Book Of Three: Homecoming Part 4b
By Phoenixgod2000
Beta: Greywizard. Once again thanks man!
Feedback- once again, people, throw me bone! If you read leave a review!
Disclaimer- forgot to add this to the last part. I own nothing, please
don't sure. I am but a poor teacher.
Cast of OC Villians
Dog Tag.Michael Ironside Alicia Killdare.Julia Stiles Jackson.Dolph Lungren Thomas Thorne.Peter Weller
More as they appear.
***
Giles slammed the book shut and let out a Ripper-ish growl. He should be out there with the others right now, testing out his new, strong body and sword. He loved books, but the slight reversion in his age had left him with a desire to go out and prove himself, as he had in his youth.
But he agreed with Xander. Reluctantly, he acknowledged, but the newly returned Immortal was correct. Someone needed to stay and research Spike's new little talisman. Buffy had made a sketch of the ring and he was trying to match it with some rubbings that had been made of some of the more famous vampire centric rings.
But, unfortunately, none of them matched.
Giles thought for a moment, rubbing his jaw.
" Of course," he muttered, as inspiration struck. " Robinson."
Reaching for the phone in the library, he quickly dialed an overseas number. " Robinson," he said, when the phone was answered. " This is Ripper. Do you still have access to the restricted section of the Council library?" The Watchers Council had gone under numerous changes in administration over its many thousands of years of history and the most recent had been a few years after the Valentino Wars. After each purge, there were many books that the new version of the council would restrict access to, so that most of the members wouldn't know the full history of the Council, including its occasional lapses and errors in judgment. After all, that might encourage some members to question the current policies of the inner council of the Watchers, and nothing good would come from that. Geoffrey Robinson was a librarian who had nearly full access to all of the volumes in the Councils repositories. He also happened to be an old drinking buddy of Ripper's.
Giles paused for a moment to hear the answer. " Good. I need you to do something for me. Go to the back of the section on vampire armies if you would. Yes, that's the one. On the upper left hand shelf, there should be a book bound in black leather with the three starbursts embossed on the cover. Can you fax me a few pages?" Giles then rattled off what he was looking for. " Thanks, old friend."
Giles thought for moment, before adding another request. " I also need everything you have on the Three, circa roman era." He rolled his eyes. " Just do it, Geoff. I'm protecting my Slayer."
***
Dog Tag watched the pack of snarling Turok Han and the five members of his vamped Special Forces team with an air of detached interest. He and his squad were hiding in an alley behind one of the main streets of Sunnydale. He wanted to reiterate the instructions one last time before letting loose the carnage.
" Remember, go for the kill. We don't have time to feed. We just want to up the juice for the big mojo." He smiled. " We'll be able to feed all we want later." He looked at a huge SEAL with poster boy blond good looks. " I'm looking at you, Jackson." Jackson was a Vietnam vet turned vampire with a penchant for taking souvenirs from the body of his victims.
" I just want the Slayer," he murmured in a soft New York accent. He fingered a necklace of dried parts that encircled his neck. " I don't have any Slayer bits."
" And you won't tonight either." Dog stared hard at his second. " Remember what Spike said. She's got some new healing tricks. No fightin' her. If she shows up, just shoot her and pray that slows her down."
The huge blond vampire growled. " That is cowardly. I want to feel her bones shatter in my hands and take her tongue as a trophy."
" If you have a problem with my orders, we can settle this right here." Dog held up his hands and with a cracking sound, his fingernails twisted into wickedly curved talons. " You can kill me and drink from the cup of master hood. That is, if your feeling really lucky." He stared hard at his subordinate. " You want that?"
Jackson stared at the shorter man, considering his chances. Finally he looked away. " You're still the boss...like always, Dog."
" Like I was sayin' before, once we get the field up and active, we can have some fun running her down." Dog Tag smiled viciously. " Maybe this healing thing of hers is a good thing. After all, if she can get back up after being drained, then she's like the holy fricken' grail."
He surveyed his troops. " You know what needs to be done. So MOVE!!!" He shouted the last word. The lesser vampires flew into action with the military precision they possessed even before they were turned.
Meanwhile, the Turok Han started forward at the sound of the master vampire's voice. With an unsteady gait that relied on moving on both two and four feet, they shuffled forward and their oversized jaws snapped at the air randomly.
Dog Tag smiled as he heard the sweet sounds of screams coming from street in front of the alley.
***
Graham blinked and took a second look. Dozens of vampires, all chanting in unison, were melting from the fog. He looked around and saw that the rest of his men were just as pole-axed, at both the sight and number of the HST's approaching. Even the witch seemed started by the numbers that had appeared. Cordelia, too, seemed shocked, even though she had been the one directing their deployment.
" Is this why you had us come here?" He whispered to her. " You knew these things were coming?"
" Yeah, sure I did," Cordy muttered back, sarcastically. " I said to myself, Hey, let's surprise the soldiers with an army of hypnotized vampires!" She rolled her eyes at the soldier. " Of course, I didn't know that these things were coming. I just knew that *something* was going to be here."
" Guys, whatever is affecting vampires is getting stronger." The group turned to look at Angel, as he spoke in a quiet, but urgent voice. He had shifted into game face and the moonlight reflected eerily off his yellow demon eyes.
" You have to fight it, Angel," Amy replied worriedly. " We have enough problems, without you going all serial killer-y."
" Trust me," Angel replied grimly. " I am fighting it. It's just.hard," he whispered.
Cordelia grabbed Angel's face roughly and stared at him. Her eyes flashed gray momentarily, and then she smiled. " Your soul is still holding."
Graham looked a little confused at the exchange. No one had told him anything about how Angel was different than other vampires. All Graham knew was that he had been told the dark haired demon was an ally. " Everyone have their blasters?" The Initiative had equipped everybody with the military issue blasters, even the civilians. On their lethal setting, they made a pretty effective tool for killing vampires. Plus, it was a much safer method than getting in close combat with them.
Cordy and Angel lifted theirs in acknowledgment, but Amy just shook her head. " I don't need a blaster," she stated firmly. She held up her bronze wand and her eyes began to glow, as though they were actually radiating heat. " I have much better tricks to use."
" Suit yourself." Graham shrugged his shoulders. As far as he was concerned, you were better off with whatever weapon you were most comfortable with. " Ready guys?"
The soldiers nodded, drew their weapons and prepared to fight for their lives.
***
Faith watched as the good little soldiers started looking around for clues. She snorted and took a deep drag from her cigarette. She watched the tip of her cigarette, as the brightly glowing cherry-red tip grew ever larger and ashed it. Dropping the cigarette, she ground it beneath her heel.
One of the officers approached her, and with her finely honed deific sense of male lust, she knew he was going to try and pick her up. Deciding that feeding on his lust wouldn't be worth the hassle of having to listen to his half-assed pick-up lines, she flipped him off, flashing her wedding ring hand, and showing the poor schmoe she was a taken woman.
Sometimes being a helluva fine piece of ass was a real trial.
Always had been. Probably always would be. Oh well, that was a divine burden she was prepared to live with.
As Faith walked toward an alley where she could do some goddess stuff without being seen, she thought about life and how wacky hers had turned out to be. Slayer, goddess, and part of a legendary triumvirate with the two people she loved and needed most in the world. Hell, when she was growing up, she figured she would have been knocked up as a teenager and a high school dropout. Maybe she would be dead, cause she used to hang with some hard people in Southie. Back then, she didn't think she would have had much of a life, and didn't really think she deserved much of one, either.
It had taken her a lot of time to get over her past because, hell, even gods could have issues. Time took care of the most overt scars; love from her family took care of the deeper ones.
But it was the Amazons who had helped her the most.
Oh, she knew why Xander hated the Amazons, and could even sympathize with most of the reasons. But they *needed* her. They were all alone in a hostile world with Greek city-states, and later the Romans, surrounding them on all sides. Artemis only dealt with her favorites among the tribes. A few other goddesses like Aphrodite and Athena poached a few of the others. But Faith took in all the unwanted ones, the abandoned ones. In helping them, she helped herself heal. The act of being needed, being trusted with the fragile faith of those women, helped to transform her into a responsible goddess and someone who was fully able to accept the love of her family.
Gods need worship to make them stronger. They fed on it, relied on it for their greatest powers, and often times became addicted to it. Faith wouldn't be honest with herself if she didn't admit she missed the feeling, the rush of essence gathered and flavored by the rituals of faith. But she had love and a family. The time of gods was truly over and she was okay with that.
Faith wrinkled her nose as she entered the alley. The sickly sweet scent of trash and stale soda and urine wafted together and assaulted her hyper keen predatory senses. Kicking an empty can down the length of the alley; she found a relatively clean piece of wall to lean up against. She was going to try and open her divine sense to get a sense of magical currents running over the Hellmouth. If something was affecting vampires on the Hellmouth, she should get something.
Closing her eyes, she centered, found the divine spark with her, and shunted some of its energies through her five senses and her mystical other senses.
Faith gasped and sagged against the alley wall. The assault against her senses continued, unabated. The red oiliness of the dimensional portal's power was the first and nearly overpowering sense that she experienced. Summoning her reserves she plunged into the current of corrupt energies, in an attempt to get at what lay underneath. Faith could taste a hint of otherness, of something beyond the overpowering stench of the Hellmouth.
Diving into the power of the mystical gateway, Faith sought out the underlying energy. She wallowed in it. Her eyes widened when she got her first taste of the blood magic that lay underneath. She remembered where she first tasted similar magics. It was in Spain, when the Three came to end the reign of Valentino's army. It was the taste of HIS power center.
Xander was going to be pissed.
There weren't many things that could crack the ancient immortal's iron resolve, but reminding him about one of his greatest failures as a soldier and a leader was one of them. If Spike had found a book of spells or a talisman that Valentino had been using, he would be exceptionally difficult to be stopped. He might be impulsive, but Spike was never stupid.
