§ This chapter has been reposted due to part of a paragraph being 'eaten' by the upload process.

§ The first chapter has been revised. This was finished a very long time ago, but, along with the first chapter, got stuck in revision. (It did not help that I kept having to transcribe the corrections by hand, which is time-consuming & it was often easier to simply retype the story completely instead of locating wherever a tweak had been made & altering the text to reflect the alterations.) I'm really sorry about this.

To the majority of the reviewers: thank you, here, finally, is more & I'm glad so many of you are worried for Amelia. To Suki Sakura, who asked questions: I'm not saying what will happen to Amelia -- read on for that; guess which parings, I'm not telling (yet); Lina and the others know about the barrow because records were kept and alarms set; and I've no idea 'who is it,' what's this it you're talking about?

§ Assorted disclaimers: This is an AU, and rated mostly for violence. Slayers doesn't belong to me, it is owned by Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I am making no profit off of this story.

Blood Red Roses
by Ryo Hoshi

Cold Haily Rainy Night Ge

Filia poured another cup of herbal tea for Val, and then poured the dregs into her own cup. With a small, worried sigh, she put the kettle on again. Amelia was taking too long, in Filia's opinion.

It seemed that Amelia was taking too long in Val's opinion, too. Filia had managed to calm him quickly after Amelia had left, with both the idea of having his torch back soon and mint tea. Just having his torch was usually enough to keep him from panicking in the dark; the idea that he would soon have his torch again was enough to calm him while there was still some light.

However, since Amelia had left, the sky had gotten dark and the rain had started to fall even harder. Filia had served herself and Val dinner, leaving some for Amelia when she finally got back, and sat down in the kitchen with Val to wait.

Thunder had been rumbling in the distance for a while when Filia finally decided to try telephoning someone to report Amelia's disappearance, even though she knew that some people would be convinced that she was responsible for it. She stood up, and walked towards where the phone sat, and picked up the receiver.

As she held it to her ear, only to discover that the line was dead, lighting flashed, illuminating the world outside her kitchen window.

Standing outside her window, staring in, was a naked man with a wolf's head. His yellow eyes stared at her, his mouth hanging open and his tongue hanging out.

As lighting's light faded, Filia screamed.

"Looks like several people have been in here, Zel," Gourry said, sitting back on his heels beside the tunnel's entrance.

"I know that, Gourry," Zelgadiss said with a sigh. "What we need to know is if the other one's free yet... Can you tell?"

Gourry shrugged. "If it's free, it's still in there... I only see human tracks...and before you ask, Zel, I can't tell how many and what directions. All this rain's not helpful..."

"It's still in there. So all we are to do is make sure nobody goes in there and it doesn't leave there, if it's already free."

Gourry nodded, with a sigh. "Yes, that's our orders... I'm just not sure that nobody's in there..."

"That's none of our business; we're not supposed to go in except to put them back in. Besides, the wolf-headed one wouldn't have left if there had been anybody still alive in there..."

Zelgadiss squatted down beside the entrance to the tunnel, opposite Gourry. "...right?"

"You know more than I do about this," Gourry replied.

Zelgadiss sighed softly, and hoped he was right...and that he wasn't really hearing what sounded like a woman screaming inside there.

"Val...?" Filia said, trying to figure out exactly where would be the safest place for Val to go that she knew he would go if she told him to. Upstairs, in the attic, would probably be the safest spot, but Val still didn't have his torch... The basement might also be safe, but Filia hadn't even found out how to get into it yet, and it too would be dark anyway. None of the ground floor rooms of the cottage were really safe, either, though they did have electric lights.

Filia sighed. "Stay behind me." Val nodded and clung to Filia's skirt, provoking another sigh. Having him clinging to her skirt would not make it any easier to protect him... Of course, it's not like I can do much to protect him, Filia thought as she grabbed the broom.

There was a pounding at the door to the kitchen garden, just beside her kitchen window. Filia automatically reached for it, and paused for a few seconds. Why do I think it's that wolf-headed monster...? If it wanted in, it would have broken in through the window, right? It's probably just Amelia..., she told herself.

