Title: Family and Blood (Part 3/?)

Author: Chimera

Disclaimer: I don't think this was in the last chapters…WWE characters do not belong to me. (although legally, Jeff Hardy doesn't belong to WWE either, so screw you!) Buffy characters do not belong to me…uh…okay, legally, Druscilla doesn't belong to Buffy anymore, so screw you!…and now I'm mega confused. I'll shut up.

Notes: No I won't. Uh…times, dates, etc, are only for this chappie I think. Just a little easier to follow. The elemental names are either real, being names of necklace pendants or are made up by yours truly. And this is probably the first of up to another two more 'flashback' chappies. I know, I got carried away…I have to learn moderation.

1914, 31 July

Raleigh, NC

Local Time – 9:17 pm

The estate of Gilbert Hardy – dining room

"There is little that can be done, my friend."

Matt snarled, not unlike the growling wolf that tamely walked at his heels. "Ahim not goin' to let 'im just wal-lk in and take my owen brother!" he roared, accent thickening under pressure. His voice turned acidic, a barb he knew had a hundred percent chance of working. "What if it was Adam that was here and at risk?"

"That was low, Matthew. Very low," Jason growled back. He stopped the noise once the slightly - very slightly - tamed wolf stepped in front of the brunette almost nonchalantly.

"It worked, did it not?"

The blonde sighed, staring at the ground to compose himself. He mentally knocked out the tiny voice crying for self-preservation before looking back at his fellow witch. "Fine. We'll do it."

Matt blinked, his hand resting on his pet's head. "You willingly do this with me?"

"I willingly do this with you."

They shared an understanding, sad look. Matt sighed.

"Let's go do it then."

Matt caressed the grey wolf's head and ears one last time before kneeling and attaching a folded sheet of paper to the studded collar. He hid his face in the thick fur for a few seconds, calming himself, before speaking a few words in Latin. The canine whined for a moment before trotting out of the room. Jay watched the animal go, some irrational instinct telling him to grab the note and run. That thought disappeared as a picture of his three friends popped into his head, dead, drained, as the…*creature* stood over them, laughing. He swallowed, suddenly feeling what hundreds of soldiers must have felt like as they marched towards their deaths.

Local Time – 9:55

Gilbert Hardy's estate – 'Northern Gate'

   Candlelight danced along the walls. There were stars, made of red sand, under the eight illuminating black candles. The wax bubbled unnaturally as it dripped slowly down rivulets that deposited the hot wax into each point of each respective star.

   The blonde sat on the floor cross-legged, both of their lefts hands chained securely together over a small ornate pot. The bowl was half filled with smoking herbs and various liquids, and as both men added a single rose petal each the mixture rose until it was only a few drops from overflowing.

   "From our hearts, they whom we hold dear," Matt began.

   "-shall rest, in peace, they whom we hold dear," Jay finished.

   Both picked up silver needle-like instruments, the points sharpened so even a touch could break the skin. Quite deliberately, each man cut the other's wrist, not allowing themselves a wince and trusting each other utterly in the depth of the cut. Their blood mixed, and droplets turned into a steady stream of warm blood into the jar. The mix stilled, and suddenly overflowed. In small wisps of white smoke, the overflowing liquid disappeared.

   They began chanting together, closing their eyes.

   "We give of ourselves freely, no coercion nigh, bring us the creature, we wish for death by." Matt opened his eyes, staring into Jay's blue…no, brown. Were they? No, they were most definitely blue…brown.

   "No harm shall befall the elements, three which we hold dear," Jay said in English, perfectly in sync with Matt's Latin. They then swapped, Matt started the English as Jay began the ancient language of Latin.

   "My brother Jeff." Matt used his free hand to smear a small amount of the mixed blood onto Jay's neck.

   "My friend Adam." Jay did the same to Matt, taking care to mark the vein nearly visible through Matt's pale skin.

   "And baby Shannon," they said together.

