THREE STRIKES
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the new ones that I create.
CHAPTER 5-THINGS DON'T LOOK SO GOOD
Tires screeching, engine roaring, and a dark flash, that was all anyone saw and heard as Gunn raced back towards the Hyperion. Every chance he got he would quickly look back at Wesley and Faith, hoping against hope that something had changed and he'd see them back to normal, as healthy as they had been just hours earlier. But every time he did look back he was met by the same image, that of two people that he considered friends slowly dying. Shortly after he had buckled her in Faith had finally passed out and stopped mumbling. Gunn didn't know whether to take that as a good sign, that she was just nodding off to let her body try and heal itself, or a bad thing, that she had finally just given up. He barely let off the accelerator as he raced around corners and passed people that had to jump back to avoid being run over. The buildings that he passed quickly became nothing more than a blur, for time was of the essence. He hadn't paid much thought to the how or where the zombies had come from, his only concern being that they were gone for the time being and that the effect of their attack could be done away with as fast as possible.
Fred hadn't taken long to find Wesley's SUV and as she got behind the wheel she tried to take it cool and easy and just start the engine and start off back towards the hotel. But seconds after getting in she discovered that she had forgotten to get the keys from Wesley's pocket. For a short time she couldn't take it any more, after all that had happened that night and early in the morning she broke down and shed tears that she had been unable to earlier. As she fought back the tears she began to slowly feel around, first under the seat and then in between the seats, hoping that Wesley had a hidden key somewhere. It took a few seconds but she finally located an extra key that Wesley had hidden well in the center console. She quickly put her seatbelt on; put the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life. Seconds later she was racing off back towards the Hyperion as well, hoping that she would reach the hotel before either all hell broke loose or a client walked into the lobby wanting help. The last thing that she or any of the others needed right now was someone requesting help. Because in fact they were the ones, above all others, that needed the help at that moment.
* * * * * * * *
He dug through the bodies, fighting off the overwhelming stench and his sluggish and aching muscles at the same time. He winced in disgust as he used the tip of his sword to push the small intestines of one of the zombies out of the way because he thought that he had seen something shiny underneath it. When he found nothing underneath it he sighed deeply in contempt before moving on. He sifted through the remains for what seemed like an hour or two before he found what he was looking for, even if he didn't fully understand exactly what it was that he had found. After rolling over a rather small body he saw it, a round disc shaped object about the size of the amulet that Angel had seen in Raiders of The Lost Ark. The amulet was highlighted by a small red jewel in the center that was surrounded by what looked like a light background of skulls with ancient writing in concentric bands that circled from the center jewel all the way to the outside edges. Despite his years of research and knowledge of ancient languages Angel was clueless as to what the marks on the amulet meant. A not so small shudder ran through his body as he realized that he knew someone that would mostly likely be able to decipher what the marks meant. Wesley, the man of whom Angel had lately entrusted many of his fears, was the only one that could figure out exactly what this amulet was used for. As Angel stood up he felt a warm feeling rush through his body. At first he didn't know what to make of it, thinking that he was so tired that he had simply dreamt the occurrence. But then the wave of warmth flooded through him again and he was startled to see the bodies of some of the more intact zombies begin to glow slightly and then move.
"What the hell…," Angel muttered almost as an unholy oath before more and more of the zombies began to twitch and flop around. He was about to edge closer to one of them to investigate when he heard sounds reminiscent to the ones that he had heard before the zombies' first attack. The low moaning sound was coming from somewhere off to his right, and from the echo that it was receiving Angel determined that it was more zombies and that they were headed his way. "Better not stick around to long...," Angel said under his breath as he tried to rub the fatigue out of his neck before he dropped the amulet into one of his pockets and cleaned his sword on another body. With a final look back over his shoulder Angel waded through the remaining bodies and then sprinted off as fast as he could back through the sewers towards the Hyperion, dodging the small shafts of light that filtered in through the grates above.
* * * * * * * * *
He could see the hesitation in her eyes, the amount of trepidation in her step. He suddenly became quite convinced that she hadn't made it out of the building after he had instructed her of what to do. But from her actions he was also able to gather that apparently she was also the only one that knew of what he had told her, and for that his heart quickened a few beats. He still didn't know her name or anything else about her but for some reason he felt that she had passed at least a small test and therefore deserved some trust. The first time that he had seen her he really hadn't noticed much about her other than her soft voice and the smoothness of her skin as she checked the various healing progress of the bruises that he had received during his capture. But now that he got a closer look at her his infatuation only grew. Lindsey McDonald had seen and been with beautiful women many times before. Working at Wolfram and Hart he had been rewarded, like many other advancement minded employees, with special awards and presents. He had even heard rumors of some of the senior partners owning their own harems. But most of the time he had dismissed those rumors as the musings of some of the very lonely night watchmen that had slowly filtered their way up the ladder. Lilah had always scoffed at the rumors with her usual cocky flair.
