Eek. I hope everything works out okay Faerie of Egypt. I live in western Maryland so I don't think I have much to worry about save lots of rain. Hurricane Isabel got us out of school and we lost power for about 24 hrs. but that was it. It helps when you live in the mountains I suppose. Anyhow, I hope you and your family and friends make it through safe and sound. Good luck and thanks for the review. And thanks to the rest of you who reviewed and to those who are reading but not reviewing. Come on! Throw me a bone here! Tell me what you think? Please?
Saxifrage: Oh yeah, now they sound vaguely familiar. lol. Thanks.
Also my thanks go out to: Shann51 and Lilylynn.
Chapter Five Title: Explanations on the Magic Carpet
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Elizabeth could not remember the last time she had felt so miserable; so damn helpless. She sat at the edge of the River Thames and though all her wounds were dressed and bandaged she felt like she was still bleeding. She was bleeding sorrow and worry for her baby brother and residual guilt over his abduction. They had taken Alex because of the bracelet. She knew it was because of the bracelet. What other reason could there be? They had wanted the bracelet and it was practically welded onto the kid's wrist now, so to take that they had to take him too. Now the question was, would they kill him and cut the bracelet off? Elizabeth didn't even want to ponder over the grievous plight.
Alex may have been one of the most annoying "pain-in-the-arses" in the world, but she loved her brother dearly just the same. He was more precious to her than...anything. If he got hurt because of that bracelet she would never be able to forgive herself. She should never have left Alex alone with the bracelet in the first place. How could she have been so bloody careless?
Her parents were standing behind her talking in hushed, anguished voices. When she heard someone else approach she turned and saw that it was Ardeth Bay. She rose and went to stand between her mother and father, wanting to feel their comforting presence.
"Do not fear for the child, my friends," he addressed the distraught O'Connells. "They cannot harm him, for he wears the Bracelet of Anubis."
Elizabeth perked up. That was good news. That was very good news. So, the bracelet was protecting him from harm. That bought them some valuable time to get him back in one piece.
"Alex is wearing the bracelet?" Evelyn asked in surprise.
Rick nodded grimly. "When he put it on he said he saw the pyramids at Giza and the temple at Karnak."
Nodding, Ardeth said, "When they reach Karnak, the bracelet will show him the next step of the journey."
"To Ahm Shere," Elizabeth intoned softly.
"If we don't get there first, we won't have any idea where to go to next!" Evelyn cried, distressed all over again.
Rick was silent in deep contemplation for a while before saying, "Seems to me we need a magic carpet."
Sometimes, Elizabeth just didn't get her father.
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Armed men in red turbans rode on top of each car of the train as it pulled out of the Cairo train station and chugged through the Egyptian desert. The Curator and Meela were situated in a luxurious passenger car while Lock-Nah guarded Alex.
The Curator held the black Book of the Dead within the folds of his robes and was explaining to Meela, "When last Lord Imhotep encountered the O'Connells, they sent his immortal soul to the underworld. As powerful as he may become, he is still vulnerable. Only with the Army of Anubis will he be invincible." He handed the black book over to the dark-haired, young woman. "Keep this with you always."
When Alex saw the book he exclaimed, "Hey, the Book of the Dead!"
Meela grinned at the boy. "What a bright little child." She kneeled down to Alex's level and said sweetly, "Your mother must be missing you terribly." Her tone changed from sweet to cold. "If you wish to see her again you had better behave."
Alex snorted. "Lady, I don't behave for my parents. What makes you think I'm going to do the same for you."
Meela smirked and pecked Alex on the cheek. "Cuz your parents wouldn't slip poisonous snakes into your bed while you were sleeping."
Alex's eyes widened.
"Lord Imhotep wishes to meet the boy," the Curator informed them.
Lock-Nah nodded and dragged Alex out of the room as Red Lasher, Spivey, and Jacques entered with a blanket-covered box.
"Did you acquire what we asked?" the Curator queried, eyeing the men suspiciously.
"Oh, we acquired it all right. Had to kill a couple guards at the museum to acquire it," Red answered cockily.
