Boris, Doris, & Faith

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Chapter 4 - Part 1

Kennedy, Daniels, and I all slouched down on the couch in the breakroom outside the training center. Daniels was covered in paint. Kennedy had a couple of splotches on her back. Only my clothes were still pristine.

We had been in Washington for two days and were almost through the accelerated field operative training that Trilby had demanded. Training that normally required three months.

This afternoon and most of the evening we had competed in the 'Capture the Flag' competition, one of the final tests for all graduating classes of field ops. A large group of trainees happened to be finishing up this week, so we joined in their session.

Their version of the game is a variation on the paintball game. One team defends the flag and the other team tries to capture it. Their version is a little more aggressive than the normal variety, in addition to taking out your opponent with a paintball you are also allowed to use hand-to-hand combat. And most of the lights were out to simulate late evening. And no talking; only communication with teammates via hand-signals.

The hand-signals had been the hardest part since we only had one day to learn them. I guess there may be times when it will be convenient, but I am starting to feel like I have joined 'Band of Brothers'.

The teams have eight members, but our special little group was supposed to compete against the others with just four. Daniels and Rebecca had been going through the training with Kennedy and I since they were going on this little adventure with us. However at the last minute Rebecca had some tasks to complete before our mission and had to bow out. So our team had been just the three of us.

Daniels had been annoyed with me in the beginning when I refused to carry a paintball gun, instead just a plastic bag filled with paintballs. I explained that I wouldn't use a gun in the real world, so why use one in the test?

The hardest part about the competition for me was the need to be stealthy. I just don't think it's in a slayer's nature to be stealthy. At least not mine. I have always been the 'slam through the front door' style of slayer and I know Buffy is too. I tried to use the stealthy method to appease Daniels, at least until he would get shot and eliminated from the round. Then I would revert to my normal frontal attack mode and just trust in my slayer instinct to bob & weave and not get hit. After the first couple of rounds where she got hit by paintballs using the stealthy approach, Kennedy also reverted to the naturally aggressive slayer methods.

By the last couple of elimination rounds of the contest, I think we had spooked all of the competition. Their training hadn't accounted for an opponent who would come charging straight in and be fast enough to avoid all of their shots. I am a little worried that if they ever ran into a pack of vampires or demons, these trainees would be in a world of hurt. Perhaps I should mention my concerns to Trilby and suggest some changes in their training methods.

We had just won the competition and were taking a well-deserved break when Rebecca came into the break room pushing a cart. She appeared to be working very hard to push the cart which only contained a couple of guitar cases.

We all looked at her with interest as she flopped into a chair and wiped her brow. "Whew, pushing that cart was more work than I expected. I should have requisitioned an electric cart."

Seeing the smile on her face when she looked at us got me wondering what was in the cases. Obviously not just guitars.

I raised my eyebrows and nodded towards the cases. "What's in there?"

Rebecca's smile turned into a big grin. "A present for you and Kennedy. Something you might find useful when playing with Ogres. At least I hope so."

The day we had arrived, Rebecca had mentioned her interest in medieval weapons and how she had an idea for something special. Perhaps this was it. I felt a surge of excitement as I sprang up from the couch, no one had given me a 'slayer gift' since the knife from the Mayor - may he rot in hell.

I walked over to the cart where the two guitar cases were sitting vertical on their fat lower ends. I went to lay one of them flat to open it, but the case didn't budge. Not until I exerted some slayer strength could I lift it enough to lay it flat on the cart. Whatever was in there, it was extremely heavy.

Both Daniels and Kennedy had noticed that I had to use some real muscles to move the case and had walked over to look over my shoulder as I finally opened it. Inside was this beautiful silver battleaxe. It was double-headed spanning about fifteen inches from blade to blade. The handle was about four feet long, made of some dark gray metal. Three leather handgrips had been fitted; one near the head, one midspan, and one near the end of the shaft.

I lifted the axe out of the case and it was heavy, massive, powerful. It felt so good and right in my hands. I looked over at Rebecca and I must've had the same grin on my face as the Terminator when they opened up Sarah Connor's stash of weapons in the underground desert bunker.

Rebecca grinned back. "The guys in the machine shop thought I was crazy when I told them what I wanted. The head of that axe is 175 pounds of depleted uranium, the densest material I could lay my hands on. I had them silverplate it since the legends I have heard always talk about using silver weapons against demonic creatures. The handle is made from titanium for strength."

By this point she had walked back over from her chair. "And one more special feature, see these two buttons on opposite sides of the handle just above the lowest handgrip?"

When I nodded, she continued. "I had buttons made very stiff so only someone incredibly strong would be able to depress them. Go ahead and squeeze them both down at once."

I squeezed my hand pretty hard about the shaft when suddenly an eight-inch wooden stake sprang out of the base of the shaft.

"A little extra surprise for any vampires," she concluded.

"This is so cool," I said giving the axe a couple of experimental swings before passing it on to Kennedy. Then I turned and pulled Rebecca into a hug.

"Thank you, this is a wonderful weapon. It means a lot."

Rebecca returned the hug more warmly than I expected before finally pulling back a little so that she could look down into my eyes. I had forgotten how tall she was until I realized during the hug that my face was pressed between her breasts. Wow, she smelled so nice while I reeked of sweet from all of the time out in the competition. Sometimes life isn't fair.