   "Highest Athena, lowest Hades, let these remain safe." Matt exchanged a final look with Jay, his vision swimming slightly as blood loss began to affect his mind. "Let these remain, immune, protected, safe."

   They both closed their eyes, knowing without looking that all eight candles were floating a few centimetres above their allotted places. With a few seconds of concentration, the black candles heading for them, all now hovering one on top of another above their hands and the pot. A few errant drops of wax landed on their skin, the bright spark of pain bringing Jay back to the edge of consciousness.

   "Bring us William the Bloody, to take us. Bring him to us, keep him from our loved ones."

   With a final drop of mixed blood and wax the pot started bubbling harder, sending small, ironically freezing droplets of liquid in all directions. Smoke began pouring from the candles, and a sudden sharp pain flew through both men. Reflexively they both tried to curl into themselves, but the chain connecting their hands didn't give.

   The pain and loss of blood was too much. They both slumped forward, foreheads touching, unconscious.

Raleigh Local Time – 9:57

Undisclosed Location

   Druscilla whimpered, holding onto William tightly. "Spikey...stay here with mummy?"

Spike kissed her on the top of the head. "Baby, we both need food. I promise I'll be back soon."

"Miss Aneytte's a naughty girl but she doesn't lie," the mad vampire pouted. "She said if you go tonight you'll disappear and leave me."

"Miss Aneytte's wrong love," Spike said with a touch of irritation in his voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

Druscilla floated off, mumbling something about poison in her tummy. Spike rolled his eyes ever so slightly before walking out into the darkness of the night.

The lone few stars twinkled as he disappeared in a brief gust of smoke.

He landed on all fours. Spike glanced around, sitting back on his haunches. Nose twitching, he detected the aroma of rosemary, the tiniest of garlic, and...blood? Was that blood?

"Bloody 'ell."

He knew he was still in Raleigh; he could sense the heated air and trees native to the area. But why had he mysteriously gone poof and landed...somewhere other?

He sniffed again. A smirk crept over his face as he easily bounded over to the two still, slumped bodies.

Raleigh Local Time – 10:29

Undisclosed Location

"Baby? Look what I brought you..." Spike smiled wickedly.

Druscilla neatly skipped over, before frowning. She pulled on the brunette's hair, so she could see his face. She patted his cheek carefully as she set him down again on Spike's shoulder, then repeated the action with the blonde. She turned a frown to Spike. "But Spikey...you know I like the girls better."

Spike dropped the bodies on the floor, careless of how they landed. "The blonde one's nearly a girl," he protested feebly.

"Spikey, I want a girl!" Druscilla whined.

Spike glanced over the two men, fully prepared to rip out their throats. He moved over as if to do that, when...

"Keep them," Dru purred. "Change them later...please?"

She bit her bottom lip hard. Spike could never resist her mock-innocence face, so he nodded. Dru smiled, then wiped her hand over her mouth. Spike grinned wickedly as he saw blood on her pale white skin. She offered her hand to the blonde with a childlike, bewildered look. "I'm bleeding, Spike."

"Sure are, pet," Spike growled. Druscilla gleefully clapped her hands as Spike shifted into game face and stalked her.

"I like this game," she giggled. Then she turned tail and fled.

   Their laughter and growls echoed through the dreams of the two slumped men.

Raleigh Local Time – 11:01

The estate of Gilbert Hardy – Jeffery's room

"Who's a pretty boy then?"

Jeff lightly tickled Shannon's nose. The blonde's teeth came together with a snap as he tried to bite off Jeff's finger.

"Obviously not him," a laughing voice said from behind him. Jeff whirled around and a delighted grin appeared.

   "Adam!" he nearly squealed.

   The Canadian laughed as he was nearly knocked over by the exuberant Carolinian.

   "I would hug you too, the amazing idiot has prevented that," an unamused voice said.