She opened the door, and stared. It really was the wolf-headed man. He grinned and moved towards her, reaching for her, and Filia stepped back, biting her tongue gently so she could keep from screaming. Val hid behind her skirt, barely peaking past her as the wolf-headed man continued to move towards Filia, backing her closer and closer to the kitchen table.

Filia gasped as she felt the edge of the table gently touch her back, and the wolf-headed man yipped for joy, lunging for her. Filia leaped out of his way, Val escaping under the table. However, the wolf-headed man ignored them in favor of grabbing the wolf skull on the table. He held it for a few moments above his head, aligning the skull's profile with his own, and then pulled it down and into his head.

His flesh at first warped, almost like clay, into the skull, its jaw hanging down, the white bone of the joints visible. After a few long seconds where Filia and Val could see its flesh settling into the inside of the skull, its jaw pulled up into place and its eyes popped into the sockets. Then, suddenly, flesh rushed up from its neck, covering the skull and it looked like it had before.

The wolf-headed man turned his head slowly towards Filia, who was pressed up against the wall opposite the kitchen window, frozen. He seemed to smile, and then, in a blur, leapt towards Filia. Filia closed her eyes, certain that nothing was going to save her from whatever the wolf-headed man was going to do to her. She prayed that Val would escape while it was occupied with her. Suddenly she heard the sound of glass shattering and wood breaking.

"Now now... It's not very nice to attack pretty maidens," a smooth male voice said. Filia opened her eyes, and saw a tall, uniformed man with long purple hair crouched in front of her, his left arm in the wolf-headed man's jaws.

Zelgadiss opened his eyes with a sigh. He couldn't ignore the sounds from within the hill anymore. His keen hearing had picked up on everything, as the woman's cries for help devolved into pleading with a man, who only laughed and ridiculed her. Then, only a few seconds ago, he had heard her yelp, and nothing...

In response to a muttered "Lighting" a small ball of light formed in his upheld palm, and he tossed it gently into the tunnel's opening.

"Zel?" Gourry said, curious. "What are you planning to do...?"

"I thought I heard somebody in there," Zelgadiss said, his mind mostly on the tunnel. He considered telling Gourry the details. Zelgadiss decided that, since the entrance appeared barely big enough for him to wiggle in on his belly, he shouldn't tell the larger man. Gourry would only insist on following him in. Not only would Gourry never fit, but he would try to rush in forgetting that somebody would have to stay outside to stand guard in case...

"Gourry, I'm going in. It might be a trap, so don't come after me, no matter what you might hear. Just guard the tunnel and wait for the others." Zelgadiss didn't wait for a reply, since Gourry could (though he doubted that Gourry would) order him to stay and he didn't want to have to argue. Dousing the ball of light with a mental command, he started wiggling through the tunnel in the dark.

"Please...don't eat me..." Amelia held the remaining scraps of her clothes to herself as she sat close to the wall. She was bleeding from where the dog-creature's teeth had pierced her skin. She watched the dog-creature warily, to be ready for it to either let its guard down or attack her again. It only grinned, teeth glinting, and just continued to lie between herself and escape. "I'll stay here...just don't eat me..."

"Just stay here? You're not offering me more...?" it said, with a barking, mocking laugh. "How pitiful! Such a lovely maiden, being so unkind? I have company. Though perhaps not the most... filling... company.

"But I'm so hungry...and you look so delicious."

The dog-creature stood up and started stalking towards Amelia. Amelia scooted closer to the wall and even further away from it, scared by the look in its eyes and the twist in its grin. Blood dripped onto the floor from the bite just above her hip on the left, where the dog-creature had almost managed to take a bit of her flesh along with the cloth it had ripped away.