Once again, Faith gathered her divine power and prepared to send a mental message to Xander and Cordelia. They would need to know what was going on. She wiped her brow. She was cursedly tired. Even her passive powers, like opening up her senses, taxed her more than it should have. It took so damn long now to recover her strength, since she no longer had any worshipers. Now, with the healing she gave Joyce and Angel, and some of the power expenditure in weaving the wards around their new home as well as the home of their friends, she was starting to feel the strain. Shaping the thoughts carefully in her own mind, she readied herself to seek out the minds of the other two members of the Three, minds she knew as well as her own.
She was so involved; she nearly missed the snarling Turok-Han that jumped her.
***
The inside of the bar was dimly lit, and police tape covered the entrance to the bar. Riley and the others ducked beneath the tape, and looked around the bar. Bodies were everywhere, piled on each other haphazardly, like logs on a woodpile. Pools of gore and feces covered the floor. The full-length mirror that ran the length of the bar was shattered into small fragments. Cracked pool sticks lay in the hands of several of the dead.
Tara was immediately sick. The sensitive empath turned a grayish green and vomited in the corner. The sickly smell of blood, urine, feces, and alcohol combined together to form a uniquely horrifying scent that the young demon hunter had never encountered before, and she was unable to handle it.
Riley and the pair of soldiers with him had very much the same reaction. Riley pushed down his gag reflex through force of will and started to examine the crime scene.
" There's a lot of blood. Seems like too much for vampires," Riley observed dispassionately, as he started poking around, looking for clues. He consciously spoke in a flat tone of voice. He couldn't let these corpses be people. They didn't have jobs or families. They had no one who would miss them. As long as he had to examine this scene, he needed to force himself to think that way. He didn't have a choice. " These claw marks don't look like vampire claws. Vamp claws are way too stubby to make injuries like these. Tara, are you picking anything up?"
The witch paled, but bravely bit her lip and opened her self up to the empathic echoes from the murder scene. " So much pain," she whispered, as the echoes of the victims' emotions reverberated through her. " Riley, these peopled died in mortal terror. Whatever did this seemed unstoppable to them. They came in through the door, here and in the back. They started ripping into these people like they were nothing. They were so hungry, but." Tara blinked and bit her paled lips hard. ".S-s-something didn't want them to feed. The just wanted the blood, the terror." She looked up at Riley, and the soldier was surprised to see how hard her eyes had become. " My mother told me about magic like this. It's about as evil as it gets. It's called Blood Magic and my mother told me it's the oldest form of magic used by people. It works by sacrificing the life energy of living beings. A good Blood Mage uses their own blood, but bad ones use the life force of others."
" Can you see any pictures or anything?" Riley asked vaguely, not really sure what to ask the blond Wicca. He didn't really know how this gift of Tara's worked.
" N-n-no," she stuttered shamefully. " I just get feelings'n'stuff," she murmured. Then her eyes widened. " Faith! Outside! We need to help her!" The normally shy witch shook off her uncertainty and raced outside.
***
Three Turok Han came at Faith from three different directions. One scrabbled down the wall over her head, its claws leaving furrows in the bricks. Two others came from opposite ends of the alleyway and charged at her.
Reaching up, Faith grabbed the proto vampire looming over her head and ripped him off the wall in a feat of phenomenal strength. She then slammed the struggling creature into the wall on the other side of the alley.
With catlike reflexes, the creature pushed himself off the wall and slashed at the brunette with his claws. Faith expected the claws to skitter off her divinely hardened skin. After all, she had been shot, stabbed, burned, and in one painful episode, placed on the rack, and almost nothing had actually left an injury. So, Faith was quite surprised when she felt the claws shred through her tee shirt and leave bloody rakes across her stomach.
Even as one Turok Han clawed at Faith, the other two rushed towards her. One leapt on her back and latched onto her shoulder with steel-like fangs. As the final creature rushed towards her, Faith tapped into her godly powers and sent a golden blast of energy barreling into it.
As the creature turned to dust, Faith felt a trickle of blood run down her neck from the vampire on her back. Throwing herself against the wall with all her strength, she crushed the Turok Han's ribcage and heard the distinctive pop of a dusting vampire.
Focusing on the vampire in front of her, she threw a punch that propelled the vampire down the alley. Flashing forward, she leapt on the creature and devastated it with a rapid-fire series of blows. Finally, with divine power burning through her veins, she ripped through his steel hard ribcage and pulled out its dried heart.
" God Damn, that was hard," Faith muttered as she focused energy on her wounds. Tingling warmth spread through her body as her neck and abdomen wound sealed up. The goddess then leaned up against the alley wall and took a few deep breaths, while pondering the vampire like creatures who just attacked her. They stunk of blood magic to her godly senses. Their auras were much like vampires but not totally. It was that new aura that allowed the claws to break her divine shield. Something had mutated those demons into something new. That worried her because she hadn't seen anything like them before in her life.
And if she hadn't seen it in three thousand years, it was worth worrying about.
A sharp crack broke Faith from her reverie. She looked up and extended her mundane senses. There were at least a half dozen more of these creatures attacking the Sunnydale PD. And if she had a hard time with three of them, they would be impossible for the mortals to deal with. Even Tara and the soldiers would be hard pressed against the proto-vampires. Faith started down the alley, when a green hued wall suddenly sprung up in front of her.
The wall was crafted from translucent green energy. Ripples covered its surface, spreading like the ripples in a pond. Faith shifted her vision into the magical spectrum, in order to find the weak points of the wall. She could easily batter down the magical construct.
A cold voice called out from behind her. " I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
Faith slowly turned around. She saw Catherine Madison standing at the far end of the alley. " Why the hell not?"
Catherine smiled. " Because I'll be forced to kick your ass."
Faith smiled cockily and rolled her neck around, cracking it. " Bring it on, Bitch." She projected an aura of confidence she wasn't feeling. She was tired as all hell.
" Can't do too much damage," Catherine told the goddess. " After all, I need you for a spell." Fire licked around Catherine's fingers and heat seemed to radiate from her eyes.
She smiled brightly, " Well, at least, I don't need all of you," she purred.
***
The soldiers under Graham's command unleashed a hail of withering fire from their blasters. Dust choked the air as the first rank of vampires disappeared beneath blue bolts.
Amy aimed her wand and channeled her gift through the bronze talisman. Fire rushed from the tip and caught and dusted half dozen vampires in a fiery holocaust.
Cordelia's eyes turned to gray mist as she fired seemingly randomly into the crowd. Yet every shot found the heart of a target and dusted a vampire.
Once the first group died under a hail of fire, it seemed to snap the other vampires from their trance. En masse, they rushed the soldiers, moving with vampiric speed. The soldiers fired again but this time, the fire found far fewer targets.
The preternatural reflexes of the vampires easily evaded the blue lightning that spat from the guns. As the tide of vampires rushed forward, Graham gave the order to switch to baton-stakes.
Amy managed to get even more vampires with her wand, as fire rushed from the tip like a movie flamethrower.
As the number of vampires thinned, and the soldiers prepared to meet them hand to hand, Cordelia stood up from where she was hiding and called into being a curved sword that seemed to blend the qualities of sabers and scimitars. The words Fate Reaver along the edge flashed and she shed a single tear as she took a moment to contemplate her weapon. It was a terrible thing; to call up the blade of endings, for a person who was killed by it had their thread removed from the fabric of destiny, effectively destroying their soul or spirit for the rest of time. They would never get to the afterlife, to whatever reward or punishment awaited them, and they would never re-enter the cycle of reincarnation and seek another chance of life. They just cease to be. She murmured an old war prayer from the time of the Trojans and leapt to meet the vampires.
***
Forrest and Xander look at each other for one moment and then rushed together to the high brick wall separating the graveyard from the street. The whole team heard screams from people on the other side and the unmistakable crunch of cars hitting each other and wheels squealing on asphalt.
Forrest stared unbelieving, as with a short hop, Xander leapt to the top of the brick wall and easily balanced there. Slowly, Forrest climbed up beside Xander and looked out over the wall.
The scene beyond was one of utter chaos. Cars had slammed into each other as pale primitive looking vampires ripped doors off their hinges and savaged the drivers inside. Meanwhile, vampires in military fatigues strode along the sidewalk, ripping into customers from various coffee shops and boutiques that had been open late.
" Jesus," Forrest swore softly.
" Xander, what's going on?" Buffy called up.
" It looks like the vampires are rioting." The dark haired Immortal shouted down. Xander looked over at Forrest. " So what are we going to do, fearless leader?"
Forrest was stumped. They clearly needed to stop the vampires, but secrecy was supposed to be paramount for the Initiative. How could they save these people's lives, and stay hidden? As he was busy turning those conflicting thoughts over in his mind, he heard the shouts of people from even farther away and the wail of police sirens, as they started to answer calls they were wildly unprepared for.
Xander took pity on the inexperienced leader and sighed. " Forrest, we don't have time for games or fancy tactics. We need to just save those people. Take your men, Buffy and Willow and start taking back the city, street by street."
Forrest nodded numbly without looking at Xander. " What are you going to do?" When he didn't get an answer, he turned to look at Xander.
Xander was gone.
" Damn it," he muttered. Dropping down to the ground, he motioned for everybody to come over. " Listen, the blasters don't have a long effective range, so we're going to have to get in close."
" So not a problem," Buffy replied cheerfully.
" For the rest of us, it might be," Forrest, answered impatiently. " Anyway, does everybody have a fully charged weapon?"
Everybody nodded except for Willow.
" I don't use guns, but I have my component pouch."
Forrest rolled his eyes. " You going to be able to kill vamps with it?" He asked, with the slightest hint of a sneer.
