Chapter 13

As Faith soon discovered, being lost in LA at night with no money and very little posessions is not a good thing. She only knew to head in the direction of Angel Investigations, and that's it, and she only had a vague idea of where that was. It had been two years since Faith had been there last, and then she was preoccupied with killing Angel. She knew it was in the CBD, but the CBD of LA was huge, and it would take her forever to find the place without some help. Also, the prison she was being held in was a long way out of town, and Faith had no money to get a cab or train into the heart of LA.

Faith decided the best thing she could do was to start walking in the direction of the skyscrapers on the horizon, at least that way she might get ten miles closer before the sun came up.

The sun finally came up, and Downtown LA looked as far away as it had the previous night. Faith soon realised that she'd die of exhaustion before she managed to walk there. She was walking beside the freeway. She had, had her hand stuck out beside her for about an hour while walking, but no one noticed, or no one cared enough to stop and give her a lift. She looked up at the freeway again, and could hardly see a car in sight. That was very unusual, this was LA after all, and there were cars on the roads at almost every time of day imaginable. Faith looked up to see the tall buildings of Downtown LA for what seemed like the hundredth time. She turned and looked around to see if there was any traffic coming yet. Faith saw one car coming down the freeway, three lanes away from her. She scaled concrete wall, which was about five feet high, and stuck her hand out, not expecting any results. She looked up at the sun and guessed that it was between five thirty or six in the morning. Faith couldn't get over how little cars there was on the road. Abruptly the car pulled to a stop beside Faith. She looked to the side and saw that the car was a convertible Ferrari, and that it was yellow; much to Faith's liking.

"Going somewhere?" the man asked.

"Yeah, heading into town. Care to give me a lift?" Faith replied. The young man, around twenty or so appeared to think for a while, then he leaned over and opened the passenger door, waiting for Faith to get in.

Everyone was sitting around in the lounge room of the Summers' home, all looking at each other, no one knowing what to do. There was the whole situation with Faith. While no one in particular liked Faith, even if she was meant to be reformed from turning herself in. On the other hand there was Willow's situation in England.

"Xander, how much money do you have?" Buffy asked him.

"Uhh… I don't really know. Should be enough for a one way ticket to England if that's what you're thinking," he replied. Buffy just nodded in response.

"Dawn?" Buffy asked.

"Uhh, two hundred dollars, I think," Dawn replied.

"Look, we don't even know how bad the situation with Willow is. I don't think we should be jumping ahead and thinking of going to England or anything at the moment. You two said that Giles'd ring back, and I think that we should wait until he does," Dawn said.

"I wasn't making any major plans, just thinking that's all. Giles was really shaken up on the phone, so it must have been pretty bad, that's all," Buffy replied.

"I say we wait until Giles rings back before we rush off and do anything," Xander added.

Giles paced the cabin, back and forward, back and forward. He didn't know what to do. The coven had trapped Willow, Cassia and himself inside this cabin. It was quite obvious to Giles that something else was going on, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He stopped pacing and looked out the window towards the main settlement. He couldn't see a thing beyond the barrier, everything now was distorted and blurred. He guessed that the coven had either changed or strengthened the barrier holding them inside.

"Can you do anything to get us out of here?" he pleaded with Cassia.

"N-no. I can't. I'm only good at natural magicks," Cassia replied. Giles just sighed in return.

"How about the barrier? Can you do anything about that?" he asked.

"It's too strong. I can't get through it by myself," Cassia replied. Giles just nodded, showing that he knew that, that was the answer before Cassia spoke it. He walked over to the chair beside Willow's bed and sat down. He put his hand out to wake Willow, but it met the same kind of barrier that was around the cabin.

"Dammit!" Giles exclaimed while standing from the chair. He grabbed the lamp that was beside him and threw it as hard as possible at Willow. The lamp shattered and the pieces flew back towards Giles. He fell backwards, trying to avoid the pieces of broken glass and plastic that were flying back towards him, but he hit his head hard on the wall and slipped into darkness.

Spike figured that if patience was a virtue, it wasn't his. They'd been driving for what seemed like hours, and nothing had changed. Not one thing at all. They were still in the desert. There was still no sign of civilization, or life for that matter.

"Hey mate? Where we going?" Spike asked the driver. The driver just turned and looked at him then turned his head and looked out the windscreen again. After a moment, he replied,

"You will see. The road ahead is a long way away, and when you get there, I will have to leave you, and you will have to go on, on your own. It is a hard and long journey, but eventually you shall get to your destination."

"Yeah, how can I get to my destination when I don't even know where the bleedin' hell I am?" Spike replied. It was another long moment before the driver replied.

"You will see. You will see all, once we get to the road." Spike just sighed and returned to staring out the window, and trying not to let the memories that were coming back get to him too much.

Västerås – Sweden

It wasn't uncommon to see a tall, well built, blonde haired, blue eyed man walking along the docks in Västerås. However, it was uncommon to see someone walking down the docks at dusk. It was well known knowledge that no one stays down at the docks after dark for any long periods of time. The Dock area of Västerås had the highest casualty rate in Sweden. Everyone in the relatively large city thought that it was because of gangs, but Harmond knew better. He knew that the docks were the favourite hangout for the vampires of the town. For what reasons, he didn't know. Honestly, who would want to spend the twelve or so hours that they were awake at the docks? Sure, it was the largest inland port in Sweden, but that didn't mean that the vamps would have to come down here all the time.

