Ironic

Part Three

Posted: November 4, 2004

Disclaimer: see first chapter

Reader Responses:

GidgetGirl: thanks for your review. That's high praise coming from you, since I'm always telling people if they want the best stories around, read yours. Thanks so much.

And I figured it was one of your challenges...I think I actually read this challenge not to long ago...oh well. Since it's yours, I hope you don't mind me using the basis for it! The story gets wacky from here, and I'm really not sure where it's going, but Thanks again for your review, and thanks for another great story idea!

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She stepped into the night, and found herself trembling. She leaned against the brick, trying to calm herself. What the hell was wrong with her? She'd never felt demons before. She was never that fast, or strong. She had never been that mean either. She had always been demure, polite, calm, gentile, was this her unusual breeding showing at last?

"Hey!" suddenly four burly demons surrounded her, "you can't just come hea and threaten our barkeep," the largest demon growled.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know. It won't happen again, I swear."

"You're right, it won't." two demons grabbed her arms, and the speaker punched her in the stomach. She wheezed as the air left her body in a rush.

"Not so tough now, are you?"

She took the opportunity given to her, as the fourth demon leaned close enough towards her, by kicking out at him. Then she ripped her arm from one of the demon's grasp, punching the other. He let go, and she ran.

It didn't take long for them to catch up. She put on a burst of speed, dodging through the minimal traffic.

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His sensitive senses caught something. Running feet. Pounding heart. The smell of fear on the air. A petite girl dodged around him, and then four demons knocked into him.

"Hey! Watch it!" he growled, leaning against the wall, before pushing off, giving chase.

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She was faster than she thought, as she careened around a corner. She knew she could have taken one of the demons; Spike had given her fighting lessons when she had turned 10, until her fa- until Giles stopped him. She had beaten the vampire a few times, though he probably let her win.

She ducked down a side street, only to find it a dead end alley half way down. She skidded to a stop, and looked towards the mouth of the dank alley. To late, the demons had already caught up with her.

She stepped into a fighting stance, as the demons, laughing, fanned out, blocking her exit.

"P-Please! I didn't mean any harm! I didn't know, I'm sorry!"

"You'll be sorry once we're through," the leader promised.

She glanced at them in desperation. She saw no sympathy in their eyes. With lightening quick reflexes she didn't possess, she grabbed the knife from her sock. Surprisingly, she was moderately ready for their attack, as two demons rushed her. She felt a strange calm wash over her, and it almost felt like someone stood at her back, their reassuring hand on her shoulder.

She parried the first attack, and then the second. She managed to get a stab in, just nicking the demon's hard scales.

The demon looked down at his arm, and then up at her, with fire in his eyes.

She gulped.

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He loped into the alley, and stopped to watch her fight, fascinated. It had been a long while since he had saved someone who knew how to fight. He saw the flash of steel, and shook his head ruefully. A small blade like that, unless placed in specific locations, would only irritate the Yentiw demons.

He heard the blade scrape across the metallic scales, and saw the retaliating punch to her kidney. Before she hit the ground, her scream echoing in his ears, he was moving, diving, into the four demons intent on defiling her body.

He pulled out his own blade, and slid it across the back of the neck, where there was a weakness in the scales. His blade, sharp enough to cut silk placed upon its edge, broke the brittle scales and slid between the bones, severing vital nerves. The demon didn't even have a chance to scream, before he fell, unlike the girl. He quickly turned to the other three, making quick business of them as well. He was older than the three combined, older than they'd ever be; older than they ever had a chance to be.

He turned, looking at the crumpled form of the girl.

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The darkness slowly receded, and she groaned, rolling over. The ache at her side flashed, and she opened her eyes in shock. The room was dark, the bed soft. It had a foggy appearance, with black sheer cloths thrown over the lamps. In another hue, it might have seemed romantic, but here it was just morbid, gloomy.

Another shooting pain went through her side; this one forced a strangled cry through her dry lips.

"Don't move. Just lie still," He pulled her back so she was lying on her stomach in the soft mattress. "You took quite a hit back there."

"W-who are you?"

He turned away, "I don't know anymore."

"Well, that makes two of us," she tried to sit up, but the pain overpowered her, forcing her to cry out once more.