" Oh definitely," the witch assured him.
" Fine," he said flatly. " Then we're leaving."
Forrest led the group out the gate of the cemetery into the carnage outside.
***
Naomi Dawson locked up her health food store. She had stayed later than she normally did, since the receipts wouldn't add up. The store was finally making money, and it was a good thing, too, since she and her husband was expecting their first child in five months. She fumbled for her keys and dropped them.
Bending over painfully she reached for them and was startled to hear the police sirens heading in her direction. Sunnydale was a weird place, but quiet, too, and she didn't have any complaints about the town. She quickly looked up and saw a dozen people walking down the street, standing together like a gang. The leader appeared to be a young man in his mid twenties, with shocking blond hair and a cruel look about his sculpted face. He met her gaze and smiled.
" Kill 'er."
***
Catherine Madison smiled as Faith rushed the vampiric sorceress. With a whispered word, she flung Faith against the green glowing wall. Ripples spread across the wall as the energy absorbed the impact.
Then, Catherine flung blasts of fire at Faith. Rolling to avoid the white- hot bursts of flame, Faith charged back down the alley and body slammed Catherine.
The sorceress flew backward into a large trash bin. The force of the blow dented the bin and caused it to slide down the alley. Faith moved to stay on top of the vampire. If it was one thing she has learned over the years, it was to press the advantage with spell casters. She started to rain blows against the vampire, only to learn that the sorceress had erected some sort of bluish barrier that soaked up Faith's most punishing strikes.
Catherine threw a surprise punch that knocked Faith backwards. Faith got up slowly, visibly drained. Catherine held out her hands and sent a cone of fire rolling over Faith. Faith twisted away from the fire but she reacted too slowly, and the edge of her coat caught fire. Faith rapidly whipped off her leather coat and flung the flaming garment onto the ground.
" Bitch, I wore that coat to Woodstock." Faith patted down the few remaining embers that lay on her clothes. " You like fire so much, try some of this." Faith sent a bolt of golden energy hurtling towards Catherine. Unlike the blast used against the Turok Han, this one was a sickly yellow bolt of energy. It was representative of how weakened Faith had become.
Catherine merely smiled at the energy that flew at her. With a swift motion and a flash of bluish power, she reflected it back to Faith.
The brunette goddess was caught totally off guard. Even as weak as the bolt was, no one could be able to reflect a bolt without divine energy of their own. Faith tried leaping out of the way, but she had been caught off guard by the deflection. Her blast must have been even weaker than she thought, if it could be reflected so easily. The blast caught her in the shoulder and sent fiery spasms throughout her body.
Faith fell limply to the ground and lay there. Catherine approached slowly, and with a Herculean effort, Faith rolled onto her back. She tried to struggle to her feet, but a swift hand motion and a telekinetic burst knocked her back down.
" Pathetic," the sorceress hissed. " My divinations told me that you would be a formidable opponent. You were nothing of the sort." She bent down near Faith and began muttering in Babylonian. Her hands took on a translucent appearance, and with a feral smile, she shoved them towards Faith.
And then Faith Harris, three thousand year old goddess of lust and predators and protector of the Amazon nations, began to scream.
***
Riley, Tara, and the soldiers ran outside and stopped to witness the carnage. Although the battle had been going on for a few moments, vampires who had snuck up on them had downed a huge number of police officers. In addition to the vampires, pale primitive looking Turok Han loped amongst the carnage, feasting on the caged public servants and remaining soldiers.
Tara paled and pointed out the Turok Han. " The bar, it was those things that killed those people."
Riley nodded grimly. " Right." With a swift motion, he fired his blaster at one of the proto- vampires that noticed the latecomers. The crackling blue bolt knocked the creature backwards, but failed to dust it.
With a word and a gesture, Tara shot a ray of sunshine from her hand that vaporized the creature. She smiled shyly at Riley.
" Nice job," he said approvingly to the quiet blond. Then he looked at his men. " What are you guys waiting for, an engraved invitation?"
The Initiative agents looked at one another and then started to wade into battle.
Riley began to fire his blaster at vampires randomly. As he did so, a small voice in the back of his mind wondered where Faith was.
***
Giles watched as the fax machine spat out paper after paper on the ring of Amara, the temple, and the Three.
He gathered up the papers and began to go through them carefully, making notes until he came across an ancient sketch of the ring of Amara. Giles goggled.
Giles shook his head at the idiocy of Council politics. A frown of derision became a crease of worry as he realized that Buffy's drawing and the rubbing looked almost exactly alike.
" Oh bloody hell," he muttered. " This is going to be a problem."
The front door bell rang surprising him from his dark reverie. Padding to the front doorway, Giles gripped his blade tightly and prepared a spell.
He flung the door open to reveal.
Oz, shirtless, putting on his pants.
" Hey, have you seen the news?" the taciturn werewolf asked. " It's a madhouse out there."
***
Angel worked his way through the vampires with contemptuous ease. The twin stakes he wielded in his hands dispatched the vampires with regularity. As he whirled around the dust, he pondered why these vampires were dying so easily.
The vampires seemed to move with unusual sluggishness and did not fight with the usual ferocity that newborn demons normally did.
Which was fine by him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cordelia flying among vampires, seemingly everywhere all at once. In one place, she saved the life of a young soldier. In the next moment, she decapitated a vampire across the field that seemed intent on trying to drain Amy. Every motion seemed to carry her to the place where she was most needed at any given moment.
Meanwhile, Amy was destroying vampires by the handful, channeling fire through her pyromancer's wand.
Yet, despite the skill and numbers by which the vampires were dying, more kept coming in droves, while the defenders were getting tired.
A scream ripped through the air and Angel paused in his killing. He turned to see a young Initiative soldier shaking, darkness leaking like oil from his eyes and nose. Then a dark tentacle ripped its way free from his chest.
Angel gaped. In two hundred and forty odd years, he had never seen its like.
From behind the soldiers and inside the town of Sunnydale, a puddle of shadows detached itself and coalesced together, revealing a slender young woman with white blond hair, dressed in a charcoal gray pants suit. The master vampire Alicia Killdare
Silently, she raised her hands and Turok Han melted from the shadows. Light from streetlights reflected off their yellow eyes. Silently, the proto vampires loped forward toward the soldiers.
And then, the battle was rejoined.
***
Forrest led his group through the cemetery gate with his weapon up. He started firing upon the vampires as soon as he got a good target. The other soldiers followed suit.
Disregarding her blaster, Buffy drew the Tai Chi sword that Xander had given her, seemingly from nowhere. One of the first things he taught her was a simple Immortal ability to create a 'sword space', a place to hide her weapon, no matter how revealing her clothing might be. Hopping onto the nearest crashed car, Buffy smoothly decapitated a Turok Han who had been attempting to get at the elderly female driver within. Looking around, Buffy saw carnage everywhere.
Women and men were shrieking as vampires and Turok Han ripped into them with fang and claw. Windows were broken and bodies lay in puddles of blood everywhere. There were so many opponents; Buffy could hardly decide whom to attack. Shrugging her shoulders, she flipped off the car and rushed the nearest creature, which happened to be a tall blond male vampire in combat fatigues. He was holding a woman by the throat with a single muscled arm.
Jackson saw the pretty blond Slayer rushing him and the Special Forces soldier reacted instantly. He hurled the woman at Buffy. While the Slayer evaded the injured woman, the vampire drew his knife.
He wanted his trophy.
***
Xander circled around the battle; drawing upon every ounce of Sinanju training he possessed to remain concealed. His eyes watched the battle carefully. His hands ached for battle. He wanted nothing more than to hunt down every last one of these things and destroy them, but he stayed his hand.
He wanted their leader.
***
Riley raced around the battleground, firing at the Turok Han at every opportunity, as were the rest of his men. The only problem, though, was the toughness of the strange new vampires. The blasters barely seemed to stun them even on lethal setting. It took concentrated fire for several moments to kill even a single Turok Han.
As he ducked behind a stopped police car, Riley tried to look for Faith. The wild Slayer should have made her presence known by now. Riley worried about her. Faith had a way of worming her way into your heart. It was her ready smile and dirty mind that bonded the beautiful Slayer to the soldiers in her team. She was like another guy, only one that was far easier to look at.
A piercing cry rent the air; one that came from the alley down the street from battle. Riley frowned. He'd had no time to cross the war zone to find out what was wrong. He couldn't leave his men.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tara fling a vampire away from her with the power of her mind. The creature flew into the wall of the bar and slumped down, stunned. Following up on the vampire, she shouted a word and the creature vaporized in a burst of flame. Turning, she shot a glance at Riley. He noticed right away how pale she was and the fine lines of weariness at the corner of her eyes.
While he was distracted for a moment, a Turok Han jumped on his back.
***
Cordelia spun around, a veritable dervish of death. Her sword licked out, finding purchase in various vampire bits. Dust choked the air as she rode the wave of destiny around the battle.
Cordy smiled as she fought. She wasn't one to get into fights, normally. Faith and Xander were far more skilled at the killing arts, but it was nice to cut loose and lose herself in the fight, every once in a while. Fights have destinies all their own, and Cordelia was as much a master of it as she was the master of the destinies of mortals.
Even so, she was getting tired. In addition to fighting, Cordelia was creating a zone of providence around the battle. She was weaving luck and probability to make the battle easier for the people on her side and harder for the vampires.
She saw the shadowy master vampire tearing through the troops, displaying a level of strength that impressed even the jaded Power.
In another part of the battle, Graham had scooped up a second blaster and was wielding them both against the shadow manipulating vampire and her legion of silent Turok Han. He was like a new man in the battle. Powerful and skilled, he looked as great a warrior as any she had ever seen. Cordelia watched him, worriedly. She could feel his death rapidly approaching and knew, with the certainty only a Power could have, that his fate was inevitable.