As she continued to look into my eyes, she said. "If the place where your parents are trapped is half as scary as it sounds, I want you to have the best weapon possible to get everyone back safe and sound. Why don't you go give it a try? We still have a couple of days before our departure, in case it needs any fine-tuning."

Kennedy had been swing the battleaxe around and said. "Yeah, let's go out into the training area where there is some room to move and see what these babies can do."

The training area was a large underground room about 150 feet by 100 feet with a 20 foot ceiling. For the 'Capture the Flag' competition a large portion of the room had been outfitted with a maze of corridors and rooms to simulate the interior of an office complex. As soon as she entered the training room Kennedy ran up to a corner joint of two walls and took a vicious swing with her axe. The axe connected with a satisfying crash and the wall exploded! I mean both walls connected to the joint crashed to the ground and like dominoes three adjacent wall sections went down as well.

Kennedy stood there staring at the destruction she had wrought with one blow and then just said, "Cool."

I looked at Daniels and Rebecca. "I think we are going to need something more substantial than walls made from two by fours, if we intend to do a useful test of these weapons."

Daniels was staring at the mess Kennedy had created and slowly nodded.

With ten minutes of searching in the storage area, we uncovered four twenty-inch diameter sections of timber, each about eight feet in length, left over from some long forgotten project. Kennedy and I carried the timbers out into the center of the training area. As we were lashing them together, Daniels returned carrying several Kevlar vests. He layered three of them on the front of one of the timbers before walking over to where we were standing and suggested we take a swing at that.

We were standing about 20 feet away, so I just pivoted and tossed the battleaxe I was holding. The axe did one complete rotation before burying the blade dead center in the vests. The blade punched through all three vests and was shaft deep in the timber. The timber was split open from top to bottom and the entire lashed together stack of timbers was pushed back about three feet.

Daniels walked over and fingered the shredded vests. He shook his head and quietly remarked. "I've taken a .357 slug in the chest while wearing one of these and, other than a couple of painfully cracked ribs, survived okay. This is an incredible weapon at close range."

A number of the trainees from the competition were still around and had drifted over to see what was going on. I didn't want to involve a bunch of trainees who might never become involved in my world of magic and demons, but Daniels and Rebecca needed to understand what we might be up against. Therefore I stepped closer to them and said softly. "The scary thing is that I have come up against creatures who could shrug off a blow like that and keep on fighting. Three or four blows like that would probably put them down, but certainly not one."

Both of them looked at me to see if I was pulling their leg. I shook my head and they could read the seriousness of my expression.

"Shit," said Daniels quietly and Rebecca just nodded her agreement with his sentiment.

Chapter 4 - Part 2

Kennedy and I put on a show for the trainees by busting up the remaining timbers. Suddenly I noticed the crowd had grown quiet. Where before there had been hooting and hollering, now they were mostly silent. I turned and looked back at the crowd. They were parting and I saw Trilby approaching. From talking to a few of them between matches I knew most of the trainees had heard of, but never met Trilby.

I rested the battleaxe on the floor and waited for Trilby to approach. When he arrived he didn't even give the axes a glance. Nor Kennedy or I. He turned directly to Daniels and Rebecca. "We have a problem. A mission in Cleveland has gone disastrously wrong. I am going to need to borrow you for a day or two before the mission to Romania."

Kennedy and I just looked at each other. Simultaneously we exclaimed, "Hellmouth!"

Trilby looked at us with an expression that said he didn't appreciate the interruption.

"Sunnydale," I said. "Big, smoking hole in the ground. Remember? It was a Hellmouth. It attracted vampires, demons, evil from all over the world. Ultimately, it destroyed the whole town. Cleveland also has a Hellmouth. It has never been as active as the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, but now with the one in Sunnydale gone that may be changing. Are you certain demonic forces are not involved? If you are not certain, I would like for Kennedy and me to tag along. If it turns out to not involve us, we will stay out of the way. But if it does, I would like to be there to help."

Trilby stared at me for almost a minute before nodding. "I don't have all the details yet. I just know three teams have disappeared. Nine of our people unaccounted for. At this point it won't hurt anything for you to ride along. I have a G5 standing by at Andrews and I need the four of you to be on your way in five minutes. We will brief you in flight."

I hoisted the battleaxe and spun the blade in my hand. "Let us grab the cases for our new toys and we are ready to go."

Trilby nodded. When I turned towards Daniels and Rebecca, she was telling him that she needed to get something and would meet us at his car. Then Rebecca took off at a dead run for one of the exits. Daniels was also moving a lot faster than I was expecting towards the breakroom where we had left the guitar cases. Apparently, when Trilby said jump, his people did jump. With only a moment's pause, Kennedy and I sprinted after him.

I never thought we would be on our way in five minutes, but four minutes and thirty seconds after we left Trilby, Daniels pulled out of the parking lot with the four of us on board. It helped when he explained how he kept a spare set of clothes in his car so there was no need to pause to get rid of his paint spatter clothes or Kennedy's tee shirt. Also, since we would be using one of the company's jets, it was fully equipped with any weapons we would need. When we had arrived at his car, Rebecca was waiting. Resting at her feet was what looked like an oversized gym bag. Daniels quickly opened the trunk and we stashed the guitar cases and Rebecca's bag in with all of the other bags of equipment already present.

We had been moving so fast, I hadn't had time to think. But as the car pulled out of the parking garage it occurred to me that Trilby had hundreds or maybe thousands of people in his organization, yet when a big emergency hit he came running to Rebecca and Daniels. While they both seemed young, he obviously felt they were his best. It made me feel good that he had assigned them to the mission to look for my parents.