"I think I'll make you last; you'll be such good company, while he's gone..." The dog-creature leapt at Amelia, and she twisted onto her hands and knees, to try to escape faster. A weight hit her back, knocking her flat, and she felt the unnatural cold of the dog-creature's fangs nip the back of her neck gently. The dog-creature's cold breath caressed the back of her neck. He murmured quietly, "Don't struggle, or I'll break your neck. Cooperate and I might let you live..." Not waiting for her reaction, the dog-creature resumed the gentle pressure of its fangs on the back of Amelia's neck.

"There's so few pretty maidens around to waste them." The man's foot flashed upwards and outwards, hitting the wolf-headed man in the stomach and forcing him back. "Sorry miss," he said, grinning at Filia. "I'm afraid that there's going to have to be a bit of a fight."

Filia blushed slightly. He was handsome, and he had such a nice English accent, though she couldn't quite place it. He also had been, aside from coming in through the window when the door was still unlocked and even hanging a bit open, a gentleman. Her blush darkened as she realized that she, an engaged woman, was actually thinking about flirting with him, even while there was still a monster in her kitchen.

Meanwhile, the wolf-headed man staggered back towards them from the remains of the kitchen table, ignoring Val who started edging along the wall towards Filia and the newcomer. The purple-haired man ignored the wolf-headed man, though, instead watching Filia. Suddenly, the wolf-headed man leaped towards them, and the man moved his hand in a way that looked impossible to Filia. He was suddenly holding a wooden staff with one end pointed and the other end holding a large red stone.

Nearly half of the staff stuck out of the back of the wolf-headed man, dripping red-black blood. The man smirked slightly, his amethyst eyes open, and twisted his staff. With a scream from the wolf-headed man, the staff came out. He shifted position, holding his staff ready as the wolf-headed man staggered back, down, and then up again.

"Oh my. You still want to fight...?" The man grinned, moving his staff up into guard position. "You should have stayed down. You might have survived, if you had."

The wolf-headed man only growled and attacked, once again getting impaled.

Lina ran, cutting through the fields and muttering curses under her breath. Her day had not been at all good. It was wet and dark, and when there had been light it had been rather foggy. Then she had been ordered to go take care of some moldy old local idols who had been sealed up in some hill which had opened up again.

It was not much comfort for Lina that they at least had known that the hill had opened because the people who had last closed it up had felt it inevitable that it would open again and had set up an alarm. Back in America, which was much more civilized when it came to such things, such things simply didn't happen. There, such dangerous things were not just sealed up to be almost completely forgotten! Well, aside from some of the ones that had been sealed up by the Indians, but those hardly counted.

Worst of all, of course, was the fact that they were under orders not to fly. But that hadn't bothered Xelloss; he had just teleported ahead of the wolf-headed man as soon as they realized that he was going in a straight line, leaving Lina to run after through wet, muddy fields.

I'm going to miss all the fun, Lina thought as she ran.

Zelgadiss's eyes widened as he finally reached the end of the tunnel and saw the jet-black dog-creature on top of a small young lady, whose clothes were torn beyond repair and whose body was bruised and bleeding. He paused for a few seconds, not sure if he should try attacking the dog-creature on top of the girl since its teeth were planted on the back of her neck. He was struck by the fear that the girl might already be dying... Had he taken too long?

The dog-creature shifted its grip on the girl's neck, leaving gouges on her flesh. She whimpered, turning her face towards the tunnel, her eyes closed tightly and her bottom lip bleeding from where she had bitten into it. Zelgadiss had already cautiously pulled himself halfway out of the tunnel when he had seen them, but now that he knew that the girl wasn't yet injured too badly he quickly pulled himself the rest of the way out. He crouched there for a few seconds, thinking. His first impulse was to tackle the monster, but he didn't want to risk the girl's life. Zelgadiss decided, though, that he didn't know any spells that would be certain to have better results.

He launched himself at the thing, knocking the creature off of the girl just in time to save her, only to land heavily on the girl himself, knocking her out. He rolled off of her, wincing as he felt her bones shift underneath her in a manner he knew they weren't supposed to and seeing the bloody wound on the back of her neck. He hadn't wanted to hurt her more, she was just an innocent (and rather pretty) girl...