***
Xander finally found his leader.
Beneath the shadowy overhang of a now abandoned coffee shop lurked a short broad, shouldered vampire in green camouflage fatigues. He watched the battle with the detached air of an expert military commander. Two Turok Han crouched at his feet, like a pair of hunting hounds.
Xander drew a curved scimitar from his sword space and melted from the shadows.
The vampire just smiled. " I was wondering when you'd show yourself."
Xander arched one eyebrow in surprise. " You knew I was there?"
Dog Tag shrugged and tapped his nose. " Not a lot gets by me, anymore." Lifting his hands they seemed to flow like melted wax and reformed into a pair of long claws.
" Crap," Xander muttered. " Not another master vampire."
" You know of us?" Dog Tag said, surprised.
" I killed the last master I ran into," Xander smiled.
" Well," Dog smiled. " Now I get to return the favor." He idly reached down and scratched one of the Turok Han behind the ear with a claw.
" Kill."
***
Amy burned yet another vampire. She had long ago slipped her wand into her pocket. It had grown too hot for her to handle, so she was forced to burn the vampires one by one. Which happened to be tiring work. Finding a lull in the skirmish, she took stock of the situation. She, Angel, and Cordelia were all still up and fighting. Graham had completely switched personas from quiet soldier, to vampire killing commando.
Aiming both blasters at the blond vampiress, Graham fire bolt after bolt of electricity at her. She evaded the first two, but was then caught by the third. The blast caused her to collapsed into a mass of shadows that faded away.
The last thing Amy saw was the vampiress smiling.
" Well, look at my little girl. All grown up. At least you didn't get fat, again."
Amy's back stiffened. The voice was even colder than before, but it was still all too familiar to the teenage witch.
She turned around slowly.
" Mamma?"
***
Jackson leapt forward and swung his knife in an exaggerated overhand motion. Buffy evaded the blow only to walk into a strike to the throat with his opposite hand. She fell back, gagging. The tall blond vampire grinned and pressed his advantage. He slashed her across the belly, tearing a hole through her lavender shirt and red drops of blood splattered across the ground.
He laughed for a moment until he saw a thin network of sparks seal off the Slayer's wound.
" Bet you weren't expecting that." Buffy laughed at the expression on the vampire's face. She frowned. " I spent a lot of money on that shirt!" She snapped a kick into his face, forcing him backward. She spun rapidly and launched another kick that flipped him over a car behind him. Following up, Buffy rolled over the hood of the car and whipped her sword around, cutting through the vampire's shirt and digging into the dead flesh beneath.
" I am so tired of things ruining my shirts!" Without any finesse, Buffy started flailing at the vampire, the finely crafted sword slicing through the car as though it was made of foil.
Vainly attempting to escape the raging Slayer, Jackson started to think poorly of his idea of getting a slayer trophy. He kicked Buffy and used his greater weight to drive give him some breathing room. Throwing himself backwards, he placed the chopped car between himself and Buffy. Drawing his gun, he drew a bead on the Immortal Slayer. " I think we should continue this at another time, slayer."
The vampire was shocked to see that Buffy didn't even blink, when she was forced to stare down the barrel of the gun. In fact, she smiled. Then, before Jackson could react to what Buffy was doing, she flung a stake at his heart.
" Guns don't kill people."
As Jackson was disintegrating, his failing ears heard
"...Mr. Pointy kills people."
***
The pair of Turok Han threw themselves at Xander in a snarling fury. Flourishing his sword, Xander spun himself through the air using the unraveling ribbon technique from Sinanju. Twisting like an acrobat, he spun his sword and sliced through the vampire bodies. Landing past the partially diced vampires, Xander whirled around and faced them.
One of the Turok Han was missing an arm and the other clutched at stub where his hand should have been. Xander grinned. The maimed vampires rushed Xander again.
Splaying his hand like a spider, Xander slapped the leading Turk Han in the chest lightly. The creature's rib cage collapsed. Screeching, the first Turok Han dusted.
With a howl, the handless proto-vampire threw himself at Xander. Its good hand raked Xander across the chest. The creature was so enraged that it was a simple matter to decapitate it with a simple flick of his blade.
" Impressive," the military dressed vampire conceded. He seemed unperturbed - as if he spent every evening in the center of battle. " But I think you'll find that I'm a little harder to kill."
" I doubt it." Xander leapt forward, and blade crossed claw.
***
Tara saw Riley fall, a Turok Han latched to his back like an enormous leech. The creature had sunk its teeth into the meaty shoulder of the commando. Riley fell to the ground and rolled about, trying to dislodge the vampire. Looking around, Tara saw that all of the soldiers were in similar straits.
The Turok Han, although few in number, were incredibly hard to kill. The blasters were ineffective, unless the vampire was struck multiple times.
The Turok Han only needed one try to kill or maim.
Tara shook her head. She had spent too much time being around men who frightened her, men like her father and brothers. Then, she came here and met Amy, and through her, Giles and Xander and the Initiative soldiers. In the few days she had known them, they had cared more about her than her real family ever had. She would be dammed if she was going to let them all die!
She reached deep within herself and found the drained core of her magic. Guttering like a dying flame, she drew on its power one last time. Magic rushed along her nerves, and magic words rose unbidden within her mind, a spell placed within her unconscious by her new Book of Shadows.
There were many dimensions attached to this one. Many were realms where demons held sway. In fact, most were. In some weird sort of balance, the dimensions swayed by good were fewer but they were stronger in their own way. One of those dimensions was a realm that contained pure positive energy. Using her Book of Shadows, the blond witch found a way to open a gate to that dimension. Unfortunately, she didn't have the time to set up a gate circle. So, she used the next best thing. Her own body.
As Tara chanted, a white blue corona of light began to blaze around her. On the final word of power, the corona pulsed outward.
***
Riley could feel the teeth of the proto-vampire in his shoulder. The creature was so eager to feed; it didn't even bother reaching for his neck. It just wanted to find flesh beneath its fangs. Its iron hard claws dug rows in his back, and the injuries it caused burned.
He threw himself backwards in a feeble attempt to free himself, to no avail. As he lay on his back, trying to smash the creature into the concrete, a blue-white flash filled his vision. He closed his eyes tightly against the burning light.
Then, he felt relief as the vampire on his back let him go and the creature began to screech. The screech reached a fever pitch right before Riley heard the distinctive pop of a dusting.
Riley groaned and opened up his eyes. He struggled to his feet and looked around to see that his men are similarly disoriented.
" Tara?" Riley croaked. From the corner of his eye he saw the crumpled form of the blond Wicca. Rushing over, he felt for her pulse. As he did so, the men started helping up the few surviving members of the Sunnydale Police Department.
" What happened?" Tara asked fuzzily.
" You saved us." Riley smiled at her. " You done good girl."
" Tell that to my head," she muttered too tired to be meek. She wiped away a trickle of blood from her nose that had started to bleed when she invoked the mighty spell. The trail of red liquid stood in stark contrast against her pale skin and limp yellow hair.
Riley helped her to her feet, and she sagged against him. Riley drew her close and lent her some of his warmth. As he did so, he felt the twinge in his back and his shoulder where the vampire had gouged and bitten him.
Tara felt Riley tense. " A-A-Are you okay?" she stuttered. The meekness was back.
" Fine." As he felt the red stickiness start to run down his back, he amended. " Well, I'm not completely fine, but I'll live till I get back to base."
" What about the team medic?"
" That's him." Riley pointed to a dead soldier, lying near several piles of dust
" Oh."
" Captain Finn." One of remaining soldier ran up to his injured superior. " I was looking for Slayer Faith, 'cause...Uh...I was-" the young man blushed, " kind of worried about her. I remembered that, just before the fight, she went down that alley," and he pointed. " So, I went down there and I didn't find her." The soldier stopped, a worried look plastered across his face.
" Well, what did you find?" Riley asked impatiently.
" Blood," he whispered. " Lots of blood."
***
" Mamma?" Amy's voice dropped and became almost childlike. She looked at Catherine and gaped at the game face she now sported. " Oh god, you've been turned."
Catherine just smiled and licked her lips. " I decided to drop by and see my precious girl while on a little errand." She opened her hand and an orb of energy pulsed steadily with the regularity of a heartbeat appeared, cradled within it. " Picked up this neat little thing," she laughed and held against her shirt. " Tell me the truth, does this match my clothes?"
Amy stepped forward, the confusion at seeing her mother rapidly disappearing beneath blind rage. " You're behind what's wrong with the vampires, aren't you?"
" I do good work." Watching her mother's hand close around the orb of power, Amy saw it vanish to some other dimension. " Now about your behavior," Catherine said, her voice dripping with false motherly sweetness.
Amy didn't say anything in reply. She just drew out her red-hot wand and focused her power through it. With a whoosh, reddish flame covered Catherine Madison. Amy kept her power going for a full minute before her wand became too hot to handle. Hissing, she dropped the wand and clutched her burned hand.
When the flames cleared, Catherine still stood, not smiling. " You ungrateful little freak," she shrieked. " You think I can't protect myself from my own power. Or the power of my daughter? I trained in my abilities long before you *ever* showed up to ruin my life. BURN!"
Black flame coiled from Catherine's hand. On reflex, Amy crossed her wrists in front of her face and shrieked a word. The word came, half remembered, from deep within her mother's memories.
One of the most horrific parts of Catherine's possession of her daughter was the psychic imprint left on her soul. Amy could still remember elements of her mother's life, fragments of glorious high school days lived and discarded, memories of her father and a life once happy, and finally memories of spells - magics dark and light, alike.
She used one of those spells now, and flung every ounce power she had remaining, behind it. A pale moonstone colored shield flared weakly around her. The black flames from Catherine's hands licked at the edges of the shield. Amy's anti-fire shield took a lot of punishment and barely held against the full force of her mother's might.