The next thing to occur to me were several improvements to our new 'toys' as a result of the dash to the car. "Rebecca, can you get in touch with your people about a couple of improvements for our axes?"

"Sure, I can call them and have them get started right away. What do you need?"

"We need some improved way of carrying them when we are moving at faster than a walk. For the guitar cases, a strong strap that has an adjustable length to allow it to be carried over one shoulder or across the back. Plus, I think there will be times when the guitar case will not be a good cover. So I would like some kind of harness that will hold it against my back with the head tight against my shoulder blades and the shaft pointed down. Something that will let me carry a pack over the top of it and still be able to run and fight."

"Hmm," said Rebecca pulling her cell. "I understand what you want. We have this guy who is very good at designing weapon harnesses, usually for handguns, mini-Macs, sawed-off shotguns and

hunting knifes. Let me give him a call and get him started. I left a wooden mockup of the axes down in the machine shop. He can use that plus a rough idea of your sizes to get started. You will have to meet with him for a final fitting when we get back from Cleveland."

I nodded my thanks and leaned back to watch the scenery on the drive to the airport. It was about 8:30 in the evening and almost dark.

It was a Thursday night and well past rush hour so the traffic was reasonably light, at least by the standards of any major American city. It was only a few minutes before I realized the rapid pace Daniels was achieving. And he was one of those drivers who is so good and smooth you feel perfectly safe. I suddenly remembered Trilby's comment from our initial meeting that Daniels was a 'transportation specialist'. At the time I didn't understand what he meant, but now it was becoming a little clearer.

In less than fifteen minutes, with only a couple of brief pauses at security checkpoints, we drove out onto the tarmac and right up to the Gulfstream, which already had its engines spooled up.

Daniels opened the trunk, grabbed Rebecca's bag, and tossed it to her. He momentarily forgot and went to pull out the guitar cases for us. After a second, he sheepishly stepped back and waved us over to retrieve them ourselves. Finally, he pulled a couple of smaller bags of his own from the trunk.

We quickly walked over to the jet. As soon as we climbed aboard, Daniels pulled the door closed and in less than a minute the plane was moving.

The plane was the largest private jet I had ever seen, almost as large as a 737 passenger jet. We stowed Rebecca's bag and the guitar cases in a storage area near the entrance while Daniels carried his bags back into the seating area.

The seating area extended back to about the beginning of the wing and had oversized, plush seats for about 15 people. Daniels dropped his bags by one of the seats and started to buckle himself in. "Go ahead, pick a seat," he said. "We will be taking off shortly. Then I will give you a tour of the jet. I have a change of clothes in the bags. Kennedy, I think I have an extra tee shirt you can borrow in place of the paint splashed one you are wearing now."

We had barely buckled up, when the pilot came on over the intercom to tell us that we would be taking off in one minute. He added that the flying time to Cleveland would be 45 minutes.

As soon as the jet had climbed out and leveled off, Daniels was up and heading towards the back. The rest of us followed. The first door off the aisle towards the back led into the weapons locker. I am no expert on guns, but there seemed to be enough firepower in that room to overthrow a small country, at least 50 automatic rifles, 30 handguns and several locked cabinets containing who knows what.

The next door led into a conference room with several large video screens mounted on the walls. A woman was sitting at a computer terminal and talking into a headset. Daniels directed us to go in and take a seat while he went back to the restroom to change.

As we were sitting down, the screen on the aft wall lit up and then went into split-screen mode with Trilby on the left side and a man I didn't recognize on the right. Trilby didn't wait for Daniels to appear, but immediately introduced the other man as Tom O'Hare, the man in charge in Cleveland.

Then Trilby got down to business. "Okay, Tom, what the hell is going on out there?"

Tom issued orders to someone off screen and then turned back to the camera. "We received Intel three days ago that a Romanian terrorist group with ties to the German 'Red Army' group would be bringing people and bio-weapons across Lake Erie from Canada and into Cleveland last night."

Rebecca, Kennedy and I all looked at each other. Was it just a coincidence that there was a Romanian terrorist group involved at the same time we were planning a mission to Romania?

O'Hare continued. "We staked out the two most likely wharves. Shortly before dawn, we lost contact with both teams. We sent in a backup team, but even though we were in constant radio communications, we suddenly lost contact with them as well. We got what sounded like one short scream and then their radio went dead.

"Since we were down to a skeleton crew, we rounded up reinforcements from the local police and sheriff's office before returning to the area. By the time we returned in force, it was midmorning. Other than a small amount of blood, we found nothing. No bodies. No terrorists. No weapons."

During the last part of the briefing, Daniels entered the conference room, now dressed all in black. Black jeans, black tee shirt, black combat boots. He was carrying a black leather jacket in one hand and a black tee shirt in the other. He handed the tee shirt to Kennedy and pointed her towards the bathroom. After Kennedy left, he slipped into one of the seats.

I have to admit black suited him. Oh, not in a dark, brooding way like Angel. While he was all business when the situation required it, we had seen several glimpses of a sense of humor. Something you never saw with Angel.

Perhaps I should pause a moment to describe him. Daniels looks about 30. He is six foot two and about 190 lbs. Muscular, but not massive like my Dad. More of a swimmer's body than a power weightlifter. However, I managed to watch him take down several of the trainees during the competition and his martial arts skills are good. He does have the strong, square jaw like my Dad and beautiful hazel eyes. He has thick, black hair that would look gorgeous if it was longer, but he has a very practical, short, military cut. Suddenly, I found myself fantasizing about him in a post-slaying romp. Down, Faith. You need him to help find your parents.