He took a deep breath, calming himself. She was still breathing, and the creature that had been on top of her was now quite angry. Their briefing, while light on information, had been clear about how powerful these creatures were. Zelgadiss held no illusions of beating either by himself when he had a civilian to protect. These were both quite powerful spirits, and this one looked clever.

Carefully, Zelgadiss lifted the girl up, praying that he wouldn't kill her by moving her. He glanced at the dog-creature. It was currently shaking one of its rear legs which had been broken when Zelgadiss had tackled it. It didn't seem particularly bothered by its broken leg, aside from the leg having ended up with an extra bend in the wrong place. Zelgadiss pulled the girl as close to his own body as he could and ran as fast as he safely could, with somebody in his arms, towards the tunnel.

Glancing back, Zelgadiss saw the dog-creature shake its broken leg one last time, finally getting the bone's ends to slide into place. "I wasn't expecting something like this," the thing said, and it laughed, a sharp barking laugh. "So much fun..."

Zelgadiss shifted how he was holding the girl in his arms, to protect her better.

The creature moved into a crouch, grinning. "Getting to kill some fool who tries to save my maiden, drinking his blood and eating his flesh while she watches..." Its eyes flicked down from Zel's face and to the girl. "Hh, already out? Ah, well... Your bones will work as well."

Zelgadiss blinked and then chuckled, low in his throat. "You must have gone senile, after so long trapped in here," he said, finally seeing a way out, "or perhaps blind? I'm not human, and my skin's stone; you can't pierce it." At least, not without using your magic...

The dog-creature growled and leapt at Zelgadiss, teeth bared. Zel turned and crouched, shoving the girl ahead of him into the tunnel with a muttered apology. As he did this, the thing crashed into the wall above him and fell straight down, right onto Zel's back.

Zelgadiss cursed under his breath and shoved the girl further into the tunnel. He then quickly drew his body upwards and back, while turning to face the creature. The dog-creature leaped away, barely avoiding the Fireball Zelgadiss flung after it. By the time the creature realized that the Fireball was a feint, Zel was already crawling through the tunnel, pushing the girl ahead of himself.

Gourry looked curiously at the tunnel's opening. There had been a good bit of noise. Now, it sounded distinctly like somebody was getting pushed through. He pulled an empty hilt out from inside his shirt, and, holding it like it had a blade, got ready to fight.

He blinked when what emerged from the tunnel was a young woman's very dirty head. He watched carefully as the rest of her followed, bloody, dirty, and dressed only in rags. Finally her feet emerged, and Gourry saw a pair of blue hands.

"Hey, Zel, who's the girl?"

Filia tried to decide if she should be bored or not. The fight between the two men had dragged on. The wolf-headed man jumped at the other only to get impaled on the staff, only to get back up again to repeat the entire process. Her kitchen was almost completely destroyed; somehow only her tea set, kettle, and a vase remained unbroken.

The wolf-headed man staggered back again, into the vase. It and he crashed to the floor...and stayed there. The man blinked, and then carefully poked the wolf-headed man with his staff. "Are you dead yet?"

As the wolf-headed man persisted in lying on the floor silently, the man decided that his opponent was deceased. He walked over to the remains one of the cabinets and, with the tip of his staff moved some of the rubble away to reveal Val. "It's safe now, little boy. The mean old monster's dead, and your mother will make us all tea..." he said with a smile.

Filia twitched. Mother?!? He thinks I'm old enough to be Val's mother?!?

Val shook his head. "Miss Copt isn't my mother..."

"Oh? Is she your sister, then?" Filia's twitch paused, indecisive about this being an insult or not. As Val shook his head 'no' again, it decided to wait to see the man's response to Val this time.

"She's a very nice pretty lady who has taken you in?"

Val nodded vigorously, and Filia's twitch died of shock. Maybe this man wasn't as rude as he had seemed to be...

He looked at her, smiling. "Ma'am, would you please make some tea?"

Filia blinked as the request was absorbed by her mind... "Oh, um, let me see if the stove's still working," she said with a faint blush. He was rather nice, after all!