Finally, inexorably, the shield began to crumble.
***
Dog Tag.Michael Ironside Alicia Killdare.Julia Stiles Jackson.Dolph Lungren Thomas Thorne.Peter Weller
More as they appear.
***
Giles slammed the book shut and let out a Ripper-ish growl. He should be out there with the others right now, testing out his new, strong body and sword. He loved books, but the slight reversion in his age had left him with a desire to go out and prove himself, as he had in his youth.
But he agreed with Xander. Reluctantly, he acknowledged, but the newly returned Immortal was correct. Someone needed to stay and research Spike's new little talisman. Buffy had made a sketch of the ring and he was trying to match it with some rubbings that had been made of some of the more famous vampire centric rings.
But, unfortunately, none of them matched.
Giles thought for a moment, rubbing his jaw.
" Of course," he muttered, as inspiration struck. " Robinson."
Reaching for the phone in the library, he quickly dialed an overseas number. " Robinson," he said, when the phone was answered. " This is Ripper. Do you still have access to the restricted section of the Council library?" The Watchers Council had gone under numerous changes in administration over its many thousands of years of history and the most recent had been a few years after the Valentino Wars. After each purge, there were many books that the new version of the council would restrict access to, so that most of the members wouldn't know the full history of the Council, including its occasional lapses and errors in judgment. After all, that might encourage some members to question the current policies of the inner council of the Watchers, and nothing good would come from that. Geoffrey Robinson was a librarian who had nearly full access to all of the volumes in the Councils repositories. He also happened to be an old drinking buddy of Ripper's.
Giles paused for a moment to hear the answer. " Good. I need you to do something for me. Go to the back of the section on vampire armies if you would. Yes, that's the one. On the upper left hand shelf, there should be a book bound in black leather with the three starbursts embossed on the cover. Can you fax me a few pages?" Giles then rattled off what he was looking for. " Thanks, old friend."
Giles thought for moment, before adding another request. " I also need everything you have on the Three, circa roman era." He rolled his eyes. " Just do it, Geoff. I'm protecting my Slayer."
***
Dog Tag watched the pack of snarling Turok Han and the five members of his vamped Special Forces team with an air of detached interest. He and his squad were hiding in an alley behind one of the main streets of Sunnydale. He wanted to reiterate the instructions one last time before letting loose the carnage.
" Remember, go for the kill. We don't have time to feed. We just want to up the juice for the big mojo." He smiled. " We'll be able to feed all we want later." He looked at a huge SEAL with poster boy blond good looks. " I'm looking at you, Jackson." Jackson was a Vietnam vet turned vampire with a penchant for taking souvenirs from the body of his victims.
" I just want the Slayer," he murmured in a soft New York accent. He fingered a necklace of dried parts that encircled his neck. " I don't have any Slayer bits."
" And you won't tonight either." Dog stared hard at his second. " Remember what Spike said. She's got some new healing tricks. No fightin' her. If she shows up, just shoot her and pray that slows her down."
The huge blond vampire growled. " That is cowardly. I want to feel her bones shatter in my hands and take her tongue as a trophy."
" If you have a problem with my orders, we can settle this right here." Dog held up his hands and with a cracking sound, his fingernails twisted into wickedly curved talons. " You can kill me and drink from the cup of master hood. That is, if your feeling really lucky." He stared hard at his subordinate. " You want that?"
Jackson stared at the shorter man, considering his chances. Finally he looked away. " You're still the boss...like always, Dog."
" Like I was sayin' before, once we get the field up and active, we can have some fun running her down." Dog Tag smiled viciously. " Maybe this healing thing of hers is a good thing. After all, if she can get back up after being drained, then she's like the holy fricken' grail."
He surveyed his troops. " You know what needs to be done. So MOVE!!!" He shouted the last word. The lesser vampires flew into action with the military precision they possessed even before they were turned.
Meanwhile, the Turok Han started forward at the sound of the master vampire's voice. With an unsteady gait that relied on moving on both two and four feet, they shuffled forward and their oversized jaws snapped at the air randomly.
Dog Tag smiled as he heard the sweet sounds of screams coming from street in front of the alley.
***
Graham blinked and took a second look. Dozens of vampires, all chanting in unison, were melting from the fog. He looked around and saw that the rest of his men were just as pole-axed, at both the sight and number of the HST's approaching. Even the witch seemed started by the numbers that had appeared. Cordelia, too, seemed shocked, even though she had been the one directing their deployment.
" Is this why you had us come here?" He whispered to her. " You knew these things were coming?"
" Yeah, sure I did," Cordy muttered back, sarcastically. " I said to myself, Hey, let's surprise the soldiers with an army of hypnotized vampires!" She rolled her eyes at the soldier. " Of course, I didn't know that these things were coming. I just knew that *something* was going to be here."
" Guys, whatever is affecting vampires is getting stronger." The group turned to look at Angel, as he spoke in a quiet, but urgent voice. He had shifted into game face and the moonlight reflected eerily off his yellow demon eyes.
" You have to fight it, Angel," Amy replied worriedly. " We have enough problems, without you going all serial killer-y."
" Trust me," Angel replied grimly. " I am fighting it. It's just.hard," he whispered.
Cordelia grabbed Angel's face roughly and stared at him. Her eyes flashed gray momentarily, and then she smiled. " Your soul is still holding."
Graham looked a little confused at the exchange. No one had told him anything about how Angel was different than other vampires. All Graham knew was that he had been told the dark haired demon was an ally. " Everyone have their blasters?" The Initiative had equipped everybody with the military issue blasters, even the civilians. On their lethal setting, they made a pretty effective tool for killing vampires. Plus, it was a much safer method than getting in close combat with them.
Cordy and Angel lifted theirs in acknowledgment, but Amy just shook her head. " I don't need a blaster," she stated firmly. She held up her bronze wand and her eyes began to glow, as though they were actually radiating heat. " I have much better tricks to use."
" Suit yourself." Graham shrugged his shoulders. As far as he was concerned, you were better off with whatever weapon you were most comfortable with. " Ready guys?"
The soldiers nodded, drew their weapons and prepared to fight for their lives.
***
Faith watched as the good little soldiers started looking around for clues. She snorted and took a deep drag from her cigarette. She watched the tip of her cigarette, as the brightly glowing cherry-red tip grew ever larger and ashed it. Dropping the cigarette, she ground it beneath her heel.
One of the officers approached her, and with her finely honed deific sense of male lust, she knew he was going to try and pick her up. Deciding that feeding on his lust wouldn't be worth the hassle of having to listen to his half-assed pick-up lines, she flipped him off, flashing her wedding ring hand, and showing the poor schmoe she was a taken woman.
Sometimes being a helluva fine piece of ass was a real trial.
Always had been. Probably always would be. Oh well, that was a divine burden she was prepared to live with.
As Faith walked toward an alley where she could do some goddess stuff without being seen, she thought about life and how wacky hers had turned out to be. Slayer, goddess, and part of a legendary triumvirate with the two people she loved and needed most in the world. Hell, when she was growing up, she figured she would have been knocked up as a teenager and a high school dropout. Maybe she would be dead, cause she used to hang with some hard people in Southie. Back then, she didn't think she would have had much of a life, and didn't really think she deserved much of one, either.
It had taken her a lot of time to get over her past because, hell, even gods could have issues. Time took care of the most overt scars; love from her family took care of the deeper ones.
But it was the Amazons who had helped her the most.
Oh, she knew why Xander hated the Amazons, and could even sympathize with most of the reasons. But they *needed* her. They were all alone in a hostile world with Greek city-states, and later the Romans, surrounding them on all sides. Artemis only dealt with her favorites among the tribes. A few other goddesses like Aphrodite and Athena poached a few of the others. But Faith took in all the unwanted ones, the abandoned ones. In helping them, she helped herself heal. The act of being needed, being trusted with the fragile faith of those women, helped to transform her into a responsible goddess and someone who was fully able to accept the love of her family.
Gods need worship to make them stronger. They fed on it, relied on it for their greatest powers, and often times became addicted to it. Faith wouldn't be honest with herself if she didn't admit she missed the feeling, the rush of essence gathered and flavored by the rituals of faith. But she had love and a family. The time of gods was truly over and she was okay with that.
Faith wrinkled her nose as she entered the alley. The sickly sweet scent of trash and stale soda and urine wafted together and assaulted her hyper keen predatory senses. Kicking an empty can down the length of the alley; she found a relatively clean piece of wall to lean up against. She was going to try and open her divine sense to get a sense of magical currents running over the Hellmouth. If something was affecting vampires on the Hellmouth, she should get something.
Closing her eyes, she centered, found the divine spark with her, and shunted some of its energies through her five senses and her mystical other senses.
Faith gasped and sagged against the alley wall. The assault against her senses continued, unabated. The red oiliness of the dimensional portal's power was the first and nearly overpowering sense that she experienced. Summoning her reserves she plunged into the current of corrupt energies, in an attempt to get at what lay underneath. Faith could taste a hint of otherness, of something beyond the overpowering stench of the Hellmouth.
Diving into the power of the mystical gateway, Faith sought out the underlying energy. She wallowed in it. Her eyes widened when she got her first taste of the blood magic that lay underneath. She remembered where she first tasted similar magics. It was in Spain, when the Three came to end the reign of Valentino's army. It was the taste of HIS power center.
Xander was going to be pissed.
There weren't many things that could crack the ancient immortal's iron resolve, but reminding him about one of his greatest failures as a soldier and a leader was one of them. If Spike had found a book of spells or a talisman that Valentino had been using, he would be exceptionally difficult to be stopped. He might be impulsive, but Spike was never stupid.