Trilby's gruff voice cut through my daydreams. "Well, have the forensics reports available when you meet the plane. Then I want you to take Daniels and Ms. Fairchild down to the site. Sometimes they can find a lead where no one else can."

Then Trilby turned his attention to Daniels. "Daniels, I expect a report in the morning." Before Daniels could even nod his agreement, Trilby cut the video link.

Rebecca stood up. "Let's visit the armory, before we land."

As we were leaving the conference room, Kennedy rejoined us. After we entered the weapons room the first thing Rebecca did was open a small closet filled with Kevlar vests. Kennedy and I each tried one on and Rebecca helped adjust them for the most comfortable fit. I tried a few practice swings of my arms and a couple sidekicks. The vest did restrict my movement a little. I guess I would wait and see what kind of opponents we were up against. If it was men with guns, I would probably wear it. If the opponents were vamps or demons, I might discard it. My speed and reflexes had gotten me through a lot of scrapes and I would hate to have something slow me down while only providing a false sense of security.

While we were fiddling with the vests, Daniels had put on his own vest and then put a shoulder harness over the top. He pulled an automatic from the rack and after loading a clip, he inserted it into the shoulder harness under his left arm. At my raised eyebrow, he explained it was a 17 round Glock, custom modified for full automatic fire.

When he realized I didn't understand what that meant, he explained that with most handguns you have to pull the trigger once for each bullet fired. With a full automatic version you could just hold down the trigger and the full clip could be fired in a quick burst. As he was talking he loaded 8 spare clips into the shoulder holster under his right arm. Next he loaded eight more clips into special pockets in his leather jacket. Finally he picked up another Glock and a small hip holster. After loading the second gun, he attached it to his belt behind his right hip.

"Wow," I said after doing the math in my head. "You are a walking arsenal. I count over 300 rounds of ammunition on you."

Daniels smiled. "I have found out the hard way, you can never have too much ammunition."

Once Rebecca had finished with our vests and her own, she too went over to the weapons rack. She selected a Glock, the same as Daniels, and a hip holster. She slipped two handfuls of spare clips into a fanny pack.

When I expected her to pick up a backup gun like Daniels, she instead picked up a pair of combat knives. She put one in the fanny pack and fitted the other to a small holster on her left hip.

As both of them turned to leave the weapons room, I interrupted. "Umm, could I get one of those knives and hip-holsters, too? You never know when a knife will come in handy."

Rebecca quickly turned back and grabbed a pair of knives handing one to both Kennedy and I.

As Kennedy accepted hers, she grinned. "All I need now is a windbreaker with FBI in big letters and I will feel like I am in an episode of 'Cops'."

For some reason this struck me as hysterically funny and I started to laugh. A couple of days ago we were fighting a horde of über-vamps to save the world and today we dressed like an episode of 'Cops'.

As I was getting my laughter under control, the pilot came back on the intercom and announced we had begun our descent into Cleveland. So we made our way back into the forward cabin and buckled in for the landing.

Chapter 4 - Part 3

The plane had barely stopped moving when Daniels began undoing the door. Rebecca grabbed her large bag while Kennedy and I hoisted our guitar cases.

Daniels was already walking over to the man standing by the black, tricked-out Hummer when we climbed down the stairway. Damn, that was a cool car. Why didn't the Watcher's Council provide the slayers with a ride like that? Perhaps if they did, I wouldn't have caused them so much trouble!

Having seen him only a few minutes ago on the videoconference, I recognized our driver to be Tom O'Hare. After shaking hands with Daniels and Rebecca, he turned to us.

"And who might you be?"

"Can't you tell," I responded, lifting the guitar case. "We're the band. Never leave home without us."

"Yeah," continued Kennedy. "We play a real, mean, killer ax."

Daniels just shook his head and made the introductions. After stowing our gear in the back, we all piled on board and we headed out from the airport.

Surprisingly Kennedy was the first one to speak. "If we get a chance while we are here, could we swing by the Cleveland Museum of Art?"

O'Hare looked at her suspiciously. "How did you know about the museum? I just found out myself."

"Found out what?" asked Kennedy.

"That one of the missing agent's emergency transmitter started sending and it is located at the museum."

Kennedy looked a little taken aback by this. She was obviously still new at the slayer game and didn't realize how often what seemed like simple coincidence was really some secret 'slayer sense' or hidden message from 'the powers that be'.

"I didn't know anything about that. I was just talking to my Mom on the phone a couple of days ago when she happened to mention that the Dutch avant-garde artist, Aernout Mik, was having his first major American exhibit this summer at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We saw his exhibit in Barcelona last summer and both really enjoyed it. Since I had just learned about the Hellmouth in Cleveland earlier that day, it stuck in my mind."

Kennedy and I had ended up with the window seats in the back with Rebecca sitting in between. For such a large vehicle on the outside, the Hummer was surprisingly cramped on the inside. I found my thigh pressed tightly against Rebecca's, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

I leaned forward to look past Rebecca at Kennedy. "You were in Barcelona last summer?"

"Sure, my mom is Spanish. Where do you think I got these dark, sultry eyes?" Laughing a little, she batted her eyes flirtatiously. "We have a villa in Barcelona overlooking the Mediterranean. We always spend June and July there. In August, all of Europe seems to go on vacation and ends up down by the sea. My mom says it gets too crowd, so we usually come back and spend August at our summer house in the Hamptons."