Jacques pulled the blanket away and there sat the chest that would enable Imhotep to regain full power once again. When the Curator reached for the box the brawny Frenchman snatched it back saying ominously, "Zis chest is cursed. It says, zere is one, ze undead, who will kill all zose who open it—"
The Curator cut him off in exasperation. "Yes, yes. And suck them dry and he'll become whole again. We have all heard this story before."
"We also heard that those American chaps that found the chest over fifteen years ago all died. Horrible deaths they were," Red told him. He then added importantly, "So, with that in mind—"
"We want ten," Spivey finished.
"The agreement was for five," the Curator said coolly.
"We want ten, or we'll take our business elsewhere," Red replied, not willing to be denied.
Meela stopped the Curator before he spoke and said to the three men with a malicious smile, "Ten will be just fine. If you will follow me, gentlemen, you shall receive your just reward."
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Lock-Nah brought Alex into a car that had been transformed into a temporary Egyptian temple. A cloaked figure stood amidst the torches and burning incense. Lock-Nah bowed before it and Alex started to panic.
When the creature turned around Alex let out a muffled scream and backed away. It was a rotted mummy that was alive. It was Imhotep.
Imhotep began to speak to the boy, who while not having a firm grasp on the ancient Egyptian language like his mother quite yet understood every word he said by some mystical means. "It is you who are the chosen one, you who will lead me to Ahm Shere."
Alex tried to quell his mounting panic. "What if I don't? What if I get a little...lost?" He took a leaf out of his mother and sister's books and raised an eyebrow to accentuate the hint he was trying to give.
Imhotep's ghastly face split into a malicious grin. "You have strength, little one. You are your father's son. But I know something you do not." He grabbed the boy's wrist that had the bracelet on it and said, "This bracelet is a gift and a curse. The sands of time have already begun to pour against you."
Alex scoffed. "Yeah, yeah. I already heard this part. I put the bracelet on, seven days later the Scorpion King wakes up.
Imhotep's resulting laugh was nerve-wracking. "Did you also hear that if you do not enter the pyramid before the sun hits it on the morning of the seventh day, the bracelet will suck the life out of you?"
Alex gasped. "That part I missed. Wait a minute! That means I only have five days left!"
"I think it would be best then if we did not get lost, don't you?"
Anger surged through Alex's veins and he shot the mummy a look of pure loathing to match the look his mother gave the creature two nights ago.
"My dad is going to kick your ass," he promised, pronouncing the curse word in true American fashion just like his father. Remembering his sister's actions against the soldier-mummies on the bus he then smiled and added, "And so will my sister."
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Before going off to find Rick's magic carpet the O'Connells, Jonathan, and Ardeth Bay returned to the manor to procure provisions for their rescue trip. Elizabeth took out the studded leather armor her watcher had given to her for her one year anniversary as vampire slayer and strapped it on. The outfit had various hidden and unhidden places for weapons to be stored and Elizabeth stocked up as much as she could. She put on a thin, dark green flannel buttoned shirt with sleeves that reached to her elbows like her mother wore to hide the weapons on her person more effectively. She put the weapons she didn't carry—which consisted of arsenal of battle axes, knives, dirks, falchions, daggers, brass knuckles, glaives etc.—in black bags and strapped crossbows and quivers full of bolts on her back. Her father and Ardeth Bay would be sure to take care of the guns. She then made sure Ebony was safe and had enough food and water to last for a couple of weeks.
Before leaving she had a message sent off to her watcher saying that she must return to Egypt for personal reasons and that she would notify him immediately upon her return. She pulled her thick nearly black hair up and pinned it to keep it out of her face. After finishing preparing herself she chanced a look in a bathroom mirror and saw that she was ready for battle.
Rick's jaw nearly dropped when he saw his daughter walk downstairs dressed like she was a soldier going off to battle. The studded leather suit aside, she had a crossbow slung across her back and a quiver of bolts hung at her side above the long sword sheathed in a scabbard at her hips. She was also carrying three bulky bags that looked extremely heavy but seemed to weigh very little to the girl carrying them. Where in the hell did she acquire all that? His curiosity was piqued even higher and she smiled sheepishly at everyone's bewildered expressions. Ardeth Bay seemed the be the only one looking upon her with understanding and she had an inkling he knew what she was about. Scary.
