when a snarling, rage filled Angel blindsided him and they both went crashing to the floor. "Angel, listen to me!" Lindsey struggled frantically beneath the enraged vampire and fought with all his might to pry the large hands off his throat. "Listen to.me!"
"I'm going to kill you!" Angel's furious howl shook the cabin walls as he tightened his grip. "I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to feed you to Spike!"
"You.stupid.bastard." Lindsey gasped for breath and pummelled Angel's shoulder. "I'm.tryin' to.save you."
Angel's eyes flashed gold as he snarled. "From what, bruising my fists on your face?"
"No. From us." Angel and Lindsey froze on the floor and both heads turned slowly to see three huge, blue skinned demons standing smirking in the cabin doorway.
Lindsey swatted the side of Angel's head. "See? I told you!" He prised Angel's fingers from his windpipe and sucked in a grateful breath of air. "They're trying to kill Cordy and the others. Go get 'em, ass-face." He lifted his head as the pressure on his torso eased and Angel hurled himself at the demons with a roar. "Vampires. Always thinkin' with their teeth and dicks." He rolled as a startled blue head landed beside him sans body and screwed up his face in distaste. "Ugh. I hate that guy."
End Part 13.