Once again, Faith gathered her divine power and prepared to send a mental message to Xander and Cordelia. They would need to know what was going on. She wiped her brow. She was cursedly tired. Even her passive powers, like opening up her senses, taxed her more than it should have. It took so damn long now to recover her strength, since she no longer had any worshipers. Now, with the healing she gave Joyce and Angel, and some of the power expenditure in weaving the wards around their new home as well as the home of their friends, she was starting to feel the strain. Shaping the thoughts carefully in her own mind, she readied herself to seek out the minds of the other two members of the Three, minds she knew as well as her own.
She was so involved; she nearly missed the snarling Turok-Han that jumped her.
***
The inside of the bar was dimly lit, and police tape covered the entrance to the bar. Riley and the others ducked beneath the tape, and looked around the bar. Bodies were everywhere, piled on each other haphazardly, like logs on a woodpile. Pools of gore and feces covered the floor. The full-length mirror that ran the length of the bar was shattered into small fragments. Cracked pool sticks lay in the hands of several of the dead.
Tara was immediately sick. The sensitive empath turned a grayish green and vomited in the corner. The sickly smell of blood, urine, feces, and alcohol combined together to form a uniquely horrifying scent that the young demon hunter had never encountered before, and she was unable to handle it.
Riley and the pair of soldiers with him had very much the same reaction. Riley pushed down his gag reflex through force of will and started to examine the crime scene.
" There's a lot of blood. Seems like too much for vampires," Riley observed dispassionately, as he started poking around, looking for clues. He consciously spoke in a flat tone of voice. He couldn't let these corpses be people. They didn't have jobs or families. They had no one who would miss them. As long as he had to examine this scene, he needed to force himself to think that way. He didn't have a choice. " These claw marks don't look like vampire claws. Vamp claws are way too stubby to make injuries like these. Tara, are you picking anything up?"
The witch paled, but bravely bit her lip and opened her self up to the empathic echoes from the murder scene. " So much pain," she whispered, as the echoes of the victims' emotions reverberated through her. " Riley, these peopled died in mortal terror. Whatever did this seemed unstoppable to them. They came in through the door, here and in the back. They started ripping into these people like they were nothing. They were so hungry, but." Tara blinked and bit her paled lips hard. ".S-s-something didn't want them to feed. The just wanted the blood, the terror." She looked up at Riley, and the soldier was surprised to see how hard her eyes had become. " My mother told me about magic like this. It's about as evil as it gets. It's called Blood Magic and my mother told me it's the oldest form of magic used by people. It works by sacrificing the life energy of living beings. A good Blood Mage uses their own blood, but bad ones use the life force of others."
" Can you see any pictures or anything?" Riley asked vaguely, not really sure what to ask the blond Wicca. He didn't really know how this gift of Tara's worked.
" N-n-no," she stuttered shamefully. " I just get feelings'n'stuff," she murmured. Then her eyes widened. " Faith! Outside! We need to help her!" The normally shy witch shook off her uncertainty and raced outside.
***
Three Turok Han came at Faith from three different directions. One scrabbled down the wall over her head, its claws leaving furrows in the bricks. Two others came from opposite ends of the alleyway and charged at her.
Reaching up, Faith grabbed the proto vampire looming over her head and ripped him off the wall in a feat of phenomenal strength. She then slammed the struggling creature into the wall on the other side of the alley.
With catlike reflexes, the creature pushed himself off the wall and slashed at the brunette with his claws. Faith expected the claws to skitter off her divinely hardened skin. After all, she had been shot, stabbed, burned, and in one painful episode, placed on the rack, and almost nothing had actually left an injury. So, Faith was quite surprised when she felt the claws shred through her tee shirt and leave bloody rakes across her stomach.
Even as one Turok Han clawed at Faith, the other two rushed towards her. One leapt on her back and latched onto her shoulder with steel-like fangs. As the final creature rushed towards her, Faith tapped into her godly powers and sent a golden blast of energy barreling into it.
As the creature turned to dust, Faith felt a trickle of blood run down her neck from the vampire on her back. Throwing herself against the wall with all her strength, she crushed the Turok Han's ribcage and heard the distinctive pop of a dusting vampire.
Focusing on the vampire in front of her, she threw a punch that propelled the vampire down the alley. Flashing forward, she leapt on the creature and devastated it with a rapid-fire series of blows. Finally, with divine power burning through her veins, she ripped through his steel hard ribcage and pulled out its dried heart.
" God Damn, that was hard," Faith muttered as she focused energy on her wounds. Tingling warmth spread through her body as her neck and abdomen wound sealed up. The goddess then leaned up against the alley wall and took a few deep breaths, while pondering the vampire like creatures who just attacked her. They stunk of blood magic to her godly senses. Their auras were much like vampires but not totally. It was that new aura that allowed the claws to break her divine shield. Something had mutated those demons into something new. That worried her because she hadn't seen anything like them before in her life.
And if she hadn't seen it in three thousand years, it was worth worrying about.
A sharp crack broke Faith from her reverie. She looked up and extended her mundane senses. There were at least a half dozen more of these creatures attacking the Sunnydale PD. And if she had a hard time with three of them, they would be impossible for the mortals to deal with. Even Tara and the soldiers would be hard pressed against the proto-vampires. Faith started down the alley, when a green hued wall suddenly sprung up in front of her.
The wall was crafted from translucent green energy. Ripples covered its surface, spreading like the ripples in a pond. Faith shifted her vision into the magical spectrum, in order to find the weak points of the wall. She could easily batter down the magical construct.
A cold voice called out from behind her. " I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
Faith slowly turned around. She saw Catherine Madison standing at the far end of the alley. " Why the hell not?"
Catherine smiled. " Because I'll be forced to kick your ass."
Faith smiled cockily and rolled her neck around, cracking it. " Bring it on, Bitch." She projected an aura of confidence she wasn't feeling. She was tired as all hell.
" Can't do too much damage," Catherine told the goddess. " After all, I need you for a spell." Fire licked around Catherine's fingers and heat seemed to radiate from her eyes.
She smiled brightly, " Well, at least, I don't need all of you," she purred.
***
The soldiers under Graham's command unleashed a hail of withering fire from their blasters. Dust choked the air as the first rank of vampires disappeared beneath blue bolts.
Amy aimed her wand and channeled her gift through the bronze talisman. Fire rushed from the tip and caught and dusted half dozen vampires in a fiery holocaust.
Cordelia's eyes turned to gray mist as she fired seemingly randomly into the crowd. Yet every shot found the heart of a target and dusted a vampire.
Once the first group died under a hail of fire, it seemed to snap the other vampires from their trance. En masse, they rushed the soldiers, moving with vampiric speed. The soldiers fired again but this time, the fire found far fewer targets.
The preternatural reflexes of the vampires easily evaded the blue lightning that spat from the guns. As the tide of vampires rushed forward, Graham gave the order to switch to baton-stakes.
Amy managed to get even more vampires with her wand, as fire rushed from the tip like a movie flamethrower.
As the number of vampires thinned, and the soldiers prepared to meet them hand to hand, Cordelia stood up from where she was hiding and called into being a curved sword that seemed to blend the qualities of sabers and scimitars. The words Fate Reaver along the edge flashed and she shed a single tear as she took a moment to contemplate her weapon. It was a terrible thing; to call up the blade of endings, for a person who was killed by it had their thread removed from the fabric of destiny, effectively destroying their soul or spirit for the rest of time. They would never get to the afterlife, to whatever reward or punishment awaited them, and they would never re-enter the cycle of reincarnation and seek another chance of life. They just cease to be. She murmured an old war prayer from the time of the Trojans and leapt to meet the vampires.
***
Forrest and Xander look at each other for one moment and then rushed together to the high brick wall separating the graveyard from the street. The whole team heard screams from people on the other side and the unmistakable crunch of cars hitting each other and wheels squealing on asphalt.
Forrest stared unbelieving, as with a short hop, Xander leapt to the top of the brick wall and easily balanced there. Slowly, Forrest climbed up beside Xander and looked out over the wall.
The scene beyond was one of utter chaos. Cars had slammed into each other as pale primitive looking vampires ripped doors off their hinges and savaged the drivers inside. Meanwhile, vampires in military fatigues strode along the sidewalk, ripping into customers from various coffee shops and boutiques that had been open late.
" Jesus," Forrest swore softly.
" Xander, what's going on?" Buffy called up.
" It looks like the vampires are rioting." The dark haired Immortal shouted down. Xander looked over at Forrest. " So what are we going to do, fearless leader?"
Forrest was stumped. They clearly needed to stop the vampires, but secrecy was supposed to be paramount for the Initiative. How could they save these people's lives, and stay hidden? As he was busy turning those conflicting thoughts over in his mind, he heard the shouts of people from even farther away and the wail of police sirens, as they started to answer calls they were wildly unprepared for.
Xander took pity on the inexperienced leader and sighed. " Forrest, we don't have time for games or fancy tactics. We need to just save those people. Take your men, Buffy and Willow and start taking back the city, street by street."
Forrest nodded numbly without looking at Xander. " What are you going to do?" When he didn't get an answer, he turned to look at Xander.
Xander was gone.
" Damn it," he muttered. Dropping down to the ground, he motioned for everybody to come over. " Listen, the blasters don't have a long effective range, so we're going to have to get in close."
" So not a problem," Buffy replied cheerfully.
" For the rest of us, it might be," Forrest, answered impatiently. " Anyway, does everybody have a fully charged weapon?"
Everybody nodded except for Willow.
" I don't use guns, but I have my component pouch."
Forrest rolled his eyes. " You going to be able to kill vamps with it?" He asked, with the slightest hint of a sneer.
" Oh definitely," the witch assured him.
" Fine," he said flatly. " Then we're leaving."
Forrest led the group out the gate of the cemetery into the carnage outside.