"I know. I'll explain as soon as we get on that magic carpet of yours, Dad," Elizabeth told them.
Rick nodded curtly. "Fair enough."
"At least let one of them carry those bags. They look awfully heavy," Evelyn pointed out.
Elizabeth smiled and held one of the black bags out. "Have at it."
Jonathan took the bag and was dragged down by its weight, but he put a brave face on the matter and heaved it up with a groan as they walked out of the manor to rescue Alex and stop Imhotep from destroying the world. Well, at least her watcher couldn't say she was lazy on her vacation from patrol duty.
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Two days later the O'Connells and Jonathan were cruising through the desert in Cairo in a rented car. Ardeth Bay had left them to gather his brethren and would meet them there. They reached a dilapidated airstrip with a single paneled hangar. Over the door a rickety hanging sign read Magic Carpet Airways.
Evelyn and Elizabeth looked at it skeptically and then back at Rick.
"This is your magic carpet?" Evelyn asked.
"It'll be fine. Izzy's a professional."
A greasy, black man with an eye patch over his left eye walked out of the door preparing to greet his customers. When he saw Rick, he stopped right in his tracks.
"Izzy!" Rick greeted heartily.
Izzy did not seem to share the happy sentiment. With a whimper he turned right around on his heels shutting and locking the door. Elizabeth and Evelyn laughed in spite of themselves.
"He definitely remembers you," Evelyn quipped.
"He's just a little shy," Rick said.
"More like terrified. What did you to do him, Dad?"
"Jonathan, get our bags!" Rick ordered.
"Um, my hands are rather full—"
"Now!" Rick ordered, grabbing the scepter from Jonathan's hands and handing it to Elizabeth.
"Right, right!"
Rick pulled his gun out and shot the door handle off. Evelyn sighed and said, "Honey, you're not a subtle man."
Rick kicked the door open. "We don't have time for subtle."
The hangar was comprised of three walls and a roof. It was absolutely filthy and Elizabeth was afraid to touch anything for fear of contracting some horrible bacterial disease. No telling what manner of things had gone on in this place. Whatever had been going on, this place obviously lacked a woman's touch.
"He doesn't look exactly thrilled to see you, Dad," Elizabeth remarked.
"He's never turned me down yet."
Izzy was at a desk gathering maps and scrolls and stuffing them into a backpack. "Whatever it is, whatever you need, I don't care! Forget it, O'Connell! Every time I hook up with you I get shot! Last time I got shot in the arse! I'm in mourning for my arse!"
Elizabeth and Evelyn looked at Rick inquisitively who shrugged as if he had no idea what the man was talking about.
"Remember that bank job in Marrakesh?" Izzy continued.
Elizabeth giggled with mirth at the thought of her father, the proud ex-Legionnaire doing a bank job. "Bank job?"
Rick made a placating gesture. "It's not like it sounds."
"Uh, it's exactly how it sounds. I'm flying high, hiding in the sun, the white boy flags me down so I fly in low for the pickup. Next thing you know I get shot! I'm lying in the middle of the road with my spleen hanging out and I see him waltzing up with some belly dancer girl."
Evelyn cocked an eyebrow. "Belly dancer girl? Izzy, I think you and I should talk."
"Long as I don't get shot," Izzy replied.
Elizabeth sighed and began to twiddle the scepter in boredom. Slayers had massive reserves of energy and after resting for two days to recuperate from her wounds she was ready to get back in action. Except lately there hadn't been any action to be had. Wait a minute? Was that a man reading a newspaper in a bathtub out in the open?
Rick groaned and pulled out a wad of money. "Quit your whining. You're getting paid this time." He threw the wad at Izzy.
Izzy examined the bills and scoffed. "O'Connell, you don't travel here any. What do I need money for? What the hell am I going to spend it on?"
Rick sighed. "I'm gonna keep this short. My little boy is out there and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him back." He paused when he noticed Izzy's eyes were trained on something else behind Rick so she looked back to see his daughter twirling the scepter around in her hands like a baton and Izzy's eyes were following its every move.