   Jeff looked up at the taller Adam, his green eyes shining with guilty mirth. He laughed into Adam's jacket. "He's handcuffed to the wall." Adam groaned, but he had to bite back a grin as he saw what the eighteen-year-old Jeff had done to Shannon.

   The smaller blonde growled, one of the numerous braids falling over his eyes. "I swear, I _will_ kill you one of these days."

   "You're in a right pickle there, aren't you baby?" Adam questioned a muscle in his cheek twitching as he fought to control his laughter. He turned to Jeff, cheek still twitching. "And weren't you told to get rid of your weird stuff by your father?"

   Jeff snorted at the suggestion of obeying his father, and Adam had to admit it was a pretty lame point. Jeff hadn't obeyed his father since his thirteenth birthday – his older brother Matt had stopped at ten.

   "Just get me down so I can get this shit out of my hair!"

   "Language, Shannon," Adam frowned. He studied the lock carefully. "Jeffery, where's the key?"

   The unnatural redhead rocked back and forth on his hells, digging for something around his neck. Jeff unclipped the necklace and tossed the key to Adam, for the thousandth time choking back laughter.

   The fourteen-year-old rolled his eyes in frustration. "Just get me down."

   "Where's Matt and Jay?" Adam questioned, the key clicking in the locks. Shannon rubbed his wrists and ankles, then headed for the bathroom.

   "Don't know. Ask mister funny bunny over there," he said sourly over his shoulder.

   The tall blonde looked back at Jeff. Seeing the man was in no way to retort or answer (rolling on the floor laughing tends to remove speech capabilities) he shrugged, his cheek twitching again.

   Shannon stuck his head around the door. "Don't laugh!" he snarled…looking fairly pitiful as Jeff's handiwork fell over his eyes.

   Adam yeeped, Shannon darted back into the bathroom, and Jeff came one step closer to throwing up.

   The tall blonde gave up the fight and started snickering.

   The sight of Shannon Moore with dyed pink braids, pencilled-in facial hair and multiple stencilled piercings was just too weird to resist.

Local Time – unknown. Possibly after midnight. August 1

Undisclosed Location

   Jay blinked awake slowly. Before full consciousness hit him he raised a hand to rub his head. _Ow._

   "Hurts, don't it?" a shaky voice questioned just above him.

   The blonde looked up to see Matt looking down on him…kinda invading personal space. "Uh," he agreed, rolling backwards. Until he smacked into a wall, that is. "Who put a wall there?" Jay asked stupidly.

   Matt chuckled dryly. "Welcome to Hell. Population: two."

   "The spell didn't work?" Jay questioned.

   The brunette nearly whimpered, low in his throat. "It worked. Just not the way we had planned."

   "Please explain," Jay sighed. "Either it worked or it didn't."

   "Yes with a but, and no with an although." Matt leaned back and hit his head on the wall a few times. "I think we were taken somewhere by Mr. Bloody. Since he hasn't killed us, he's either saving us for something or I'm wrong and for some reason you're sharing my Hell."

   For the first time Jay actually looked around. They were in a tiny cell…box would be a better term. Matt was able to sit, but he wouldn't even be able to really squat without hitting his head on the ceiling. The wall Jay had collided with was actually the door, only noticeable by a small window letting in a dim stream of light and a paper-thin crack around the outside. The cell couldn't have been any bigger than 3 foot by 3 foot by 4 foot. He glanced again at Matt, using what little light there was to study his friend. The blonde suddenly winced, and rolled over to the huddled brunette.

   Matt was extremely claustrophobic.

Local Time – 11:59

Gilbert Hardy's estate – Jeffery Hardy's bedroom

Shannon was mumbling all sorts of bad things under his breath as he rubbed furiously at his hair. Various death threats, some fairly inventive torture techniques, horrible little surprises...

He hissed at Jeff as he walked out of the bathroom. "I hate you," he mouthed slowly and deliberately.