"Your family takes the whole summer off every year?" I asked.

"No, my dad, well step-dad, stays behind and works. He usually makes it to Spain for a couple of long weekends and then takes a couple of weeks off in August and joins us in the Hamptons. So the summer off is just my mom, my older stepsister, Carrie, and me. Carrie is in college now and last year her boyfriend spent the summer working as a tennis instructor at a club near our summer house, so she didn't make the trip to Europe."

I just sat back wondering what a life of luxury must be like. It seems like almost as far back as I can remember my life has been all about the slaying. Living on the edge. Moving from one dive to the next. Even back when I had a family, we had definitely been middle class. I wonder if we do find my parents, will we ever be able to have a normal vacation to somewhere cool like Barcelona?

As we continued to chat in the backseat about all of the exotic sounding places Kennedy had visited on vacations, we headed into downtown. It was apparent we weren't heading to the waterfront, so we must be going to check out the emergency transmitter signal from the museum. Finally, after a few more minutes, we pulled up behind a large brick building. It felt old and slightly menacing in the dark. Two other black Hummers and three unmarked police cars were already parked behind the building awaiting our arrival.

As I climbed out of the Hummer I felt it. Vamps. And way more than one. Something big and dangerous was going on here. I was suddenly glad I had convinced Trilby to let me come along. I would have hated to see Daniels and Rebecca walk into this alone.

As we walked around to the back of the vehicle, I said quietly so only Kennedy, Daniels, Rebecca, and O'Hare could hear. "There are a lot of vamps in there. You are going to have to let us handle this. O'Hare, position your men around the perimeter of building to help any civilians that make their way out. If any people exit the building and appear to have seriously deformed faces, do not go near them. Just let them leave."

O'Hare looked questioningly at Daniels as if to ask if this young girl was suddenly running this operation.

Daniels just nodded.

O'Hare looked back at me. "You expect us to just do what this girl says? We have men trapped in that building. They could be hurt or dying and you expect us to just stand out here on guard duty?" By the end of this, O'Hare was starting to look pretty agitated. But then he had had a rough 24 hours.

By this time I had pulled my guitar case out of the car and laid it on the ground. I looked up at O'Hare as I popped the latches on the cover. The cover lifted and the battleaxe lay there gleaming a yellowish-silver under the security lights.

"If you can lift and swing this weapon," I said. "I will gladly let you come along. Otherwise, you need to leave this up to us."

O'Hare couldn't take his eyes off the axe, which looked so out of place in this world of Hummers and cops and guns. Finally he reached out a hand to lift it. It didn't budge. He added a second hand. It didn't budge. He assumed more of a weightlifter's stance. He barely lifted it an inch before dropping it back into the case. He straightened and looked at me. I tried to look particularly nonchalant as I reached in, place one hand on the grip behind the head, and casually lifted the battleaxe out.

O'Hare glanced over to Kennedy who was holding her matching axe in a similar one-handed grip.

Shaking his head and looking a little paler under the yellow lighting, he said. "Okay, my men and I will secure the perimeter."

I nodded, put the battleaxe down, and started to remove my vest. When Daniels looked questioningly, I responded. "It slows down my movement and I can't have that during a fight with multiple vamps. Don't worry, I have done this lots of times before and you'll be surprised how tough my skin is. Definitely leave yours on. This is not some macho challenge."

He nodded and after I pulled the vest off over my head, I noticed Rebecca had opened the gym bag she had made the special side trip back at the facility to pick up. I had been increasing curious as to what might be in the bag, particularly after seeing the large selection of the weapons available on the plane.

After she unzipped the bag, she reached in and pulled out this wicked looking samurai sword. Pulling it from its black scabbard, she expertly swung it through a quick kata to warm up her arms and shoulders.

"Wow, bitchin' cool," exclaimed Kennedy.

"Where did you learn that?" I asked.

She looked a little embarrassed, but obviously had given this explanation a few times before. "Back when I was in High School, I had this big crush on Adrian Paul. I watched 'Highlander' religiously through high school and college.

"When I was a senior in high school the local park and recs department gave this introductory Kendo class for $50 and they threw in your first bamboo sword. Turns out the local Kendo group used the money from the introductory class to rent a large room from a dance studio one evening a week. After the hour and a half intro class, the club had free use of the room for the rest of the evening. I started to hang around after the class and watch the guys practice in full gear. After the intro class ended, I joined the club. I have been practicing Kendo ever since, but I have never had occasion to use a sword for real."

"Well, try and leave the fighting to Kennedy and me. The vamps are very strong. If you have to fight, the three best ways to kill a vamp are: wood through the heart, decapitation, and sunlight." I looked up at the dark sky. "Well, it looks like sunlight is out, so stick to the first two. Also, don't bother with body blows with the sword. A sword through the guts of a vampire is only going to piss him off, not slow him down."

Daniels asked, "How are we going to know which ones are the vampires?"

"Don't worry," I said. "As soon as they realize I am here, they are all going to have their game faces on. When vampires feed or are fighting for their lives, their true inner demons show through in their faces. You will have no trouble picking out the vampires once you have seen them.

"Okay, is everyone ready? Then let's do it," and I started over towards the door.

Chapter 4 - Part 4

The four of us entered the museum through a personnel access door next to the loading dock. The battleaxe makes a great lockpick, as long as Alexander's solution to the Gordian Knot problem doesn't bother you.