Harmond kept walking down the docks. Soon he came beside a large freighter ship called The Rising Sun IV. This was the ship he was meant to watch. His assignment was simple. Take out the vampires coming off the ship after they were sighted getting on board in Stockholm. He was to capture the one female vampire with them and take her to the Council's headquarters in Västerås, where hopefully they would get some sort of information out of her. Harmond didn't question what information they needed, that wasn't his job. He didn't have to figure out these things, just do what the Watchers Council told him to do. After all, he technically wasn't a member of the Council. He just owed them a favour, a very big favour.

An hour passed before there was any movement. Harmond had stayed behind a large stack of crates to remain out of sight. Squinting through the darkness, Harmond saw figures moving near the railing of the Rising Sun IV. He counted four vamps plus the female. He saw them start to come down the gangplank, obviously weary of something. Perhaps they knew he was there, waiting to kill them. Harmond ducked down as the lead vampire stopped halfway down the gangplank and looked in his direction.

"It's now or never," he said through his teeth, his heavy accent showing. He grabbed his crossbow out of the black sports bag he was carrying, as well as two stakes, and a short dagger that he put in the back pocket of his ski pants. He loaded the bolt into the simple crossbow, kneeled up so his torso was above the crate, took aim and fired at the group of vampires, specifically the lead one. Harmond was surprised to see that they were looking elsewhere when he fired the bolt. It was almost like they were distracted by something.

He ducked down behind the crates and loaded the crossbow again. He had missed the heart on his first shot, but he knew he wouldn't miss again. Harmond popped up above the crates, took greater aim now. The vampires were moving down the gangplank now. He pulled the trigger on the crossbow and with a twang, the bolt fired and hit the lead vampire in the heart, turning him to dust. Again, Harmond ducked down behind the crates, loaded the crossbow and fired. He hit another vampire before realising that the vampires weren't even paying any attention to him. It was like something had them spooked. Realising that this was his opportunity, Harmond ran out from behind the crates, pulled a stake out of his jacket, and rammed it into the heart of another vampire.

That had finally caught the two remaining vampire's attention. The female and the remaining male turned to Harmond and took up a fighting stance. Harmond pulled another stake out of his jacket and held it up in front of him, ready to take them on. The male vampire charged at him, swinging as he came. Harmond easily ducked his punch and delivered his own uppercut into the vampire's midsection. As fast as he could, Harmond stood back up, grabbed the back of the vampire's head and brought it down onto his knee, breaking the vampire's nose. He swept the vampire's legs out from under him, crouched down and shoved the stake through the vampire's heart, turning him to dust.

Before he could recuperate, the female vampire had charged at him and pinned him to the ground. It was obvious that Harmond had just fought a newborn vamp, and it was obvious that this female had been around for a long time. The vampire looked down at Harmond.

"Do you honestly think you'd be able to kill me? Do you even know who I am weak man?" she hissed at him. Her face contorted into her true vampire face, and she brought her fangs down to Harmond's neck. Before she could pierce his skin, Harmond slammed his head into the Vampire's, making the female vampire release her grip on Harmond for a split second, which was enough.

"I don't care who you are," Harmond replied. He rolled out from under the female vampire, stood up and pulled his knife out from his back pocket. Before the vampire could turn around, Harmond had sliced a deep cut across the back of the Vampire's neck, and down her back, making her loose a lot of blood. He then grabbed his handcuffs out of his jacket and put them around the vampire's hands. "You're coming with me, now." Harmond commanded. He pulled her up in front of him and began escorting her down the docks. He was very pleased with himself. He didn't even manage to get hit once. That was a rare occurrence. Usually when he got into any encounters with Vampires he'd need to rest for three days before he'd be able to walk again, and he'd taken out four vampires, and captured what looked like a very old one in ten minutes. "Wait'll the boys hear about this," he muttered to himself. He looked out to the lake that the port was on. There were a few boats out tonight, not many though.

He heard a distant twanging sound, and when he looked back he saw a large wooden object sticking out the back of the female vampire, right around where her heart should be. He realised that it was a crossbow bolt. Before his eyes, the vampire turned to dust, and Harmond saw a dark figure standing sixty feet ahead of them on the docks, holding a crossbow up. It was too dark for Harmond to make out any features on the figure. He just knew that it was large, probably male, and had a crossbow.

"Hey!" Harmond yelled out. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He waited for a reply from the figure, but nothing came. He could see the figure doing something, but he was too far away, and it was too dark to see anything with detail. Harmond saw the figure raise the crossbow towards him. "Hey! I'm not a vampire!" he called out. Before he'd finished yelling, the figure shot him in the chest with the crossbow. Red hot fiery pain shot through every fibre of Harmond's body as the crossbow bolt was lodged in his chest. He fell to his knees, gripping at the bolt, trying to get it out. Then, another bolt entered his right shoulder, causing Harmond to fall onto his back. He couldn't believe how much pain there was. It was coursing through him without any barriers to stop it. He clenched his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, his vision was blurred, but he saw enough to know that the figure was standing over him, with the crossbow pointing at his head. The last sound he heard was the twang of the crossbow releasing the bolt.