***
Naomi Dawson locked up her health food store. She had stayed later than she normally did, since the receipts wouldn't add up. The store was finally making money, and it was a good thing, too, since she and her husband was expecting their first child in five months. She fumbled for her keys and dropped them.
Bending over painfully she reached for them and was startled to hear the police sirens heading in her direction. Sunnydale was a weird place, but quiet, too, and she didn't have any complaints about the town. She quickly looked up and saw a dozen people walking down the street, standing together like a gang. The leader appeared to be a young man in his mid twenties, with shocking blond hair and a cruel look about his sculpted face. He met her gaze and smiled.
" Kill 'er."
***
Catherine Madison smiled as Faith rushed the vampiric sorceress. With a whispered word, she flung Faith against the green glowing wall. Ripples spread across the wall as the energy absorbed the impact.
Then, Catherine flung blasts of fire at Faith. Rolling to avoid the white- hot bursts of flame, Faith charged back down the alley and body slammed Catherine.
The sorceress flew backward into a large trash bin. The force of the blow dented the bin and caused it to slide down the alley. Faith moved to stay on top of the vampire. If it was one thing she has learned over the years, it was to press the advantage with spell casters. She started to rain blows against the vampire, only to learn that the sorceress had erected some sort of bluish barrier that soaked up Faith's most punishing strikes.
Catherine threw a surprise punch that knocked Faith backwards. Faith got up slowly, visibly drained. Catherine held out her hands and sent a cone of fire rolling over Faith. Faith twisted away from the fire but she reacted too slowly, and the edge of her coat caught fire. Faith rapidly whipped off her leather coat and flung the flaming garment onto the ground.
" Bitch, I wore that coat to Woodstock." Faith patted down the few remaining embers that lay on her clothes. " You like fire so much, try some of this." Faith sent a bolt of golden energy hurtling towards Catherine. Unlike the blast used against the Turok Han, this one was a sickly yellow bolt of energy. It was representative of how weakened Faith had become.
Catherine merely smiled at the energy that flew at her. With a swift motion and a flash of bluish power, she reflected it back to Faith.
The brunette goddess was caught totally off guard. Even as weak as the bolt was, no one could be able to reflect a bolt without divine energy of their own. Faith tried leaping out of the way, but she had been caught off guard by the deflection. Her blast must have been even weaker than she thought, if it could be reflected so easily. The blast caught her in the shoulder and sent fiery spasms throughout her body.
Faith fell limply to the ground and lay there. Catherine approached slowly, and with a Herculean effort, Faith rolled onto her back. She tried to struggle to her feet, but a swift hand motion and a telekinetic burst knocked her back down.
" Pathetic," the sorceress hissed. " My divinations told me that you would be a formidable opponent. You were nothing of the sort." She bent down near Faith and began muttering in Babylonian. Her hands took on a translucent appearance, and with a feral smile, she shoved them towards Faith.
And then Faith Harris, three thousand year old goddess of lust and predators and protector of the Amazon nations, began to scream.
***
Riley, Tara, and the soldiers ran outside and stopped to witness the carnage. Although the battle had been going on for a few moments, vampires who had snuck up on them had downed a huge number of police officers. In addition to the vampires, pale primitive looking Turok Han loped amongst the carnage, feasting on the caged public servants and remaining soldiers.
Tara paled and pointed out the Turok Han. " The bar, it was those things that killed those people."
Riley nodded grimly. " Right." With a swift motion, he fired his blaster at one of the proto- vampires that noticed the latecomers. The crackling blue bolt knocked the creature backwards, but failed to dust it.
With a word and a gesture, Tara shot a ray of sunshine from her hand that vaporized the creature. She smiled shyly at Riley.
" Nice job," he said approvingly to the quiet blond. Then he looked at his men. " What are you guys waiting for, an engraved invitation?"
The Initiative agents looked at one another and then started to wade into battle.
Riley began to fire his blaster at vampires randomly. As he did so, a small voice in the back of his mind wondered where Faith was.
***
Giles watched as the fax machine spat out paper after paper on the ring of Amara, the temple, and the Three.
He gathered up the papers and began to go through them carefully, making notes until he came across an ancient sketch of the ring of Amara. Giles goggled.
Giles shook his head at the idiocy of Council politics. A frown of derision became a crease of worry as he realized that Buffy's drawing and the rubbing looked almost exactly alike.
" Oh bloody hell," he muttered. " This is going to be a problem."
The front door bell rang surprising him from his dark reverie. Padding to the front doorway, Giles gripped his blade tightly and prepared a spell.
He flung the door open to reveal.
Oz, shirtless, putting on his pants.
" Hey, have you seen the news?" the taciturn werewolf asked. " It's a madhouse out there."
***
Angel worked his way through the vampires with contemptuous ease. The twin stakes he wielded in his hands dispatched the vampires with regularity. As he whirled around the dust, he pondered why these vampires were dying so easily.
The vampires seemed to move with unusual sluggishness and did not fight with the usual ferocity that newborn demons normally did.
Which was fine by him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cordelia flying among vampires, seemingly everywhere all at once. In one place, she saved the life of a young soldier. In the next moment, she decapitated a vampire across the field that seemed intent on trying to drain Amy. Every motion seemed to carry her to the place where she was most needed at any given moment.
Meanwhile, Amy was destroying vampires by the handful, channeling fire through her pyromancer's wand.
Yet, despite the skill and numbers by which the vampires were dying, more kept coming in droves, while the defenders were getting tired.
A scream ripped through the air and Angel paused in his killing. He turned to see a young Initiative soldier shaking, darkness leaking like oil from his eyes and nose. Then a dark tentacle ripped its way free from his chest.
Angel gaped. In two hundred and forty odd years, he had never seen its like.
From behind the soldiers and inside the town of Sunnydale, a puddle of shadows detached itself and coalesced together, revealing a slender young woman with white blond hair, dressed in a charcoal gray pants suit. The master vampire Alicia Killdare
Silently, she raised her hands and Turok Han melted from the shadows. Light from streetlights reflected off their yellow eyes. Silently, the proto vampires loped forward toward the soldiers.
And then, the battle was rejoined.
***
Forrest led his group through the cemetery gate with his weapon up. He started firing upon the vampires as soon as he got a good target. The other soldiers followed suit.
Disregarding her blaster, Buffy drew the Tai Chi sword that Xander had given her, seemingly from nowhere. One of the first things he taught her was a simple Immortal ability to create a 'sword space', a place to hide her weapon, no matter how revealing her clothing might be. Hopping onto the nearest crashed car, Buffy smoothly decapitated a Turok Han who had been attempting to get at the elderly female driver within. Looking around, Buffy saw carnage everywhere.
Women and men were shrieking as vampires and Turok Han ripped into them with fang and claw. Windows were broken and bodies lay in puddles of blood everywhere. There were so many opponents; Buffy could hardly decide whom to attack. Shrugging her shoulders, she flipped off the car and rushed the nearest creature, which happened to be a tall blond male vampire in combat fatigues. He was holding a woman by the throat with a single muscled arm.
Jackson saw the pretty blond Slayer rushing him and the Special Forces soldier reacted instantly. He hurled the woman at Buffy. While the Slayer evaded the injured woman, the vampire drew his knife.
He wanted his trophy.
***
Xander circled around the battle; drawing upon every ounce of Sinanju training he possessed to remain concealed. His eyes watched the battle carefully. His hands ached for battle. He wanted nothing more than to hunt down every last one of these things and destroy them, but he stayed his hand.
He wanted their leader.
***
Riley raced around the battleground, firing at the Turok Han at every opportunity, as were the rest of his men. The only problem, though, was the toughness of the strange new vampires. The blasters barely seemed to stun them even on lethal setting. It took concentrated fire for several moments to kill even a single Turok Han.
As he ducked behind a stopped police car, Riley tried to look for Faith. The wild Slayer should have made her presence known by now. Riley worried about her. Faith had a way of worming her way into your heart. It was her ready smile and dirty mind that bonded the beautiful Slayer to the soldiers in her team. She was like another guy, only one that was far easier to look at.
A piercing cry rent the air; one that came from the alley down the street from battle. Riley frowned. He'd had no time to cross the war zone to find out what was wrong. He couldn't leave his men.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tara fling a vampire away from her with the power of her mind. The creature flew into the wall of the bar and slumped down, stunned. Following up on the vampire, she shouted a word and the creature vaporized in a burst of flame. Turning, she shot a glance at Riley. He noticed right away how pale she was and the fine lines of weariness at the corner of her eyes.
While he was distracted for a moment, a Turok Han jumped on his back.
***
Cordelia spun around, a veritable dervish of death. Her sword licked out, finding purchase in various vampire bits. Dust choked the air as she rode the wave of destiny around the battle.
Cordy smiled as she fought. She wasn't one to get into fights, normally. Faith and Xander were far more skilled at the killing arts, but it was nice to cut loose and lose herself in the fight, every once in a while. Fights have destinies all their own, and Cordelia was as much a master of it as she was the master of the destinies of mortals.
Even so, she was getting tired. In addition to fighting, Cordelia was creating a zone of providence around the battle. She was weaving luck and probability to make the battle easier for the people on her side and harder for the vampires.
She saw the shadowy master vampire tearing through the troops, displaying a level of strength that impressed even the jaded Power.
In another part of the battle, Graham had scooped up a second blaster and was wielding them both against the shadow manipulating vampire and her legion of silent Turok Han. He was like a new man in the battle. Powerful and skilled, he looked as great a warrior as any she had ever seen. Cordelia watched him, worriedly. She could feel his death rapidly approaching and knew, with the certainty only a Power could have, that his fate was inevitable.
***
Xander finally found his leader.