"I told you to lie still. Listen, I'm not telling you as torture. You took a hard hit the your kidney. It hurts like hell, trust me. I've been around long enough to know."

"W-What type of demon are you?" she tried to draw away from him, but the pain was too intense.

"I'm not going to hurt you, if that's what you're thinking. I-I'm nothing. I came here to...to hide, to get away, only to find you can't run from this.

"Run from what?"

"Death," he looked her straight in the eye, before looking away. "What brings you to New York?"

"How-"

"After awhile, the city leaves its mark on you."

"I'm looking for someone."

"Who?"

She was about to answer, when her cell phone, with it's distinctive tone, rang out in the silence. "Hello? Hi, Aunt Dawn...No, I haven't' found him yet... How's Da-Gi- how is he...I'm sorry for worrying him. If it makes him feel better, I'm in New York...I talked to Cordelia, and she lent me the money...Yes, Queen C. you sound so surprised...Yes, I'll pay her back, don't worry, I was raised better than that. Look, my batteries are running low, I've got to go. Bye...I love you too." She hit the off button, "Sorry about that."

"How do you know Cordelia Chase?" he glared at her, his eyes intense.

She was taken aback by the question, "She was B-she was my mother's friend in high school. She never helped Da- my adoptive father with babysitting, but then neither did Mum. Only Xan-man and Will." He got more serious as she rattled off names, "Later on, after she died, and my father needed a lot of time alone, it was Dawn. How do you know her?"

"She used to work for me."

"Y-You're Angelus!" He flinched at the name, "You're a vampire!"

He nodded.

She burst into tears, not the reaction either were expecting, "I-I never really believed! I hoped it was just a misunderstanding!"

He looked at her, perplexed, "What?"

"When I overheard them talking, I just thought they were talking about demons, or-or the hellmouth. I never thought it would lead me here! B-But they weren't, they were talking about me! I'm not who I think I am! My whole life is a lie!"

"Who were you?" he asked, not making sense of her ramblings.

"Jessica Giles. Aunt Dawn, who isn't really my aunt, but she is, she was yelling at Dad, but he's not my dad...she said I needed to know, but I didn't know what she was talking about! Dawn said you had a right to know too, but Dad said you didn't, because you killed the woman I thought was my mother, but she's not, and he's always complained about you, how you weren't there when she really needed you, and you killed her, made her want to kill herself-"

"I deserve to know what?" he interrupted her ranting.

"You're my real father." She looked up at him with tearstained cheeks, waiting for his reaction.

He stared at her a moment, and then he laughed. It was a cynical laugh. "Not possible. Vampire's can't have children." He walked away from the bed, her prison.

"Don't you think I know that?!" She stumbled out of the bed, her side throbbing from the effort, "I'm only telling you what I know! Dad and Aunt Dawn said that B- that the slayer was my mother, and you are my father."

"I don't believe it."

"Do you think I want to? I have two freaks for parents, and my real dad killed the woman I thought to be my mother for 18 years!"

"She's not a freak!" he said quietly, "She was a gorgeous, courageous woman, who died to save those that she loved."

"To get away from it all, you mean. I lived through it, and I've heard the stories, I've heard them talk about it. She never got over your leaving, and when that ponce left her, and then her mum died, she used the portal as a way out!"

"No, she'd never do that!"

"But she did, why can't you see that?! She was a coward, and she took the simple way out of a situation she felt she couldn't control."

"Don't talk about your mother like that!" She flinched like he had slapped her, and the tears started once more, "I-I'm sorry." He awkwardly put his arms around her, as she cried into his shirt.

As a tear ran down her face, a similar tear fell down his own cheek, and both drops fell to the simple silver chain she wore, running down the links to mingle together on the silver ring hanging at the hollow of her throat.

A blinding light went through the tiny apartment, and a force threw the vampire and his daughter to the far wall, his dead body taking most of the impact.

A figure stood where they had been just a moment before.

"When the Father and Daughter cry as one, Heaven and Hell will open their gates and release their chosen upon the world. One died for others; the other lives to worship chaos. Only she, born of light and shadow, good and evil, can combat the darkness and restore the balance," the figure intoned, before collapsing in a heap on the wood floor.