"Could you make a little more noise?" asked Daniels sarcastically.

"Come on, Daniels. You just spent about eight hours in that stupid competition with me. Do you really think stealthiness is important to me?"

"Okay, so a frontal attack approach worked in the controlled environment of the test. But wouldn't it be better to try and find our men without being noticed?"

"Well, we all have our preferred methods. You may want to find the men first and then potentially have to battle hordes of vampires while trying to move injured men. Me, I would rather slay all of the vamps first so we can move any survivors unhindered."

As we talked, we had walked across the unloading area behind the loading dock. At the back of the area was a large freight elevator to move things to the various floors. Adjacent to the elevator was a doorway leading to a set of stairs. The stairs headed both up and down. I paused and waited for my slayer senses to tell me which way to go.

I looked over at Kennedy. "My senses say down. How about you?"

She closed her eyes for about five seconds and then nodded.

I glanced over the railing. There were at least two levels below street level. We proceeded to the lower of the two, as that was where my sensation of vamps was the strongest. Vamps always did like the maximum protection from sunlight. However if the museum was near the Hellmouth, who knows how many further levels of tunnels, catacombs, caves, and secret passages remained to be found?

As soon as we exited the stairwell I could hear noises coming from off to the left. Noises that sounded suspiciously like fighting. We moved quickly down the corridor until we came to an open doorway on the right.

I looked in to find a large storage area mostly empty except for some crates stacked on the far side, perhaps forty feet away. Empty, of course, if you ignored the thirty or so vamps.

It only took a few more seconds for me to see and comprehend what held their attention. In the far corner of the room, near the crates, was a group of four kids, two boys and two girls.

One of the boys was hurt and a girl was kneeling beside him cradling his head. The other boy and girl were trying to defend them. With a moment's observation it was apparent the standing girl with short red hair was actually doing most of the fighting. If she was successfully holding off a room full of vamps, she must be one of the newly activated slayers. I wonder if Buffy and the Scoobies looked that young and helpless when she first arrived in Sunnydale?

It was apparent the young slayer wouldn't last long against that many vampires while trying to protect her friends. Time for an older, experienced slayer and her friends to step in and lend a hand.

I walked a few feet into the room and stopped with the others standing behind me. I looked out on all of the vamps and then called out with all of the slayer strength in my voice I could muster. "STOP! I AM THE ONE YOU WANT!"

All of the vamps turned and looked at me, even the ones fighting the girl. A few of the nearest ones even backed away several steps in surprise. Their being frozen in shock wouldn't last more than a few seconds, so it was time to act quickly.

I looked at the young slayer across the room and then yelled out with a loud version of my normal voice. "Catch." Then I threw my battleaxe towards her as hard as I could. On its trajectory to the girl, the axe smashed straight through two vamps blowing them into clouds of dust. As the axe flew within arm's reach, she deftly reached out and snagged the handle. The remaining inertia in the battleaxe spun her around but she managed to not only maintain her grip, but also decapitate the three nearest vamps before she spun to a halt.

Damn, I thought, that girl has potential.

Five down and about twenty-five to go. Time to start thinning the herd. Of course, now I was without a killing weapon. Perhaps it was time to give Rebecca her baptism under fire and see if she was really ready to kill something with that sword of hers.

I started running towards the nearest group of vampires and shouted over my shoulder. "Rebecca, baseball. Be ready for some fast high pitches."

As I approached the vamps I dove to the floor and slid into them low and hard trying to knock as many of them off their feet as possible. As soon as I was in amongst them, I rolled onto my back and got my feet under one of the vamps. I thrust my feet into him hard, lofting him high into the air in Rebecca's direction. As he flew past her he was upside-down, his feet were about ten feet off the ground and his head was hanging straight down at about shoulder height. Rebecca took a vicious baseball style swing of her sword at his throat and he exploded in a cloud of dust.

I quickly managed to toss three more towards her before I had a chance to look back. Rebecca was almost completely obscured by a billowing cloud of vampire dust. Time to give her a little break and find a weapon of my own.

I noticed an old wooden table with simple straight legs about fifteen feet beyond the group of vamps I was fighting. I forced three of the vampires in the general direction of the table with a roundhouse kick, a sidekick, and a solid upper cut of my left fist. Two of the three crashed down on the table smashing it to the floor.

I did a double backflip to momentarily clear the vamps surrounding me and landed next to the broken table. I quickly wrenched the nearest table leg free and slammed it through the nearest vamp. The table leg was not particularly sharp or pointed, but I had long since discovered I could ram a relatively blunt object through a vamp when my blood was up. And at that moment my blood was singing!

I staked the other vamp who had crashed into the table and then turned to see if any of my friends were in immediate danger.

Kennedy was working her way in the general direction of the kids in the far corner. She had seven vampires surrounding her, but since she survived the battle with the über-vamps unscathed, I wasn't too concerned.

Daniels had moved off to one side, but now a pair of vamps were approaching him. He fired a three round pattern into the center of the chest of the nearer one. The impact of the bullets forced the vamp back a couple of steps, but then it started moving forward again. I was getting a little concerned about Daniels when suddenly his gun let out a sharp staccato buzz. He had switched his Glock to full auto mode and emptied the clip directly into the vampire's throat. A novel method for decapitation, but it worked. Daniels quickly ejected the spent clip, slammed home a fresh one, and took out the other nearby vamp.