Jeff mocked pain, and held his chest. "That hurts, Shanny," he protested, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

He then grinned devilishly. "There's still a little curl in that mane of yours."

Shannon flew at him, but two strong arms caught him only centimetres from the smirking man. "Hold your horses, babe."

"Let me go Adam!" Shannon yelled. "I'll fuckin' kill 'im! He's dead!"

The wolf watched from the doorway, his bright, unnaturally green eyes seeking out his master's kin. He whined, drawing attention to himself.

All three men blinked; Shannon in mid-flight, Adam in a slowly losing battle of keeping the other two apart, and Jeff simply smirking.

The last time they had seen the wolf without Matt by it's side was...well, never.

  _Not even at the party Father threw,_ Jeff smiled.

   He remembered very well the horror that passed through the hall as Matt 'flitted' around the room and complied with his father's wishes of talking to every female in the place. Gilbert Hardy looked faint as the large grey wolf trotted after son and caused every woman, girl and old maid in the place to back away from the brunette as he approached. The senior Hardy had finally had enough and had whispered furiously to 'get that the hell out of here!'. Unfortunately, his father had a most unfortunate habit of pointing to things he was talking about. The man had the bad luck to come out of the party with nine and a half fingers. That had been the first and last party his father ever threw.

Adam approached the canine fairly fearlessly, but stopped and crouched a few feet away. "Hey boy," he crooned. "Where's Matty? Where's your master?" The blonde kept up the soft chatter, making sure he didn't show his teeth. The dog whined again, then surprised Adam by brushing up against him and nearly making him fall. Adam kept his surprise to a minimum, and softly scratched the wolf behind the ear. "Hey, beautiful one, whatcha' doin' here? Matt isn't here…is he?" he asked Shannon and Jeff, looking over his shoulder.

"He's with Jay-Jay," Shannon said softly, slightly in awe of the creature that stood nearly half his height.

"What's on his collar?" Jeff asked, his amazement of anyone except Matt touching the animal pushed aside in favour of curiosity.

Adam gently plucked the folded paper from the dog's collar. The wolf let out another whine and pawed at the hand holding the paper anxiously…as anxiously as an animal could, anyway. He unfolded the paper and briefly skimmed it.

   At the end his heart suddenly decided it liked his stomach more than his chest cavity and dropped. Adam choked back his emotions as Jeff and Shannon exchanged a glance, previous aversion forgotten. The blonde drew in a deep, steadying breath before starting to read aloud.

"Dear Jeffers and Shanny (and Adam if you're there),

You remember the book Shanny found? The witchcraft book, with spells for tracking and repelling demons, etc? I lied.

The book is mine.

I'm sorry Jeff. I kept practicing…yes, after Mom died. I know you stopped; you said it was the thing that took her away. But magick was the only thing I shared with her, and I couldn't give it up. I said I met Jay at a party. It was actually a gathering of witches. I think it was nearly the same situation with you and Jay, Adam. And Shanny…well, you knew. After the whole book thing, you confronted me, and I admitted it. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, as just accepting it as a part of me I needed.

Anyways…you wouldn't happen to remember back before Mom died she told us about Angelus, Scourge of Europe? The story that made you hide under her skirt? Well, guess what? He's made childe. And grandchilde. And one of them is here, in Raleigh. Word on the street is that he's looking for natural born elementals.

Maybe you forgot this part of the history…elementals aren't faeries or elves roaming the forest. They're the 'presences'; the, if trained, magickally gifted.

You're an elemental, Jeff. A Sesa, to be precise. The free spirit. Never captured.

So is Shannon. Gammadion. The protection of the four winds, and power over them.

And guess what, Adam is too. An Arrina. Strength, yet latency. The physical strongest, potential for anything.

Me an' Jay? We're…half elementals, I guess you could say. I'm a Marsalign, warfare, animalia. Jay's a Fierning. Psychic powers.

