Disclaimer: The universe is the property of Mr. Joss Whedon. I didn't invent it, I didn't create it. I'm just maliciously allowing a few of my own characters to have free reign in that universe. Yay.
Chapter 8:
This is not going to be much fun.
Dee stood, her arms held in a standard Kung Fu guard position as she circled the larger vampire.
She's just another vampire, Dee, she thought to herself, you can take her. You have taken her.
Anne had her eyes fixed on her, waiting for the Slayer to commit to an attack.
She's just another vampire.
Dee threw a haymaker punch, aimed at Anne's left temple, the stake clenched tightly in her right hand. It was a feint, with no real force behind it. Anne twisted out of the way, bringing her arms up to block. Dee bent her arm, evading the block as she dropped into a low stance, then sprang back at the Vampire with a vicious backfist at the vampire's right temple. Anne ducked under it, coiling her body like a spring, then she bounded back at the slayer, landing a snap-kick at the Slayer's midsection. She followed with a brutal nailing kick at Dee's knee. She finished the combination, slamming the heel of her left hand up under the slayer's chin. The blow threw the diminutive brunette across the small arena the two women had into a pair of unyielding vampires. She dropped, relatively undignified, to the ground.
Okay, she's a vampire who's learned a few new tricks in the last year. She had the queerest feeling of déja-vu. Once again, the former slayer was outclassing her. It was a good thing she hadn't eaten, otherwise she would be sorely tempted to throw up. Her lungs felt as though they'd had all the air squeezed out of them, then had had concrete poured into them. They didn't seem to want to deflate. Her right knee didn't feel broken, just bent in a weird direction. She could still fight on it.
April winced sympathetically as she saw her sister drop in a heap to the floor. She had watched Dee fight more times than she could remember, but she had never once seen a Vampire land the first punch. It was clear that these two had a history, although Dee had been less-than-forthcoming with details of that history. It was clear that Anne wasn't one of Dee's favorite people; though Dee had never specified what had led to this literal and figurative blood feud between the two.
Dee pulled herself to her feet. It wasn't the elegant handspring April had seen her sister do so many times. It was a slow, labored motion. Whatever the Vampire had hit her with, it had really sent the slayer reeling.
Anne paced, almost leisurely in front of Dee as she rose painfully to her feet, "still have trouble with patience, do you?" She shook her head, "that's what almost got you killed last time."
"It turned out pretty well that time." Dee wasn't trying to hide the effort it took to force the words out. She still had the two stakes clenched in her fists. She was gripping them so tightly that even from the opposite side of the arena, April could see that her knuckles were turning white. She tried to pull away from the vampires holding her, but they were simply too strong.
That, and the rather nasty-looking broadsword each one was carrying discouraged anything which could be construed as resistance.
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that." Anne crossed the ten feet between her and the slayer in a blur, gripping Dee by the throat, "what was it that fixed you on the bridge that night?"
"Maybe I was never broken." Dee's voice rasped through the Vampire's grip. She just needed a couple of seconds. Just two seconds to rest, get her bearings back, regain the advantage for just a split second.
"Oh, no. You were definitely broken." Anne smiled, conspiratorially, "was it the lesbian witch? Just between us girls, Oz never quite recovered from the way they broke it off, but he wouldn't have hesitated to ask for her help if he needed to."
"What 'fixed' me," Dee drove the wooden stake in her right hand into the Vampire's arm; about midway between the wrist and the elbow. She felt Anne's grip slacken, and her feet dropped to the floor. She drove her forehead as hard as she could through the larger Vampire's, stunning her as she advanced, locking her right knee behind Anne's, and pushed the Vampire to the ground. She dropped on top of the vampire, the stake in her hand poised to slam into the center of Anne's chest, "is none of your damned business." She drove the stake downwards.
Anne wasn't going to let it be that easy.
Before the stake could connect, she rolled to her left and sprang to her feet. "Slayer's still got a little fight in her," she smiled venomously, "works for me."
Dee reached for the clasp in the center of her chest and released it. The two swords on her back fell to the ground. At the moment, they were doing little other than impeding her movement, and it was unlikely that she'd have the chance to reach for them anyway. She had one chance to get both her and her sister out of this alive, and it depended on her being able to move like a sonuvabitch. She took a quick mental inventory of the weapons she was still carrying. Two blackwood chopsticks in her hair, a wooden stake in each hand, and a dagger in her boot. Small weapons that didn't slow her down, and if she did this just right, it would be enough.