Finally, I glanced towards Rebecca. She was holding three vampires at bay with her sword, but two had worked their way behind her and would be on her in seconds. I took off with my table leg towards her at a dead run. When I got close I yelled, "Duck." Kicking off the back of one of the vamps in front of her and driving him into the ground, I vaulted over Rebecca landing on top of the two vamps approaching her from the rear. My momentum drove the vamps and me forward until we were fifteen feet from Rebecca. I sidekick one of them in the head hard enough to stun him while I staked the other one.

After finishing off the second one I turned to find Rebecca had decapitated the one I had forced to the ground, as well as one of the others. She was actually very good with that sword.

However these vamps did seem unusually easy to kill. And it was more than just the step down from battling über-vamps to normal everyday garden-variety vamps. No. All of these vamps were new. Not more than a day or two since they had been turned. It takes awhile for the demons possessing the bodies to acclimate and adjust to being in our world. That's one of the main reasons we always patrolled the cemeteries back in Sunnydale, a new vamp is ten times easier to slay than a week old vamp.

Not that I am complaining. If I have to fight 30 vamps, I would just as soon they be newbies.

Suddenly, I realized the staccato barking of Daniels' gun had stopped. I looked for him and found him confronting a female vamp. Definitely a female with most of her blouse undone as an added distraction. Even with a full vamp face, Daniels couldn't bring himself to blow her head off and had allowed her to get within arm's reach. She had no such compunction against attacking him. She quickly backhanded him across the face, spinning him around and sending his gun flying across the room.

Daniels was obviously dazed by the force of her blow, but tried for a backkick with his right leg to slow her approach. Unfortunately, she was fast and Daniels was not at his peak. She caught his ankle and jerked it up into the air smashing him into the floor.

I was already running towards them when the vamp threw herself onto him and went for his throat. I launched myself into a long, flat dive landing on top of the struggling pair. I had shortened my grip on the table leg, hopefully enough to take out the vamp without impaling Daniels too.

I crashed into the vamp, slamming the stake into her heart. For a second I was supported by the vampire's back before she burst into a cloud of dust. I dropped six inches and landed prone on top of Daniels. Our noses were actually touching, so I only had to lean down a faction of an inch to give him a quick kiss.

I pulled back and asked, "Are you okay?"

He smiled and said, "Yeah." But he looked less than okay. Where the vampire had backhanded him his face was bruised and swollen from his eye to the corner of his mouth.

I rolled off of him and bounced to my feet. I reached down to give him a hand up. As I pulled him up, I said with a quick wink, "I have never found lying on my back under a vampire to be a successful fighting technique."

He started to smile, but then grimaced when he put weight on the ankle the vamp had grabbed. Still, he only hesitated a second before pulling his spare Glock and getting back to the business of slaying vampires.

By this time there were only six vampires left. One each by Kennedy and the new slayer, one by Rebecca, one near Daniels, and two beating a hasty retreat out of a rear exit to the room.

Kennedy and the new slayer quickly dispatched theirs. I tossed my chair leg hard at the legs of the one near Rebecca, dropping him to the floor and allowing Rebecca to quickly dispatch him with her sword. I heard a sharp burst from Daniels gun and knew he had eliminated his.

When I turned to Daniels he had already slammed home a fresh clip and was drawing a bead on the retreating pair. I shouted for him to hold. He looked surprised, but put up his gun and started limping over, detouring just long enough to pick up his first gun he had lost during the fight with the female vampire.

When he reached me, I moved to his right side and draped his arm over my shoulder to relieve some of the weight on his injured ankle. Together we move over to the new slayer and her friends.

Chapter 4 - Part 5

When we reached the others I lowered Daniels until he was sitting on the edge of a crate. He nodded his thanks then asked, "Why did you stop me from shooting? It wasn't that hard of a shot, I could have gotten at least one and maybe both of them."

I took a minute to look at each of those present in turn. Kennedy was barely winded and obviously ready for more. The new slayer was breathing real hard from a very long fight, but not wounded. She would be fine in a couple of minutes. Rebecca was about the same, winded but could continue to fight in a couple of minutes. Daniels and both boys with the new slayer were hurt. The other girl with the slayer wasn't hurt, but looked to be going into shock. Obviously time to get some of the people out of here.

I looked back at Daniels, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "All of these vampires were too easy to kill. They had been turned within the last day or two. There has to be at least one older, more powerful vampire around here. I let those two go in hopes they will go running back to their sire and I can track them."

"Easy to kill," muttered Daniels as he rubbed his swollen face.

"Yeah, we got lucky. It takes about a week for vamps to reach most of their full strength and speed potential. After that their rate of increase slows dramatically, but they still increase. A year old vampire is a little stronger and faster than a week old vamp. A hundred-year-old vamp is better still, although part of that can be chalked up to experience. Ten on one is fair odds for a slayer against relatively young vampires. But against a two hundred year-old vampire, it better be one on one and the slayer may need to get lucky too. Fortunately, there are not a lot of two hundred year old or older vampires around."

"Did you say slayer?" asked the new slayer.

I turned to her. "I'm Faith. The others with me are Kennedy, Rebecca, and Daniels. And you?"

"My name is Kelly. Kelly MacIntire. These are my friends, Tom, Rita, and Michael."

I reached out to shake her hand. She switched the battleaxe from her right hand to her left and shook mine. Then she sort of sheepishly tried to return the axe.