He had heard rumors from some of the women, and a few of the men which mostly came when he could only listen to their voices as his eyelids had grown too heavy to open them. They told of Lilah's death after her failed attack on Angel and his friends at the hotel. That and the man that she had been seducing and had secretly fallen in love with, Wesley Wyndam Pryce, had spurned her and instead ended up with the rogue slayer Faith. He didn't know whether or not to believe the rumors but something about them told him that they were at least partially true. While it was true that he and Lilah had never gotten along very well, in anything but their onetime hatred for Angel, he still felt a twinge of sadness as he started to believe the rumors. He felt little to no anger towards those who had brought about her downfall, for he knew very well that when Wolfram and Hart wanted to get rid of someone they used any excuse that they wanted. Even if on later review the excuse seemed totally ludicrous.
He still had yet to determine what her name was. He had come close to learning it many times before, mostly when she did not come in alone and the other woman would become angry with her work. He didn't have the strength to ask for her name outright, as the last time that he had saved up enough strength to even speak it had been so that he could tell her the message that he wanted her to get to Angel. Even though she had probably been repeatedly told and even threatened not to talk to him she had done so. He was thankful for that and thankful that so far he hadn't been able to see that anyone had done anything to her. The last thing that he saw before he passed back into unconsciousness was her kind smile and the worry in her eyes. What he didn't know happened was that after he passed out she leaned in close and whispered softly into his ear, "I won't fail you Lindsey…I swear it," before leaning back up slightly and quietly kissing him on the cheek.
* * * * * * * * *
They had waited for hours for anyone to come, with Oz trying to explain a great many things to Groo and a bored Kate trying to piece together in her mind exactly how she had come to be in this place. She remembered that she had gone out with some friends after they had begged her to go with them for days. Most of the night had gone by easily enough, but as the hours grew late she noticed that suddenly she was sitting alone at the table. She had gone outside of the club to try and find her friends but then had been struck in the back of the head and everything had instantly gone black. She had woken up many hours later with a splitting migraine and strapped to a bed with almost no clothes on. After that she had no memories until she woke up with Oz and Groo staring at her with worried looks on their faces.
Oz had few memories, only that the last thing he remembered before winding up where he was now was that he had sat in with another band for a few sets. The club had been a rather small one and the lights had all been dimmed so it was also a very dark club. Through the haze of cigarette smoke Oz had noticed the several large men that he had seen following him over the past few days. He had tried to use the darkness of the club and how tightly people were packed into it to try and avoid his pursuers before he could think of what to do. His first instinct was to simply hop back in his van and go on the run until he could figure out why the men were after him. His second instinct was to hop in his van and race back towards Sunnydale, hoping that Willow and Buffy and everyone else could help him. He only got to the van's door before he was shot with a tranquilizer dart and then a burlap bag was jammed over his head and the lights spun like a kaleidoscope before going dark. The next thing he knew he was being forced by an electric shock to change back and forth between his werewolf form and his human form, much like what the Initiative had done to him. But this time there had been no rescue and he knew that no one was going to even think of looking for him.
Groo had finally found what he considered to be a home in one of the boroughs in New York City. He had gone there mostly as a vagabond, riding the rails and whatever buses that he could when he had managed to save up enough money from the various odd jobs that he had performed after leaving Los Angeles. All the way he had tried to put his princess out of his mind, doing anything and everything that he could think of, from some special soups and drinks from Pylea and a fair amount of women that he had rescued from one drunken bar patron after another. But nothing had worked and soon he felt disgusted with himself, as if he had sullied his name and title. Because of that he had stopped fighting altogether and tried to find another way to live. That quest had only lasted a few short weeks when he had come across a group of heavily armed men that were terrorizing the local homeless population. He had become incensed when he discovered that they did it just for kicks, because they said that the homeless couldn't fight back and no one would care if there were a few less homeless people on the streets of New York City. After he heard that he had become a protector of the homeless, guarding them against anything that sought to do them harm, human or otherwise. He hadn't noticed the patch on the men's uniforms, but later he would wish that he had. For the patch had the initials of W and H, which he would later discover to mean Wolfram and Hart. But by that time they had sent a mini army after him and used cattle prods to shock him into submission. The next thing that he knew he had woken up on the table next to Oz and Kate.
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Cordelia Chase had long ago formed a habit of doing things that she knew she shouldn't be doing. From making friends with those that she considered dweebs and geeks to joining forces with a soul having vampire and his friends to fight evil. While in the end both actions had turned out mostly for the best she couldn't say that if she had to do it all over again without knowing the outcome that she'd do it the same way. Struggling to gingerly climb down the stairs, each step a new level of pain and discomfort, all because of a vision that she knew not how it had ended. She had tried to call first Wesley and then Fred on their cell phones, but after not getting a response had decided to see what was going on herself. She had gotten down to the lobby only to discover that the hotel was deserted. She made a quick quip about her horrible timing before the front doors of the Hyperion burst open as a very weary Gunn stormed in dragging a horrible looking Wesley with him.