The kitchen door banged open, and a short redhead entered and looked around quickly. "Damn it, Xelloss, did you have to wreck her kitchen?" she said, sounding much calmer than she looked. "I'm sorry, Ms. Copt. We'll arrange for the repairs to be done as soon as possible, and pay for them."

Xelloss was now staring at Filia, rather rudely. "Wait, you mean she's the 'ugly Nazi bitch' the villagers were talking about?" There was a short pause, during which Xelloss's face quite clearly said 'Damn.' Then Filia started yelling.

"I am not an 'ugly Nazi bitch'! Nor am I a 'German slut,' 'Hamburg harlot,' 'fascist whore,' and whatever else those villagers keep calling me! My English father -- who was married to my mother quite a while before I was born, I should add -- brought me back to England a few years ago, because he didn't support the Nazis, and neither do I! I'm now a proper Englishwoman! I'm even engaged to a British soldier!"

Xelloss opened his mouth to say something, but the new arrival placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "I'm sorry, ma'am, for Xelloss's behavior just now. Normally he's much more polite." She looked meaningfully at him, and he had the decency to look embarrassed. "We'll take your attacker, now, and let the two of you go to bed. It is late..." She let go of Xelloss's shoulder, and he walked over to where the remains of the wolf-headed man lay. Xelloss slung the corpse over his shoulder with unnatural ease, and the two quietly left.

Filia looked around the ruins of her kitchen and sighed. The light had started flickering as the kitchen door had swung shut, and Val was looking at it nervously. I guess Val can sleep in my bed with me tonight, Filia thought, that way he might get some sleep tonight, and I don't want to wait any longer for Amelia to come back with his torch...

She picked Val up, and opened the door to the small hallway that her bedroom was on, only a few feet away. She reached for the kitchen light switch just in time for the light to flicker out. She flipped the switch anyway, and carried Val, who was now clinging to her, off to bed.

Filia sat back in her new kitchen chair and sighed. It had only been three days since her kitchen had been trashed, and yet it already looked as good as new. She hadn't even been able to thank the repairmen for being so prompt; they had come during the night, and left during the night while she was asleep in her bed, cuddling Val because he was afraid to sleep in his own bed.

They had finished the job the night before, and had even put Val's torch -- complete with fresh batteries and a new bulb -- and a vase with a daisy on the kitchen table for them to find in the morning.

Filia had found out, the morning after the incident, that Amelia was in the nearby army base's hospital. After being made to wait a day to see her, Filia had to wonder why she had to wait. Amelia looked fine, except for a few bandaged scrapes. Amelia was every cheerful, too, and seemed particularly happy about the large bouquet that stood on the table beside her bed. When Filia asked who had sent her it, since flowers weren't easily come by, Amelia had handed her the plain white card that had come with the flowers.

On it, in elegant hand-written script, was only three words: "I am sorry."

There was a knock at the kitchen door. Filia got up and opened it. A messenger boy handed a telegram to her, and swiftly left.

Filia sat down again, and opened it. On black-rimmed paper was a simple message. Her fiancé, Arthur Blackwell, had died three nights ago when a building collapsed on him. He had been helping get children out of an orphanage that had been accidentally bombed, and it had taken them two days to dig his body out.

Filia put the telegram down on the kitchen table, and wondered why she didn't feel anything.

§ The terms 'jo' and 'ge' are from Japanese, and mean respectively, 'up' and 'down.' In this context, they mean 'top' or 'first half' and 'bottom' or 'second half.' I've chosen to use them, as well as give this the subtitle of 'Cold Haily Rainy Night,' because I've decided to make this an episodic series, with each 'episode' being two or three chapters long.

That doesn't necessarily mean I will be writing more, as I do have a few ideas set in this 'world' that I'd like to write sometime. This way, I can easily continue this whenever I want, but I'm not obligated to do so.

§ This story is in no way formatted properly, thanks Xing & his lovely chrome-covered 'QuickEdit' stripping out everything inside center tags and all non-blanking spaces.