Beneath the shadowy overhang of a now abandoned coffee shop lurked a short broad, shouldered vampire in green camouflage fatigues. He watched the battle with the detached air of an expert military commander. Two Turok Han crouched at his feet, like a pair of hunting hounds.
Xander drew a curved scimitar from his sword space and melted from the shadows.
The vampire just smiled. " I was wondering when you'd show yourself."
Xander arched one eyebrow in surprise. " You knew I was there?"
Dog Tag shrugged and tapped his nose. " Not a lot gets by me, anymore." Lifting his hands they seemed to flow like melted wax and reformed into a pair of long claws.
" Crap," Xander muttered. " Not another master vampire."
" You know of us?" Dog Tag said, surprised.
" I killed the last master I ran into," Xander smiled.
" Well," Dog smiled. " Now I get to return the favor." He idly reached down and scratched one of the Turok Han behind the ear with a claw.
" Kill."
***
Amy burned yet another vampire. She had long ago slipped her wand into her pocket. It had grown too hot for her to handle, so she was forced to burn the vampires one by one. Which happened to be tiring work. Finding a lull in the skirmish, she took stock of the situation. She, Angel, and Cordelia were all still up and fighting. Graham had completely switched personas from quiet soldier, to vampire killing commando.
Aiming both blasters at the blond vampiress, Graham fire bolt after bolt of electricity at her. She evaded the first two, but was then caught by the third. The blast caused her to collapsed into a mass of shadows that faded away.
The last thing Amy saw was the vampiress smiling.
" Well, look at my little girl. All grown up. At least you didn't get fat, again."
Amy's back stiffened. The voice was even colder than before, but it was still all too familiar to the teenage witch.
She turned around slowly.
" Mamma?"
***
Jackson leapt forward and swung his knife in an exaggerated overhand motion. Buffy evaded the blow only to walk into a strike to the throat with his opposite hand. She fell back, gagging. The tall blond vampire grinned and pressed his advantage. He slashed her across the belly, tearing a hole through her lavender shirt and red drops of blood splattered across the ground.
He laughed for a moment until he saw a thin network of sparks seal off the Slayer's wound.
" Bet you weren't expecting that." Buffy laughed at the expression on the vampire's face. She frowned. " I spent a lot of money on that shirt!" She snapped a kick into his face, forcing him backward. She spun rapidly and launched another kick that flipped him over a car behind him. Following up, Buffy rolled over the hood of the car and whipped her sword around, cutting through the vampire's shirt and digging into the dead flesh beneath.
" I am so tired of things ruining my shirts!" Without any finesse, Buffy started flailing at the vampire, the finely crafted sword slicing through the car as though it was made of foil.
Vainly attempting to escape the raging Slayer, Jackson started to think poorly of his idea of getting a slayer trophy. He kicked Buffy and used his greater weight to drive give him some breathing room. Throwing himself backwards, he placed the chopped car between himself and Buffy. Drawing his gun, he drew a bead on the Immortal Slayer. " I think we should continue this at another time, slayer."
The vampire was shocked to see that Buffy didn't even blink, when she was forced to stare down the barrel of the gun. In fact, she smiled. Then, before Jackson could react to what Buffy was doing, she flung a stake at his heart.
" Guns don't kill people."
As Jackson was disintegrating, his failing ears heard
"...Mr. Pointy kills people."
***
The pair of Turok Han threw themselves at Xander in a snarling fury. Flourishing his sword, Xander spun himself through the air using the unraveling ribbon technique from Sinanju. Twisting like an acrobat, he spun his sword and sliced through the vampire bodies. Landing past the partially diced vampires, Xander whirled around and faced them.
One of the Turok Han was missing an arm and the other clutched at stub where his hand should have been. Xander grinned. The maimed vampires rushed Xander again.
Splaying his hand like a spider, Xander slapped the leading Turk Han in the chest lightly. The creature's rib cage collapsed. Screeching, the first Turok Han dusted.
With a howl, the handless proto-vampire threw himself at Xander. Its good hand raked Xander across the chest. The creature was so enraged that it was a simple matter to decapitate it with a simple flick of his blade.
" Impressive," the military dressed vampire conceded. He seemed unperturbed - as if he spent every evening in the center of battle. " But I think you'll find that I'm a little harder to kill."
" I doubt it." Xander leapt forward, and blade crossed claw.
***
Tara saw Riley fall, a Turok Han latched to his back like an enormous leech. The creature had sunk its teeth into the meaty shoulder of the commando. Riley fell to the ground and rolled about, trying to dislodge the vampire. Looking around, Tara saw that all of the soldiers were in similar straits.
The Turok Han, although few in number, were incredibly hard to kill. The blasters were ineffective, unless the vampire was struck multiple times.
The Turok Han only needed one try to kill or maim.
Tara shook her head. She had spent too much time being around men who frightened her, men like her father and brothers. Then, she came here and met Amy, and through her, Giles and Xander and the Initiative soldiers. In the few days she had known them, they had cared more about her than her real family ever had. She would be dammed if she was going to let them all die!
She reached deep within herself and found the drained core of her magic. Guttering like a dying flame, she drew on its power one last time. Magic rushed along her nerves, and magic words rose unbidden within her mind, a spell placed within her unconscious by her new Book of Shadows.
There were many dimensions attached to this one. Many were realms where demons held sway. In fact, most were. In some weird sort of balance, the dimensions swayed by good were fewer but they were stronger in their own way. One of those dimensions was a realm that contained pure positive energy. Using her Book of Shadows, the blond witch found a way to open a gate to that dimension. Unfortunately, she didn't have the time to set up a gate circle. So, she used the next best thing. Her own body.
As Tara chanted, a white blue corona of light began to blaze around her. On the final word of power, the corona pulsed outward.
***
Riley could feel the teeth of the proto-vampire in his shoulder. The creature was so eager to feed; it didn't even bother reaching for his neck. It just wanted to find flesh beneath its fangs. Its iron hard claws dug rows in his back, and the injuries it caused burned.
He threw himself backwards in a feeble attempt to free himself, to no avail. As he lay on his back, trying to smash the creature into the concrete, a blue-white flash filled his vision. He closed his eyes tightly against the burning light.
Then, he felt relief as the vampire on his back let him go and the creature began to screech. The screech reached a fever pitch right before Riley heard the distinctive pop of a dusting.
Riley groaned and opened up his eyes. He struggled to his feet and looked around to see that his men are similarly disoriented.
" Tara?" Riley croaked. From the corner of his eye he saw the crumpled form of the blond Wicca. Rushing over, he felt for her pulse. As he did so, the men started helping up the few surviving members of the Sunnydale Police Department.
" What happened?" Tara asked fuzzily.
" You saved us." Riley smiled at her. " You done good girl."
" Tell that to my head," she muttered too tired to be meek. She wiped away a trickle of blood from her nose that had started to bleed when she invoked the mighty spell. The trail of red liquid stood in stark contrast against her pale skin and limp yellow hair.
Riley helped her to her feet, and she sagged against him. Riley drew her close and lent her some of his warmth. As he did so, he felt the twinge in his back and his shoulder where the vampire had gouged and bitten him.
Tara felt Riley tense. " A-A-Are you okay?" she stuttered. The meekness was back.
" Fine." As he felt the red stickiness start to run down his back, he amended. " Well, I'm not completely fine, but I'll live till I get back to base."
" What about the team medic?"
" That's him." Riley pointed to a dead soldier, lying near several piles of dust
" Oh."
" Captain Finn." One of remaining soldier ran up to his injured superior. " I was looking for Slayer Faith, 'cause...Uh...I was-" the young man blushed, " kind of worried about her. I remembered that, just before the fight, she went down that alley," and he pointed. " So, I went down there and I didn't find her." The soldier stopped, a worried look plastered across his face.
" Well, what did you find?" Riley asked impatiently.
" Blood," he whispered. " Lots of blood."
***
" Mamma?" Amy's voice dropped and became almost childlike. She looked at Catherine and gaped at the game face she now sported. " Oh god, you've been turned."
Catherine just smiled and licked her lips. " I decided to drop by and see my precious girl while on a little errand." She opened her hand and an orb of energy pulsed steadily with the regularity of a heartbeat appeared, cradled within it. " Picked up this neat little thing," she laughed and held against her shirt. " Tell me the truth, does this match my clothes?"
Amy stepped forward, the confusion at seeing her mother rapidly disappearing beneath blind rage. " You're behind what's wrong with the vampires, aren't you?"
" I do good work." Watching her mother's hand close around the orb of power, Amy saw it vanish to some other dimension. " Now about your behavior," Catherine said, her voice dripping with false motherly sweetness.
Amy didn't say anything in reply. She just drew out her red-hot wand and focused her power through it. With a whoosh, reddish flame covered Catherine Madison. Amy kept her power going for a full minute before her wand became too hot to handle. Hissing, she dropped the wand and clutched her burned hand.
When the flames cleared, Catherine still stood, not smiling. " You ungrateful little freak," she shrieked. " You think I can't protect myself from my own power. Or the power of my daughter? I trained in my abilities long before you *ever* showed up to ruin my life. BURN!"
Black flame coiled from Catherine's hand. On reflex, Amy crossed her wrists in front of her face and shrieked a word. The word came, half remembered, from deep within her mother's memories.
One of the most horrific parts of Catherine's possession of her daughter was the psychic imprint left on her soul. Amy could still remember elements of her mother's life, fragments of glorious high school days lived and discarded, memories of her father and a life once happy, and finally memories of spells - magics dark and light, alike.
She used one of those spells now, and flung every ounce power she had remaining, behind it. A pale moonstone colored shield flared weakly around her. The black flames from Catherine's hands licked at the edges of the shield. Amy's anti-fire shield took a lot of punishment and barely held against the full force of her mother's might.
Finally, inexorably, the shield began to crumble.
***