Cordelia had to fight back the urge to both faint and vomit at the site of her old friend. He looked like death warmed over as his eyes were closed and his mouth was open, a sickly color of drool slipping out. His skin had begun to turn a light blue and he had begun to perspire very heavily. He looked as if he had contracted some horrible fever. Cordelia had to use the counter to keep herself standing up before she started to ask a question but Gunn laid Wesley down on the round couch before turning around and running back out of the lobby. She was about to crack a joke when Gunn reentered the lobby carrying someone that looked like Faith. It took her several seconds for her brain to process what she was seeing, Faith, the slayer that had killed humans and demons alike, the slayer that for a long time she saw as nigh invulnerable and emotionless other than anger, looked like she was dying.
"Oh God…what happened," Cordelia asked fearfully as she put a hand over her mouth and held onto the counter with the other hand.
"Zombies got them…bad…," Gunn started to say with a worried beyond belief look on his face as he set Faith down on the couch beside Wesley before he looked up and really noticed that Cordelia was standing beside him. "Cordelia…what the hell are you doing, you're not supposed to…," Gunn continued with a slightly overwhelmed scowl on his face before Cordelia interrupted him.
"I'm fine Gunn…really…I was right…my vision was right…," Cordelia mumbled fearfully as she winced in pain and then staggered over to the couch and sat down next to Wesley just as a panic stricken Fred rushed through the front doors.
"Are they…how are they…," Fred exclaimed as she scrambled down the front steps and ran across the lobby to come to a stop beside Gunn.
"Not good…if Lorne doesn't get back here with that antidote soon I'm thinking that these two don't have till sundown before…," Gunn said with a very grim scowl on his face as he leaned down to carefully inspect the bite on Faith's neck and shoulder.
"They become zombies and we lose them forever…," Fred exclaimed with a great amount of sadness and fear in her voice as she walked over and took Wesley's pulse.
"We can't let that happen," Cordelia interjected forcefully with a very determined look on her face, a look that when she got it everyone knew that she meant what she had said.
"No argument here," Gunn said with a slight nod of his head as he took a deep breath before he leaned back down and picked Faith back up.
"Where are you taking her," Cordelia asked with a worried and still shocked look on her face as she tried to rise but a shooting pain in her back caused her to stay seated.
"Somewhere quieter…," Gunn said quickly as he quickly carried Faith towards the steps and then as best he could sprinted up the steps.
"Lorne told us to find a bed big enough for both of them, that we should keep them together because it'd help them get better faster…that is if we ever get the antidote," Fred started to say with a calm look on her face as she wiped a few stray strands of hair back behind her ear before her resolve started to visibly show cracks as she sat down beside Wesley.
"We will Fred…we have to…where's Angel…and Connor," Cordelia said with at first a reassuring smile on her face before her face darkened slowly as she looked around the lobby and noticed two people absent.
"Connor went with Lorne to get the antidote because Angel didn't think that Lorne would be able to get it alone…and Angel…well he said that he'd be back just as soon as he checked something out," Fred answered with a tired yawn as she leaned back up against the vertical part of the circular couch and closed her eyes.
"Check something out…like what," Cordelia asked with a concerned look on her face, with a hand on the small of her back, as she sat up and looked over at Fred just as Gunn started to come back down the stairs.
"Like this," Angel said solemnly with a pained frown on his face as he reached into his pocket and tossed the amulet that he had found onto the couch beside Cordelia.
"Angel," Cordelia said with a combination relieved and extremely worried look on her face as she faced the pain and stood up before rushing as best she could muster to Angel's side. Fred reached over and picked the amulet up, before studying it closely with her usual skeptic eye, while Gunn walked to Wesley's side and prepared to pick him up.
"I'm fine Cordy…really," Angel mumbled out slowly before he faltered a bit and had to grip the counter tightly to keep from falling over.
"Angel," Fred and Cordelia cried out in unison as Angel shook his head before passing out and slumping to the floor.
"He's burning up…," Cordelia exclaimed with a frantic look on her face as she knelt down beside Angel as best she could and place her hand on his forehead.
"The zombies poison must be getting to him to…," Gunn said with a shell-shocked look on his face as he grunted and strained to pick Wesley up and then start to walk back towards the stairs.
"We have to help him…," Cordelia mumbled sadly as she laid Angel's head in her lap and took one of his hands in hers.
"We will…but we can't help him any better than we can help Faith and Wesley until Lorne and Connor get back with the antidote," Fred said with a very worried look on her face as she looked up at Gunn, with tear rimmed eyes, from her position kneeling at Angel and Cordelia's side.
"I love this job," Gunn grumbled sarcastically as he shook his head and began to drag Wesley up the stairs.
END OF CHAPTER 5