But if William the Bloody gets his hands on more than one full elemental…just two…he could quite possibly destroy the balance of power all over the world. What does that mean? No magick. None.

Why are we worried?

Because the only thing holding the world together is magick. If there was no magick in the world, we'd be hiding in a rubbish dump praying to survive the next three minutes.

But we found a spell, to stop William's hunt for elementals. Problem is, there's only five full elementals in the world. Three of them being you three, ironically William himself is one, and a woman in Maine. And the spell calls for the last conscious drops of blood of a full elemental.

Jay and I figure two half elementals make one full.

The spell also calls for love for at least half of the elementals. We have that in excess.

And guys…the spell also calls for two sacrifices to William. So as you read this, there's a near 100% chance we're dead. Or worse.

The spell works in the way that as soon as our hearts stop beating, he can never kill another elemental.

Please, Jeff, Shanny, Adam, never forget how much we love each of you. Never forgot us, and we want you all to be happy for the rest of your lives.

                        Love,

                                    Matt and Jay.

   "We need to find them."

   Jeff and Shannon looked at each other, surprised at this same idea.

   "We're invincible against this William dude. We don't have anything to lose," Jeff argued.

   Adam was silent. "Adam, think," Shannon pleaded, his eyes wide and dark with newly-acquired years. "We can't be killed by this dude."

   "Not yet," Adam stressed. He sat, and put his head in his hands. "Just let me think." He felt like there was a mountain of responsibility on his shoulders, being the eldest by nearly six years.

   Coming to a sudden crossroads in his thoughts, he looked up. "Jeff?"

   "Yeah, man?"

   "Matt said you quit doing magick."

   Jeff looked pained, an emotion Adam had never wanted to see on his honorary brother's face. "Yeah." He stared at the ground. "Our mother was a great teacher. As soon as either of us turned five, we started learning her craft." He laughed softly. "I started three years after Matt, and yet a coupl'a months into mah lessons and I was a hella lot stronger than him." He dug his foot into the carpet. "Guess I know why now…I quit practicing when Momma died. When she died…I just couldn't face anything of hers. Father hated it, called it her handicap, her disease."

   Adam studied him for a moment, hardening his heart against the sadness on the redhead's face. "Okay," he thought aloud. "So…if this spell of theirs was to sacrifice themselves…it stands to reason that Jay and Matt'd have to die-" He winced on the word. "-for it to go into effect."

   "So therefore we won't know when and if we're indestructible against William," Shannon finished, looking like Adam felt. "Fuck."

   Adam couldn't blame Shannon for swearing.

   Jeff sighed. "Guys…I might have a way."

Raleigh Local Time – approximately four to six hours after 'capture'

Undisclosed Location

   Matt was nearly catatonic.

   Jay was nearly insane.

   That's the way William found them when he unlocked the door of the cell. Jay looked up, but his eyes, unused to light, rebelled against him and blackened his sight. Matt had no reaction, still rocking backwards and forwards, his eyes hazy and unfocused.

   Spike raised an eyebrow. "What's the matter with your friend?" he questioned. He sniffed, eyes unintentionally lighting up. "The fear is amazing."

   "He's claustrophobic," Jay said shortly, carefully erased of the worry for his friend. Matt had been like that for at least half the time in that cell. He glared up at the man…creature, he reminded himself…unwilling to show any weakness. The sight started coming back to his blue eyes, and he slowly took in the haphazard brown mop and blue-gold eyes. "You're cute," he said offhandedly. "What are you planning to do to us?"

   Spike blinked at the two opposing sentences said in almost the same breath. "Uh, thanks," he said, scratching his head. "I'm Spike. And yeah, how do you feel about living forever?"

   Jay blinked back at him before looking at his friend. "That is what we're here for," he murmured softly, still staring at Matthew. He swallowed as he heard Matt's breathing…shallow, rasping. Without looking back up at Spike, he deliberately made his voice low-pitched. "Could you just hurry?"