"O'Connell, you give me that gold stick your girl is holding and you can shave my head, wax my legs and use me for a surfboard," Izzy bargained.
Elizabeth stopped twirling when her sensitive ears picked up that bit and she grimaced at the rather grotesque images that conjured up. Thank you so much for the nightmares to come.
Rick thought the deal was fair enough and asked Elizabeth to hand it over. When Izzy got the stick Rick said to him, "Didn't we do that in Tripoli?"
Rick then remembered the eye patch and decided to inquire about it. "By the way, when did you lose your eye?"
Izzy laughed. "Oh, I didn't. Just thought it made me more dashing." The greasy man gave a sly grin full of rotted, yellow teeth with one gold tooth.
Rick ripped the patch off. No way was he going to allow a man to fly a plane carrying his wife and daughter with an eye patch if the man had two perfectly good eyes. He snapped his fingers saying, "C'mon! Get to work."
As they walked to where Ardeth Bay had finally arrived Izzy approached the two ladies of the group. "So, O'Connell actually reproduced. Sorry for your luck, lass. At least you look more like your mum there," he said to Elizabeth who cocked an eyebrow. "You're not exactly catching me at my best, though."
Evelyn draped an arm over her daughter's shoulders. "I'm sure we are."
They saw thirteen horsemen all dressed in the black robes of the Medjai, Ardeth Bay was ahead of them. He dismounted and approached the people in front of him.
Izzy whimpered. "I knew it. I'm gonna get shot."
"These are the commanders of the twelve tribes of the Medjai," he introduced. Then he called loudly while holding out a heavily gloved arm, "Horus!"
A falcon fluttered over to Ardeth Bay's arm and perched there. Elizabeth's eyes lit up appreciatively. She liked birds.
"Ah, a pet bird," Jonathan remarked.
"My best and most clever friend. He will let the commanders know of our progress so that they may follow," Ardeth explained. "If the Army of Anubis rises they will do all they can to stop it." He turned to his brethren and raised his hand in salute while saying, "Harum bara shad!" They repeated Ardeth's words and rode off.
Izzy led the rescuers to the hangar and they stopped in their tracks at what was before them.
"Dad, that's a balloon," Elizabeth told her father in disbelief.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Izzy asked with pride.
"It's a balloon!" Rick cried.
Izzy shook his head. "Ah, it's a dirigible."
"Where the hell's your airplane?" Rick asked.
Izzy waved that away. "Airplanes are a thing of the past."
Rick gritted his teeth. "Izzy, you were right."
The man looked confused. "I was?"
"Yeah, you're gonna get shot!" Rick pulled out a gun and aimed it at Izzy.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! She's faster than she looks and she's quiet. Real quiet. Perfect for sneaking up on people, which is a very good thing. Unless of course, we go with your approach," Izzy's voice became sardonic, "barging in face first, guns blazing and getting your friend shot in the arse."
Evelyn put a calming hand on her husband's arm as he thought this over. He shrugged and put his gun back in its holster.
Ardeth Bay shook his head disparagingly. "Why can't you people ever keep your feet on the ground?"
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As the dirigible drifted through the night sky everyone noticed that Izzy had been right about its silence. Perhaps it was better that they used this contraption rather than a large airplane. Elizabeth watched the moonlit clouds drift by aimlessly. Maybe it was because she was the Slayer and her foes usually came out at night, but she had always felt more comfortable at night in the dim lights of stars and moon than in the day. It was easier to hide and make yourself invisible in the nighttime.
She wondered anxiously if her brother had reached Karnak yet and ardently hoped he hadn't. But Alex was a clever kid like their mother and would find someway to let them know where to go. He had to because after the seven days were up, Imhotep would probably dispose of the boy, his purpose served in leading them to Ahm Shere. What more would they need of him after that? They had to find him before then.
She turned her head to the rustling sound behind her and saw her Uncle Jonathan sitting beside Ardeth Bay reaching behind his back and rummaging for something. Ardeth Bay was talking thoughtfully.
"O'Connell does not want to believe it, but he flies like Horus towards his destiny."