Even had it not been for the fact that she had a vested interest in the outcome of the combat between the two enemies, April had to admit that she would probably have found the two women's different styles quite interesting. They both seemed to use the same style, their moves were almost identical, but the way in which they were applied was vastly different. Anne was all technique. Her stance, her strikes, the way she moved was classic Bak Fu Pai, and it was perfect. Dee, by contrast had a far less refined style. Still Bak Fu Pai, but her strikes and attacks showed far more aggression. Her strikes were brutal and direct, with none of the flair that her Vampire counterpart had shown. She concentrated on what worked, rather than what looked good.
Dee dove over Anne's leg as she attempted to sweep it under her knocking her off balance. She rolled forward, coming back to her feet facing the vampire.
"Metal?" Anne looked at the dagger Dee had retrieved from the sheath in her boot, "how long have you been handling the slayer gig now?"
Dee made no response as she hurled the dagger at one of the overhead pipes, one that was thickly insulated, praying that it was what she thought it was.
The steel blade, thrown with a force that no normal human could achieve struck the PVC pipe point first, and penetrated to the hilt in it.
Water has a rather interesting property when held under pressure. Namely that you can force it well above its boiling point without it actually boiling, as long as it is held under pressure. In principle, if you keep it under pressure, it will never boil.
When that pressure is released, however…
The knife fired out of the pipe with the approximate force of a crossbow bolt, Dee had to dive to the side to avoid receiving it hilt-first in the forehead. The water the pipe carried, well above its boiling point, pushed its way out through the path of least resistance, and dozens of gallons of superheated water burst into thick steam in an instant, raining down on the two women, masking them for a moment from the vampires which surrounded them.
April felt both of the vampires holding her jerk backwards and she felt their hands on her arms loosen their grips.
No, it wasn't that. She didn't feel them loosening, she felt them dissolving.
Her gaze shot to the vampire to her right, as he looked down in stunned shock, a long blackwood chopstick marking the center of his chest. He held that stunned look right until his body crumbled in a neat pile of dust and ash.
April still hadn't put together a picture of what had happened when a large object slammed into her, lifting her off her feet carrying her into the darkness. She saw a glimpse of dark hair which, until moments ago, had been held in place by a pair of blackwood chopsticks.
Dee.
Dee could not remember ever having run so fast. Not when she'd slammed that homerun all those years ago, not when her father had… died and the sheer shame of what she'd done had sent her fleeing from the hospital, not when her mother had come to see her graduate, and she couldn't bring herself to walk across the stage. Never had she run so fast. There was a long, narrow hallway at the end of the room. If she could get them in there, the Vampires would be forced to come after them two at a time at most.
That, she could handle.
Dee's desperation move had bought them maybe two seconds of confusion. Anne was buried in the cloud of steam Dee had created and with any luck, wouldn't know exactly what had happened for at least a second. The minions weren't smart enough to figure out what to do on their own, so until Ann knew what was going on, they had a window.
"What are you waiting for, you idiots? Get after them!"
But, apparently, not a very big window. Already, she could hear the disorganized footsteps of the Vampires behind them as they bottlenecked into the narrow hallway.
Dee could see a door at the end of the hallway. She skidded to a stop, still holding her sister over her shoulder, and threw a sidekick putting as much of her Slayer-enhanced muscle as she could behind it.
The door held.
"Shit."
She kicked again, the door clanged, but stubbornly refused to open. She checked the doorknob. It was locked.
The Vampires were getting closer, and they were trapped.
"Dee, let me down, now!" The authority in April's voice practically forced Dee to comply.
"What are you…?" Dee realized that April had a keyring in her hand, holding a dozen or so keys.
"You take care of them," she nodded at the line of Vampires now coming dangerously close, "I've got this."
"Apes, you've just earned yourself a ride home." Dee told her as she stood before the incoming horde of Vampires, as if daring them to come at her.
The first two vampires rushed her. She ducked to the left as one of them swung a sword overhand down at her, she delivered a snapkick just below his ribcage, bending him forward, she slammed the stake in her left hand into his back. She dropped into a low spin, bringing the point of her second stake into the center of the second Vampire's chest as he swung his own sword down at the Slayer's undefended back. Both vanished in a cloud of ash.
Those were the "gimmies," she thought to herself, the next two will be more cautious; the two after that will be more cautious still.
