The next morning the group managed to avoid any embarrassment on Andrew's behalf; Charlie didn't give him enough time to make stupid comments. Which was probably a good thing, seeing as Faith really wasn't in the mood for putting up with the little dork. Her head was still fuzzy with sleep, and she'd taken a crack around the ribs last night; still hurt like hell.
"Good morning. As I'm sure you're aware, you did very well last night." Faith grinned as she remembered the nest they'd been to; that had been a brilliant fight. She hadn't had that much violence since that last apocalypse. Of course, her chest was really complaining about it, and last time she'd check her lower ribs were a dull purple colour. Still, super-healing powers and all, she should be fine soon enough. "I know there were more vampires than you expected, but, I have to say, you coped extremely well. My confidence in you in growing."
Faith was sprawled out on one of the white sofas, head rested on one of the arms and feet lying on the other arm. She smirked at Charlie's last comment; shed have been more than a little pissed off if he was proud of them after last night, though she might have been able to take most of those vamps herself. Sure, she probably would have ended up with a few extra bruises and possible a couple of broken bones, but she could have done it. Jack's voice cut through her thoughts, already slightly slurred at ten in the morning. "I'll drink to that, Charlie, mate."
The slayer glanced up from the stake she was chipping away at, a rare smile on her face. She shook her head as the disembodied voice spoke exactly what she'd been thinking, "I imagined you'd drink to anything, Jack." Of course, she was probably being a little overly cruel towards the pirate; he'd been amazing in that vamp nest. Sword technique to match hers, to match any slayer's.
"However, to get to the point, I have important news to tell you. People, or shall I say demons, are talking. Word on the street is that someone is raising an army. An army of demons." Faith slumped further down on the sofa, resuming her carving. She pursed her lips – why was it that every half-way to powerful demons had to raise an army, or end the world, or worship some hell-god? Couldn't they just be demons in their own right? Jesus, I'm beginning to sound like a self-help guru.
"Anyway, who do you know on the street?" Andrew asked, and Faith couldn't help but pick up a slightly jealous tone in his voice. She glanced towards him, where he sat curled up in one of the chairs, hugging his legs. Seriously needy and dependant.
Faith placed down the stake she'd made, sharpened to a deadly point and a fearsome-looking weapon. She always had been good at making her own; helped to fill in the space between patrols. "More importantly, can they be trusted?" She heard Jack asking, a little too mysteriously and a tad too sarcastically.
"I do know people besides The Order, you know." Charlie answered, sounding fairly angry. Faith could hardly blame him; these guys could be fairly annoying. And she was seriously out-numbered in the gender department. Never thought there would be a day I'd say this, but I'm really beginning to miss B and the gang. "In addition to what is being said, there have been large gatherings of demons at a warehouse I've been monitoring. I will try to find out what I can, and with keep you posted." The bodiless voice said goodbye, and while the others began to chat among themselves, Faith stood up to go and make herself some breakfast.
She opened the fridge door, surveying the contents. Wow, they really needed to get some new food in – the fridge looked like it belonged to a college student. Eggs, eggs, green beans, eggs, beer or eggs. Great selection there. "Anyone want scrambled eggs?" She called out, standing up again and walking towards the seating area. After a few mumbled replies, she grinned, "'cause I don't know how to make them."
She smiled at Peter as he reluctantly got up and headed towards the kitchen, before leaning against the white-washed walls. As she gazed blankly at the rest of the group, it suddenly struck her how strange it all was, and she was the Queen of Strange Experiences. The men in front of her looked so normal, so mundane – with the exception of Jack and Indiana, who looked like they'd been dragged from a different decade – but, she knew for a fact that they, collectively, could shoot her lights out in a second.
Take Clark for instance – he looked like your standard teenage boy, kinda goofy, kinda needy, kinda hot – but he was even stronger than her. And being stronger than a slayer took some doing. But, everyone here really had something, a real 'appearances can be deceiving' gig. Even herself, really… load of vamps had picked on here, thinking that she was just a tasty bit of meat.
She was startled from her thoughts by a loud knock on the door. Visitors, great. Knocking visitors during daylight, even better. Hell, maybe it would be a fun salesman for her to intimidate then frighten off. She began to head towards the rich-looking doors, hoping that whoever was knocking was a woman; she could do with some female company.
As she reached out to drag the doors open, a hand shot out of nowhere and slammed it shut again. Faith turned her gaze towards Logan, looking extremely pissed off and ready to get straight to the violence. What was this guy's problem? She was really beginning to get pissed off by his attitude towards her; moody, unfriendly, way too much like her own personality for comfort. "What is your game?" She asked, the words practically a hiss as she tried not to hit him.
"You're just going to open the door? It could be anything out there, waiting rip your head off." Nice visual there, but did he really think she couldn't handle something like that? She was the slayer – a slayer actually, but the point still stood. Quicker reflexes, super-strength, a fun sixth sense that told her where the creepy crawlies were…
Still, he kinda had a point. "You're right. If anyone's getting their heads ripped off, you'd open the door." Faith quickly stepped aside with a smile, as whoever was outside knocked again, sounding more urgent this time. When the door was finally opened, it turned out Logan was right; while no one tried to rip his head off, there was a weird looking demon on the doorstep.
Bright-purple, a few red horns on his head and navy blue eyes…this guy clashed in a big way. He smiled at first, showing a set of razor sharp teeth, but the smile faded as the rest of the Order formed behind Faith and Logan. The Slayer grinned – collectively, they must be on the right side of terrifying for a demon.
"I-I'm a messenger, here on behalf f my c-c-commander." Faith took her eyes off of the demon for a second, to take in the group behind her. It was reassuring to have a support team like this. Must have been like that for B, having the Scooby gang around to back her up all the time. She could definitely get used to it. "Rules of combat state that you cannot harm a messenger."