Jonathan didn't seem all that interested in Rick's destiny. "Yes, yes. Now, about that gold pyramid?"
Elizabeth cracked a wan smile at her uncle's ever-lust for treasure and gold that always got him into trouble. She sat down beside the two men, took out some stakes and for lack of anything better to do began sharpening them. Ardeth Bay glanced at her meaningfully. He knew already, I suspect. She was already going to have to explain to her parents soon. Why hide it any longer?
To Jonathan he said, "It is written that, since the time of the Scorpion King, no one who had laid eyes upon the pyramid has ever returned to tell the tale."
"Where is all this rubbish written?" Jonathan muttered before exclaiming, "Ah! There it is!" He pulled out the gold Scepter of Osiris. "Pretty nice, eh?"
The Medjai agreed and said, "If the Curator reacted to it the way you said it must be very important. You should keep it close."
Jonathan hugged it close. "My friend, the gods couldn't take this away."
Right then, Izzy snatched it out of the man's hands stating, "That's mine! Keep your hands off!"
Elizabeth and Ardeth Bay snickered at Jonathan's plight. Then Elizabeth looked at Ardeth and said, "You know, don't you? What I am; what I do. You know."
Jonathan looked extremely confused at those words, but Ardeth Bay simply nodded. "After seeing you rise from such a grievous injury I began to have my suspicions. Then when you walked down the stairs of your home carrying bags that two men would have had to carry with much effort, I knew. You are She."
Elizabeth nodded and turned her attention back to her work. Jonathan was utterly lost. "She? What she? What the bloody hell are you two going on about?"
"So, how long have you been fighting?" Ardeth asked inquisitively.
"Oh, a little over a year. I was Called a month past my fourteenth birthday and I've managed to not die in the first year like so many of my predecessors," Elizabeth replied nonchalantly.
"What? Die? What are you talking about?" Jonathan asked, starting to panic.
"Perhaps it is because you are your parents' daughter that you have survived. Do you not think it strange that your parents and uncle were the ones to defeat Imhotep the first time and now you have been Called as a Chosen One for God? Fate seems to have her eye fixed on the O'Connell and Carnahan blood," Ardeth told her ominously.
"I suppose that's a logical way of putting it. I came along because it's my duty to mankind, but also because I'm partly at fault for Alex putting on the bracelet," Elizabeth confessed in shame.
"How so?" Ardeth asked.
"When Mum, Dad, and I found the bracelet and Mum opened the chest...I felt its power...its evil. It called to me to put it on, to lose myself completely in temptation, but I resisted and fought it off. It was because I was the Slayer that I was able to fight it off but," she swallowed hard and wiped a tear away from her face, her voice was breaking with sorrow, "I let my own brother, my own flesh-and-blood, an eight-year-old child, carry the chest into our home. I left him alone with the cursed thing knowing what it was because I was too selfish. I had wanted nothing more to do with it and now I'm paying the price for not doing what I should have done. I should have thrown that thing into the bloody Thames."
Ardeth gripped her hand sympathetically. "Do not fret, my child. You are young, but you have had to mature fast. We all make mistakes. We will rescue your brother and avert this threat."
Elizabeth shook her head and whispered, "Alex is only a boy. He didn't have the strength of the Slayer to aid him. I should have seen that." She rubbed her temples. "I failed him. I failed my family."
"Come now, Lizzie. Chin up! With an attitude like that how do you expect to get him back?" Jonathan said jovially, putting his hand under her chin and pushing her head upwards. She smiled faintly and then Jonathan added, "Now if you two would be so kind to explain to me what the hell you were talking about, that would be nice."
Rick and Evelyn stood wrapped in each other's arms not far away from the other three talking quietly to one another.
"I want him back Rick, I want him in my arms," Evelyn cried softly.
"I know," Rick said, feeling the same as his wife.
Evelyn swallowed hard and said in a pained voice, "I just love him so much I can't bear it if..."
"I know, we both do and Lizzie does...most of the time. And Alex knows that. They're both smarter than you and tougher than me. He'll be all right." He kissed his wife on the top of her head and breathed, "I'll get him back, Evy. I promise."