As if hearing her thoughts, the two vampires who now led the others reflexively reared back from the slayer. For the first time since she and April had been trapped, she saw fear in their eyes.
The first attacked with a perfect side-kick, catching Dee in the midsection. The air in her lungs blasted out, doubling the slayer over for the second it took for the Vampire to follow it up with a downwards slash with his sword.
Dee recovered fast enough to straighten up and catch the Vampire's forearms on her own, delivering a kick to his groin. She used his momentary lapse in concentration to deliver a stake to the center of his chest. The second vampire was already mid-swing in an attempt to decapitate her while she dispatched his companion. She dropped down allowing the blade to cut through the air and the cloud of dust which had once been the vampire before her. The blade buried itself it the chest of the vampire behind him, who growled in pain and anger, backhanded the bridge of the Vampire's nose.
Dissention in the ranks? I can live with that.
She slammed the stake deep in the Vampire's chest as he recovered from his companion's attack.
"Dee, I've got it!"
God bless you, April.
April swung the door opened, then twisted the key in the lock, locking the door. If we're going to escape this way, best to make sure that it's hard for them to follow. She smoothly snapped the key to the left, breaking it off inside the lock as Dee rolled backwards through the door and she slammed it shut, hearing the lock slide into place. If Dee couldn't break that door down, it seemed likely that none of the Vampires on the other side could either. She'd blocked the lock, so nobody could open the door from the other side.
Anne smiled as she watched the door slam, blocking them from the Slayer and her sister. So far, so good.
She held a two-way radio up to her lips, "the mouse has cleared the mousetrap. I want all personnel to allow them free passage all the way to the lobby."
The building was rather simply laid out. Stairwells in every corner, all leading down to the first floor. It looked as though they had caught Anne and her cronies off-guard by getting out of her little trap, as they encountered no resistance whatsoever on the trip down to the first floor. Dee had looked over the blueprints and knew that the second and ground floors both opened into a large lobby, which, to her knowledge was the only other way in and out of the building.
The lobby was remarkably elaborate. Like a palace in itself. It looked as if Evil was a pretty profitable enterprise these days. The front door was locked with what appeared to be an electronic lock of some variety.
"Apes, can you open that?"
"I don't know. No promises."
"Don't worry, if you can't, I'll just break the glass. I just don't want to draw more attention than I have to."
"More attention than you drew a few minutes ago?"
"Shut up. Can you open it?" Dee pressed.
April frowned, "I don't have to."
"What?"
"It's unlocked."
"That can't be right. They knew we were coming, they would have at least locked the front door."
"Maybe they knew you could break the glass anyway."
Dee shook her head, "That's not Anne's style."
"You're about to look a gift horse in the mouth?"
Dee shook her head, "hell, no. Let's go."
"Stop right there, Slayer."
Dee froze, and turned slowly to face her nemesis. "Anne, this habit of showing up just as I'm about to break in or out of your building is getting really annoying."
The Vampires she'd had with her now lined the balcony which overlooked the lobby from the second floor.
"You assume I'm here to stop you."
"Well, yeah. When someone says 'stop right there,' I assume it means that they want me to stop."
"Oh, I intend to let you leave. Your sister, however, has to stay."
"Really. How exactly were you planning on making me leave her behind?"
Anne smiled, "I don't have to."
She raised her left hand. Out of the corner of her eye, Dee saw her sister stiffen, then slowly take a step forward, as if in a trance.
"April." Dee turned to her sister, trying to grab her attention. It was to no avail. Her eyes seemed focused on some distant point as she walked relentlessly forward.
"April." She reached out, grabbing her sister by the arm.
She felt something surge through her, as though she'd gripped a high-voltage wire. She felt her pulse quicken and her breathing halt. She felt every muscle in her body contract. The air in her lungs was blown out by the random contractions of her diaphragm, and the muscles in her legs slackened, nearly dropping her to the ground.
April, however, finally reacted to her sister's efforts. She slowly, casually turned to face her sister as she attempted to bring her breathing under control, then casually closed and opened her eyes.
They were yellow, catlike.
Her brow deepened, taking on a cromagnonesque appearance, as though she'd grown a new plate of bone under the skin of her forehead protecting her eyes.
And from her teeth grew a very long, nasty looking pair of fangs.
"As you can see," Anne replied, "she no longer has a place with you."
