Chapter 9
Faith reacted to the vampire's move in a split second. She turned and with a flying kick, she sent him stumbling backwards. At the same time, both female vampires attacked Faith as one. The door to the next room was unguarded. I glanced at Gunn, who was helping Wesley to get up.
"Get him out of here, hurry," I hissed softly, nodding towards the door.
Spike turned into his vampire face and lunged at Drusilla, while Angelus' fist hit Faith in the middle of her face and sent her flying and crashing into a wall. Immediately, she jumped back onto both feet and grinned at the fuming vampire. Angelus didn't look impressed. His face changed back, revealing his typical arrogant smirk.
"This is fun. I can't remember the last time I was in a good fight. I mean, yeah, okay, last week. But fighting a Slayer..." he said, breathing deeply as if he was savouring the moment. "Brings back some great memories..."
"Back at ya. Man, it's been a while since I've had a real challenge." The Slayer said, as she wiped her lip with the back of her hand and glanced at the blood. She flipped another stake out of her jacket pocket and clenched her fist around it.
"Best part is, I'm the good guy in this story," Faith said, lunging at him and placing a dropkick in the middle of his chest which sent him flying backwards into Drusilla. "And good guys always win."
I kept glancing at the fight between the vampire and the Sayer, as I helped to drag Wesley towards the door. We were almost there.
"Fred, watch out!" I heard Gunn shout all of a sudden. I turned around. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Darla, but she definitely hadn't forgotten about us, because she stalked towards me like a cat who's found her pray.
I made ready to duck, but at the same time I felt Wesley wincing in my arms as he tried to get onto his feet. He lifted up his hand at the blonde vampire and his eyes narrowed in seething hatred towards the creature that nearly tortured him to death.
He muttered something through gritted teeth, and a electric blue ray shot from his hands. Darla squealed, writhed in pain, and fell to her knees. Angelus and Drusilla's heads snapped back towards her.
"Darla," Angelus said, pushing Faith out of his way, and rushing over to his Sire. Drusilla just smiled at Wesley, who was using up all his strength trying to maintain the spell, then at Spike.
"Poor boy. Soon he'll be all empty inside..." she said, tilting her head, right before Spike muttered: "Sorry love," and slammed his elbow into her nose.
I looked at Wesley. His strength did seem to be fading fast. Tentatively, I clutched his arm, but the electric blue ray was now nothing more than a light shimmer, and finally disappeared. Darla slowly opened her eyes and looked at Wes angrily while she rubbed her temples.
"Hell, try playing fair, you little miscreant," she snapped as she jumped back onto her feet and stormed towards us.
"Fred, go!" Gunn yelled as he countered Darla's attack. Quickly, I grabbed Wesley's arm and started dragging him into the other room, trying not to get distracted by the thumps and gasps of pain I heard behind my back.
Drusilla let out a soft squeal when Spike closed his hands around her throat, and her eyes showed the hurt she felt at being betrayed by her Childe. Quickly, Spike grabbed a stake from the pocket of his leather duster, clenched his fist around it and cocked it back, ready to strike. Drusilla whimpered...
"Not a chance Spike!" Angelus growled suddenly from behind him, lunging at him and throwing him to the floor. He stared at his blonde Grandchilde with pure hatred while keeping him pinned to the ground.
"You could've had it all. With you on our side, we could have been a plague on humanity. But you had to get infatuated by that little blonde bitch, hadn't you? You're a disappointment to every vampire that ever walked the Earth," Angelus hissed. "You're disgusting Spike. Not even worth the kill." He spat in the blonde vampire's face and stood up, lifting Spike by his collar and tossing him aside.
Meanwhile, me and Wesley almost reached the window. Using all my strength, I heaved him up to the moldy windowsill, but then hesitated.
"Fred, we have to go," Wesley said with an urgent undertone to his voice.
"I know," I said, despairing. "I just have to go back and tell the others to run. We can't just leave them here!" Wes clenched his jaw.
"You mean you can't leave Charles behind. Am I right?" he said, the pain in his voice drifting to the surface.
"Wes, this is really not a good time to become jealous-love-triangle-guy, okay?" I exclaimed. "These people have risked their lives –or, you know, unlives– and are still risking them, because I convinced them to come here and save you. The least I could do is not leave them in this hellhole. okay?" I said, more harshly than I had intended. Wesley's expression softened and he nodded slowly.
"You went through a lot of trouble to rescue me. You even broke Faith out of jail..." The former Watcher paused, and I could still hear the sounds of the struggle drifting in from the next room.