Evelyn smiled and leaned back into her husband's embrace. "I know you will."
After a few quiet, intimate moments they walked back to join the group and Rick looked at Elizabeth meaningfully. She sighed. It was time for her to tell them the truth. Her mother sat by her and wrapped her in her arms for support. Elizabeth took comfort in her mother's presence and leaned back in the embrace.
"Mum, Dad, what do you know about vampires and demons and the like?" she began.
Her father frowned. "I would say they were myths, but after what I've seen I don't know what to think."
She continued, "Well, the world didn't begin like a paradise like it says in the Bible. It was the home of demons first...it was a hell. Then mortal creatures such as humans came about and usurped their way into the world as the dominant species. The demons began to leave into other dimensions, but one mixed his blood with a human creating a demon-human hybrid—the first vampire. He in turn mixed his blood with others creating more and more vampires and they fed off humans like leeches sometimes killing them, sometimes turning them. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it happened soon after the vampires were created."
"What are you getting at here, Lizzie?" Rick asked.
"Be patient, my friend," Ardeth Bay advised.
"What happened was a group of men, I suppose they were warlocks, took a young girl, a helpless girl, and imbued her with some demon power and called her the Vampire Slayer. The power gave the girl unimaginable physical strength, quick reflexes, superior stamina, superior speed, superior agility, accelerated healing, heightened senses, and a natural bit of fighting skill. They created it so that when she died, another girl would be Chosen to take her place and so it has been done like that for thousands of years. One Slayer dies, another is Called and she fights the good fight until she dies. A Slayer died around the time of my fourteenth birthday and one day soon after a man came to me after school and told me I had been Called. I am the Vampire Slayer now until I die."
Everyone, including Izzy, had been listening to the girl's speech that she had taken from her watcher's own speech of many speeches to her. She paused to gauge their reactions. An eerie silence had descended upon the dirigible with expressions of shock written on her parents' and uncle's faces.
All of a sudden Rick and Evelyn began to piece together all the little details from the past year that had made no sense to them, but now were starting to make sense. The little limps here and there, the winces Elizabeth sometimes made when she moved, the blood they glimpsed on her clothes that Rick had figured was just a woman thing with menstruation and being a man did not ask, when she stayed at home stating that she was ill, which she had looked ill. All those had been because she had been out almost every night battling creatures that should never have existed. Their daughter, their firstborn child, was out there every night literally stalking death, dancing with death, while they had slumbered peacefully at home. The skills she had exhibited three nights ago in her room and later in the British Museum, the strength she had shown fighting the soldier-mummies on the double-decker bus, the weapons she carried, the clothes she was wearing, her pleas to leave the catacombs of the temple where they found the Bracelet of Anubis because she had felt its evil power—it all began to make a sickening sense. It was a wakeup call of the worst kind.
"Oh my god," Evelyn murmured, covering her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob.
"Why....why didn't you tell us?" Rick asked.
"Really O'Connell, you can be so dense! Honestly, how would you have taken the news knowin that your girl was going out and rolling around in the dirt every night?" Izzy spoke up.
"Izzy, shut up and stay out of this," Rick growled.
"My identity is to be kept secret at all costs under the belief it would endanger myself and you lot if you knew. You don't know how badly I wanted to tell you. It was so hard and so lonely keeping it inside. I'm almost glad those blokes showed up at our house giving me an excuse to explain," Elizabeth said.
"How could you...do this...every night. It's so dangerous," her mother said.
Elizabeth sighed. "You think I wanted to? You think I chose this? It was never my choice to begin with, I was the one girl out of my generation given the power. I didn't ask for it, it was given to me, forced upon me and I had no choice but to oblige its will. What else could I do? Stay home like a good girl while people died from vampires when I could have stopped it?" Her parents exchanged glances and then looked back at Elizabeth. "I go out there every night knowing that one night, I won't come back." At that both her parents paled when they fully realized their daughter's predicament. "It's the legacy of my predecessors. We carry a burden that is ours alone. We know our lives have been shortened quite a bit and that our deaths will most likely not be peaceful, but it's a small price to pay for the lives we save. I have even averted apocalypses! I know I will probably never see my eighteenth birthday, and at first I couldn't accept it, but now I have. I'm luckier than most slayers though because I have a home to return to. I have a loving family waiting for me at home and I think that's the major reason for my surviving my first year. The Watchers Council, the council that guards the slayer legacy and sends out people to train her and prepare her, thinks that having a home and family are obstacles to a slayer's success, but they're wrong. I read through the slayer records, most girls who died in their first years were kept isolated and lonely. They had no substantial reason to stay alive whereas others who lived with their families and had families of their own stayed alive longer because they had reasons to fight, to stay alive."