Faith raised an eyebrow; there were rules of combat? What were they and how come she'd never been told about them? Probably in that nifty little Slayer Handbook she'd heard about. Dorian's voice spoke from behind her, "Ah, but you forget, we're not playing by the rules."
There was the sound of metal scraping along metal as Logan took a menacing step towards the demon, obviously planning on causing some serious harm. Not that Faith was against injuring demons or anything, but she felt that they should probably try and get something out of this guy. Her arm shot out, way quicker than any normal human's should have, and stopped him in his tracks. "Wait…wait a minute. Let's hear the message first, then we can decide what to do with him. No point killing him now."
There was a nervous tension following her words, and for a few moments Faith was sure that they were going to go ahead with the death anyway. She would not have been overly pleased with that arrangement, but could probably have coped. Lucky, they seemed to see her logic and calmed down. The demon glanced between them all, paying special attention to the sharp metal protruding from Logan's hands, before continuing in a quick stutter. "M-my commanders are aware that you know about our army, and they are looking forwards to tearing each and every one of your guts out."
Faith rolled her eyes; she hadn't just stopped the others from slicing and dicing him to hear clichéd threats like that. "Okay, enough with the fun fight talk. Give us your little message, or we'll see what torture methods we can come up with at such short notice." She grinned, showing her own row of white teeth – not quite as sharp and pointy as the demons, but the threatening nature was still there.
The demon obviously took the warning, because he promptly changed tactics, smiling at the one female in the group before continuing. His voice was slightly more confident this time, though Faith couldn't see any reason for him to have grown more sure of himself in the last few seconds. "My commander wants to meet you in two days time at the computer warehouse on 3rd. He says that if you don' come to him, he'll come to you…"
Faith shivered; what was it with creepy demons giving her the wiggins 24-7? This demon-army or whatever they were raising knew where they lived, and somehow knew that Charlie had found out about their lame-ass hell-raising, whereas they knew squat about this new threat to humanity. "Is that it?" Clark asked, sounding pretty calm considering the circumstances. "Is that the message?"
The demon chanced another seedy smile at the teenager, and Faith suddenly remembered who he reminded her of; Willy, that guy who used to own a demon bar in Sunnydale. She snickered silently, this creature had the exact same grovelling and pathetic manner as that Willy had had. Of course, these days reminiscing quickly led to wondering whether the man is question was still alive after the whole Sunnydale-turned-into-a-crater thing.
As soon as the demon nodded his head, Clark moved forwards, almost too quickly for Faith to see. One minutes, face-off between demons and…whatever the hell Clark was. Next, the kid had the ugly creep pinned up against the wall, both of them looking fairly dazed; Faith's guess was that this was the first time Clark had done any real intimidation. And, damn, the kid was good at it – even the Slayer was fairly impressed.
"Who's your Commander? Huh? What's his name?" Each question was punctuated by another slam against the wall, which, while being a nice violent touch, made a few slabs of plaster fall down. "Who sent you?" There was a sickening crunch as the demon's head collided with the wall behind it.
Faith figured she'd better step in before things got out of control; if the messenger was turned to demon paste before he got a word out, then this whole exercise would have been a bust. "Whoa, Clark…calm down." She tried to find the right words, but it was kind of hard – it was usually someone telling her not to get out of hand, instead of the other way around.
"Not until he tells us who his commander is!" Clark was yelling by now, and Faith had to wonder whether she'd be able to stop him if she tried; the boy was a whole lot stronger than her, as much as she hated to admit it. He could probably swat her down – swat most of them down, to tell the truth - in an instant. That thought made her slightly uneasy, but now wasn't really the time to dwell on it.
"Look, kid, if I tell you…he'll know….he always knows….he'll find out, he'll kill me…." Well, least we now have a gender for 'the Commander' Faith thought, trying to keep on the bright side. And, at least Clark had backed off slightly now, which was good, seeing as otherwise they'd have demon blood on the white wall – be a bitch to remove.
"Well…how about, you tell us his name, we let you go, we kill him…simple as that." Jack offered, his voice effortlessly cheery. Faith smiled; she could hardly believe he was trying to reason with a demon. Didn't make sense to her; demons weren't even human. Only thing they were good for was being a slightly more active punch-bag.
Interested to see the creature's reaction, Faith focused all her attention on it. "Well…when you put it like that…his name's - " A choked mumble escaped from the demon's mouth, and she took an involuntary step back; if this guy was going to vomit, it wasn't going to be around her. "M…my eyes? What's wrong with the my eyes?" He asked, raising his hands – six fingers, Faith noted – to cover his perfectly normal, if slightly demonic, eyes.
"Oh my god! What have you people done to me?" The demon asked in a high-pitched wail. Faith glanced around at the others; she sure as hell hadn't gone near him, none of them had apart from Clark. And Clark had steered clear of the guy's eyes.
When it's mottled purple hands lowered again, Faith could see why it was freaking out. Blood ran from it's eyes like an extremely creepy river. She'd seen a lot of sick things in her time as a slayer – whole load of sick things before that as well – but bleeding from the eyes? That was a new one, as far as she could remember; eventually, all the blood and gore seemed to mesh into one horrifying picture.
In a couple of seconds, the blood began to really pour. Nose, mouth ears…probably some less pleasant exits from the body that Faith didn't want to think of. Despite herself, she actually felt sorry for the guy; he was freaking out, cussing and crying and shouting to the heavens for help. But, there wasn't really a lot anyone could do, so they had to stand by pretty much helplessly while the demon dropped to his knees, crawling along the garden path before finally giving up and dissolving into a green ooze.