"You're right, go and tell them to get out of here. They might want to finish what they started, but at least this way they can make a choice." He looked up at me and smiled faintly. I was suddenly taken aback by the unconditional love that spoke from his eyes, and felt my heart skip a beat.
"Uhm... right. Be right back," I stammered and rushed back into the room. Things seemed to be looking up, I thought to myself. Faith wasn't even looking tired yet and was beating Angelus with renewed vigor. Spike and Drusilla were fighting to the death now– all their passion seemed to have transformed into anger.
"Guys, it's time to go!" I yelled at them.
"Are you frickin' kidding me? Things are just getting interesting," Faith said in between a punch and a dropkick..
"Lemme finish this first love," Spike said with his usual self-confident smirk as he threw his former lover to the hardwood floor and dived for the stake that had fallen to the ground a couple of feet away.
Suddenly I heard a choking sound. I snapped my head round and my breath stopped in my throat. Charles was thrown to the floor, badly beaten. Darla was leaning over him, both hands closed tightly around his throat while she pushed down with all her weight.
"Charles!" I yelled, but neither of them reacted.
"Say goodnight to your girlfriend, my dear boy," the blonde vampire hissed into Charles's ear as his breath became more and more rasping, desperate to inhale even the slightest bit of air.
Quickly, I ran back to the next room and broke off a wooden board from the paned up window. Before Wesley could react, I had raced back. Suddenly I felt dead calm. I rushed up to Charles and Darla with a new found confidence, took a deep breath and plunged the wooden stake straight into the vampire's heart.
Immediately, she loosened her grip on Charles throat. He gasped and coughed, breathing in raggedly and hoarsely. Darla turned around, her eyes wide in surprise.
"You killed me. Bitch..." she mumbled and turned into dust before my eyes.
With a growl, Angelus turned round, just in time to see the pointy window pane fall to the ground on the place where his Sire had stood only a second ago. His eyes narrowed and he looked at me with a mix of astonishment and hate.
"You killed my girl..." he hissed.
"Okay, now it's time to go!" Faith yelled when she saw the look on the vampire's face. In a split second, the three of us were running for the exit. Faith looked back at Spike.
"Spike, if you wanna hang, that's fine with me, but we're gonna split!" Faith yelled.
The bleach blonde vampire looked up. He was straddled on top of Dru, the stake dangling only inches above her heart. Pleadingly, she looked into his eyes and whimpered. Something inside of him seemed to soften. He looked up at us again, glanced back at Drusilla and blinked. With a gesture as confident as the rest of them, he slipped the stake back into his pocket and punched her in the face, knocking her out cold.
"Some other day," he said softly as he got up and quickly made his way over to us. Hurriedly, we joined Wesley by the window.
"Charles and Wes, you go first," I said, looking back nervously. Angelus wasn't coming after us, and somehow that didn't strike me as a good sign.
"What? You're kidding me right?" Charles replied indignantly. I sighed.
"Look, I don't care if this goes against your male pride or your ego or whatever. You're hurt, and so is Wesley. Now go!" I said, starting to lose my temper. Without further muttering they made their way through the broken window panes and into the soft gleam of the moonlight. Faith followed them, supporting Wesley with one hand.
Spike and I quickly climbed onto the windowsill, ready to join the others outside. Swinging my legs from the inside of the house to the outside, I took a deep breath. The night air filled my lungs, and for the first time in what seemed to be a very long time, I relaxed again. I smiled at the others.
Faith grinned and shook her head in disbelief, as if she couldn't grasp that we'd all made it unharmed. The others smiled back.
Then, in only a fraction of a second, their smile suddenly seemed to freeze over. Wesley gasped and the look on Charles's face was that of pure horror. At the same time, I felt a cold hand grabbing my neck and pulling me back inside.
"You killed my girl..." I heard Angelus repeat into my ear from behind me, "And you know what they say: payback's a bitch..."
And in a split second, he sunk his teeth into my neck and began draining my blood. I closed my eyes and winced. In the distance, I could hear the echos of the others' cries, while the pain slowly became less excruciating. Feeling the ground slip away beneath my feet, I felt my body turn cold, and finally fell into darkness.
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THE END
(Yes, I know, cliffhanger. I'm evil. Anyway, I hope you liked the fic, please review! And since I'm such a nice person, there's a sequel in writing, called "Hunter and Prey". Chapters 1 and 2 are up, 3 is being beta-d and 4 is in writing. Just click on my pen name and then on the title in the list of my fics). Thanks for reading!