She let those words sink into everyone's heads before clearing things up a bit. "Don't you see? Mum, Dad, Uncle Jon, you and Alex are what keeps me alive. You are what gives me that extra strength whenever I'm in the cemeteries or alley ways fighting for my life. I do it for you."
Her mother began to weep and pulled Elizabeth in close whimpering, "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."
Rick stayed frozen to his seat as he ran over and over in his mind the revelations his daughter had imparted to him. Of all the things he had expected as explanation from Elizabeth, this was wasn't even on the list. He felt a maelstrom of conflicting emotions billowing inside. He felt pride in his daughter's bravery, grief over her doomed fate, betrayal at not being told, anger at the ones who were responsible, anger at himself for not noticing something was different about Elizabeth after she turned fourteen. He had no idea whatsoever what she had been going through. What kind of father was he?
"Hold up! That was you! That night when I left the pub pissed as hell and these...things with disfigured faces attacked me. I mean...most I can't really recall, but I remember waking up in my apartment with a few bruises. Did you save me?" Jonathan recalled.
"Yeah, that was me. And those were vampires that attacked you, Uncle Jon," Elizabeth told him.
"Oh, thanks," Jonathan said.
"Is this why you never talked with your mother and I about colleges or career choices?" Rick asked quietly.
Elizabeth nodded grimly. "I didn't figure there was any point to it."
"Right," Rick replied, his voice tight and controlled.
"Have you...been hurt badly?" Evelyn asked, a little afraid to hear the answer.
Elizabeth went quiet for a while before speaking up, "Well, what would be really bad for you isn't really always all that bad for me. A slayer can take more damage than the normal human, I don't bruise easily and my bones don't break as easily. And of course there's the fact that I heal very quickly. Look at my shoulder wound, you can barely see it now." She showed them the shoulder that had been grazed by a bullet three nights ago in her bathroom. All that was left was a pinkish scar.
"Incredible," Jonathan murmured.
"Yeah, it is a rather lovely perk," Elizabeth quipped. "Whenever I was hurt really bad and it would take a couple days to heal, I just feigned illness."
"Were you ever really sick?" Rick asked, suddenly curious.
"Uh, I don't think so. No, I really don't get sick except for a cold here and there. I guess slayers have great immune systems too. Heh," Elizabeth mused.
"Well, you won't have to go out there alone anymore! Your father and I will—"
"No! No! No! New fighting skills or not Mum, you and Dad are not coming with me. It's my burden to carry alone, not yours. What keeps me alive is knowing you two are safe at home along with Alex. You could get me killed coming out there," Elizabeth protested adamantly.
"Evelyn, you must understand. The legend of the Slayer says, 'She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of evil.' You must not interfere. Elizabeth is right, having her family safe at home is best to keep her alive," Ardeth soothed.
Rick frowned. "Wait a minute. You know about all this?"
Ardeth Bay nodded. "All the Medjai know of the holy female warrior of God. We all honor and revere her. Were she to be one of our own it would be a great source of pride for the family. She would be greatly respected."
"That's real nice, but this is my daughter we're talking about and I am not too thrilled with this job of hers," Rick spat.
"It doesn't really matter if you like it or not, it's destiny. I have to do it," Elizabeth said quietly.
Rick closed his eyes and said softly, "I know, I just...."
Elizabeth gripped her father's hands and looked him in his bright-blue eyes that were a couple shades lighter than her own. Eyes that also belonged to her brother. "I know, Dad. I'll be careful. I don't plan on dying anytime soon."