I smiled at her. "No. Why don't you hang onto that for awhile? At least until we get out of here. You do feel a little more comfortable holding it, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I don't understand it, but for some reason I feel better with a weapon in my hand. I don't understand what is happening to me. The last few days I have been having all of these strange feelings. And I felt drawn to come down here to the museum. I mean I haven't been to the museum in years and suddenly I found myself in the building the past three days in a row. Finally, today my friends came with me and I nearly got us killed. And suddenly I feel so strong. I mean this axe is really heavy, right?"

"Just over two hundred pounds," Rebecca said quietly.

"That's twice as much as I weigh and yet it doesn't feel any harder to lift or swing than a baseball bat use to. What's happening to me?"

By this point she was almost in tears. I walked over and pulled her into my arms and stroked her hair. "It's going to be okay. You are a vampire slayer now, just like Kennedy and me. It may take some time, but we will explain everything. Can you hold it together for a few more hours?"

She gave me one more quick squeeze and then stepped back. "Yeah, I think so," she said as she wiped at her eyes.

I turned to Rebecca. "Do you have your cell?"

She pulled it out of the fanny pack and handed it to me. As I was dialing she walked over to Daniels and handed him a few more clips for his guns. He had been right, there was no such thing as too much ammo. Particularly when you burned an entire clip for each vamp you put down. If he was going on any more adventures like this, we are going to have to get him one of those backpack reloader things like Lara Croft used in the first 'Tomb Raider' movie.

On about the eighth ring of the phone a groggy British voice said, "Halloo."

"Giles, its Faith. Wake up."

"Faith, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"No, but I'm guessing it is a lot closer to morning there than here and it will be a long time before I get any sleep. Giles, I'm in Cleveland."

"Cleveland? I thought you were in Washington." This last was said with a loud yawn I could hear even on the phone.

"Cleveland. Remember you told us about the Hellmouth here? Well, things have gone wonky. I am in the basement of the Cleveland Museum of Art with Kennedy and we just killed about thirty vampires. And we found a new slayer here. Giles, are you listening?"

"Yeah. Cleveland. Museum of Art. Say have you seen the Aernout Mik exhibit. I hear it is his best work yet."

"What is it with everyone and this interest in Mik? Okay, before I leave Cleveland I promise to make time to see it. Now can we focus on the new slayer? Her name is Kelly MacIntire. Is there a watcher you can send over here to help her? And I don't mean you. I still need your help with my parents in Romania."

From his voice I could tell he was finally coming awake. "Umm, yeah. Agatha Penbrook is, I believe, in Albany, New York doing some research. She would be a good choice. I will call her first thing in the morning, her morning, not my morning. She should be able to reach Cleveland by tomorrow evening. Can you give me anymore particulars besides just the girl's name?"

"Hang on a second, Giles, and I will put her on." I turned to Kelly. "Kelly, my friend Giles would like to speak to you a minute. He heads up a group that helps new slayers like you. He would like to send someone out to teach you all the things you need to know and that I may not have time to get into. Plus she will help you set up a training program and just help in a lot of other ways. But to do that he needs to know how to let her get in touch with you. If you don't mind, could you give him a phone number where she can reach you and maybe a public place near your home where you can meet, perhaps somewhere like a library? Kennedy and I will try to hang around until she arrives, which should be tomorrow evening, but sometimes our lives are very hectic and we may have to leave before then."

Kelly nodded and held out her hand for the phone. She spent several minutes talking to Giles and giving him the contact information. Finally, she handed the phone back to me.

"Faith, is all of the excitement over?"

"No, I think it's just beginning. All of the vamps we fought were freshly turned, within the last day or two. I let a couple go, hoping they will lead me back to their sire. I really need to leave within the next couple of minutes before the trail gets old. I will try to call you back in a few hours with more details."

"Okay, Faith. Be careful."

"I'll try. Talk to you soon. Bye," I concluded before breaking the connection.

I turned back to the new slayer. "Kelly, would you like to get the ones responsible for hurting your friends?"

"Oh, yeah. It feels like there is a fire building inside of me and the only thing that will quench it is to get them and make them pay."

"I thought so. I feel like that some times too. How about my friends Kennedy and Daniels help your friends out of the building? There are cops waiting outside and they will see that your friends get to the hospital. I would like it if you come with Rebecca and me to look for the others. Along the way I will try to explain a little about being a slayer."

"Okay," she said with enthusiasm. Although how much of that was desire to find the vampire leaders and how much was interest about learning more about what she had become, I'm not sure. Not that it mattered at the moment.

Turning to Kennedy, I asked, "Will you get the others out of here? I know it isn't far, but if there are more vamps on the way, I would like you to be there."

Kennedy nodded, then held up her axe. "Do you want this?"

I shook my head. "Nah, you hang on to it for now. I'm good with the table leg. Remember the art of improvisation. Anything can be a weapon. Don't become too dependent on any one weapon or at just the wrong moment you might freeze and it will cost you a life."

Then I turned to Daniels, who I was afraid would provide the biggest challenge to my orders. "Daniels you need to help the others get out of here and then get that ankle checked."

Surprisingly, he nodded his agreement. "No argument. Until I get this ankle taped, I will just slow you down. I have had problems with this ankle before. When I get it taped, it will be back to at least 90. How do Kennedy and I find you when we return?"

"Easy," I said with an evil grin. Kicking my toe forward along the ground, I raised a small cloud of dust. "Just follow the piles of vampire dust."

End of Chapter 4