A/N: Hope you all had a nice Easter. The distraction of chocolate, combined with a touch of writers block, meant that this chapter took a lot longer than I planned. It's all action (more or less) from here on in, so hopefully there won't be any more delays. Please Read and Review...
'How is she? Any change?' Angel wanted to know.
'None, I'm afraid,' Wesley replied.
Willow stepped forwards to greet Angel. 'Hey there.'
'Willow. Good to see you. Thanks for coming.'
'Hey, you know me. Any excuse to get off of the Hellmouth and visit the big city,' Willow said with a smile.
Angel nodded a hello to Tara, who rewarded him with one of her bright, if somewhat shy, smiles.
'Any luck tracking Kathy, Angel?' Wesley asked.
Angel shook his head. 'I sense something in the warehouse district. Powerful magic, maybe. I think it might have been some kind of concealment spell.'
'Sounds about right,' Willow said. 'If they'd erected a barrier of some kind, you probably wouldn't sense Kathy unless you were standing right on top of her.'
'We could probably counter it, so we can use our own tracking spell to find Kathy,' Tara remarked. 'But first we'll need to know what spell they're using. It could be one of a dozen.'
'What's the best way to find that out?' Angel wanted to know.
'One of us will need to go down there. We should be able to sense what kind of spell it is,' Willow replied. 'Then it's a simple case of researching the right counter-spell.'
Wesley nodded, 'Angel, you could take Willow back to the warehouse district and figure the spell out, while Tara shows me the information she and Willow brought from Sunnydale. I think we're going to need to know what was in the stolen book before we make any rescue attempt. If my theory is correct, the book contains information about the demon Doodheks. Information he obviously did not want us knowing.'
Angel nodded, and then his gaze fell upon Cordelia's slumbering form. 'What about Cordy?' he asked in a soft, worried voice.
'Angel, I don't think there's much we can do right now,' Willow replied. 'It would take someone connected to the Powers that Be, and I don't really have their direct line.'
'Let's concentrate on getting Kathy back, Angel,' Wesley suggested. 'Then we can get Cordy back.'
Kathy's eyes flew open at the sound of footsteps approaching. She saw Ashley cowering on the floor as if she knew this was it. Knew they were coming for her. Kathy sat up straighter, pooling her energy. She had to do something. She couldn't sit here and watch this young woman die.
Around a dozen robed monks entered the room, several of them carrying candles, all chanting. At the head of them strode their leader. The confidence and charisma with which he carried himself set him apart from his followers. In different circumstances, Kathy would have scoffed at the fact that he exuded a similar aura to that of a TV Evangelist. But right now, nothing was funny.
Two of the monks grabbed Ashley and pulled her to her feet. Kathy was ready for them. With a squint of her eyes, she sent the two men flying across the room. They hit the wall and slid to the ground, knocked senseless.
She had spent the last twenty minutes of consciousness attempting to unlock her chains magically, but without success. She had come to the conclusion that there must be some kind of spell on the lock. But even without her hands, she knew that she could inflict some damage. She focused another figure that was bearing down on her. In a trice, she had him frozen to the spot. Unfortunately, while concentrating on her most recent victim, she didn't see another monk sneak up on her.
Her first clue was the electricity coursing through her body as he hit her with a tazer. She collapsed, the charge scrambling her brain, rendering her unable to think straight, let alone perform magic.
Somewhere above her she heard someone give the order to 'Put the collar on her'. She didn't know what that meant until she felt something slip around her neck. The world seemed very far away, muffled, as though someone had wrapped her head in cotton wool. Painful, electrically charged cotton wool.
Ashley's screams brought her back to reality with a thud. Looking up, she saw that they had tied her between two pillars. The head monk was now standing before her, brandishing a knife.
Summoning up her energy once more, she sent some his way. She managed to move him a few feet before the electric charge went off in her new collar, rendering her senseless once more.
'Yes, you might want to refrain from doing any of your parlour tricks, witch,' Victor told her disdainfully. 'It isn't good for your health. And I want you alert for your friend's cleansing.'
Kathy felt someone pull her by the hair, dragging her face upwards so that her eyes met Ashley's. The girl was terrified, her eyes pleading with Kathy to help her.
Turning away from Kathy again, Victor began to chant.
'Vox vocis nex , sono huic veneficus. Defaeco suus animus per vestri incendia. Repleo suus niger pectus pectoris per vestri verum. Vox Deus repleo suus quod damno suus pro infinitio.'
With these words, he began to carve the now chillingly familiar letters into Ashley's skin. The girl cried and screamed, her body writhing, trying to get away from his knife; to now avail. Again and again, Kathy tried to send a spell in his direction, to get him away from his victim, to draw his fire towards her, anything. But every time she tried, an electric shock scrambled her mind, making even the simplest spell impossible. All she could do was watch and pray. She prayed to the goddess to intervene. She prayed that Angel would find them in time.
By the time the last word was written, Ashley had given up screaming. Tears shone on her face, her chest heaved with sobbing, but she knew what came next and she had given in to it. She knew that soon, her suffering would be over. And Kathy's would just be beginning. As if to emphasise that point, Victor glanced over his shoulder at Kathy, and smiled.
Kathy shook her head, wordlessly mouthing a protest she knew would fall on deaf ears. As the blade drew across Ashley's throat and the girl's tear-filled eyes went wide with shock, Kathy screamed.
Angel had been silent for most of the drive. Willow knew he was worried and longed to find the right words to make him feel better. Nothing appropriate came to her, so she joined him in silence for a while. But silence was never Ms Rosenberg's strong suit.
'Buffy says 'hi',' she told him after several minutes. 'She wanted to come and lend a hand, but things are still kinda sketchy at home. And besides, in this instance she figured that two witches were of more use to you than a slayer.'
'How's Joyce?' Angel asked the rambling red-head.
'Better. We hope. The surgery went well, so we're playing the wait and see game,' Willow replied.
'I hate that game,' Angel said. 'But it's good that it went well. Buffy doesn't need anymore heartache in her life.'
They were silent again. For a moment. 'So how are you doing?'
'Me? I'm good.'
'Good,' Willow replied, not believing him for a second. 'They'll be alright, you know.'
Angel didn't say anything for a moment, staring out the windscreen at the street ahead. After a moment's pause, he replied, 'I don't know that anymore, Willow. This woman, who I've only just started to get to know… my sister. She's out there right now, and I can't find her. More than likely she's being tortured. And Cordy…'
'We find Kathy and Cordy will be just fine,' Willow reassured him.
'You don't know that. We can't be sure,' Angel shook his head. 'The visions are doing so much damage, more than we ever thought… I don't know if she can sustain them much longer.'
He pulled up behind a warehouse and looked at the witch.
'This is it. Sense anything?'
'Uh, yeah. Trouble,' Willow replied as a dozen robed figured immerged from the shadows around them.
The book Willow and Tara had carried from Sunnydale might not be the original text, but it was as good as any commentary Wesley had seen. It didn't take him long to find out what might be of interest to the demon. And, more importantly, he discovered just what the demon didn't want them to know.
'Ah,' the ex-Watcher said as he finished reading a particularly pertinent chapter. 'It seems Doodheks does plan to regain his corporeal form by drawing on the power of witches. And if he plans to do it, it must be soon.'
'The equinox,' Tara observed. 'Time of Power.'
'Precisely,' Wesley agreed. 'That, combined with a number of other factors, makes this the ideal time for the demon.'
'So, we need to stop him before he gets any more power and turns solid?' Tar replied.
'Not necessarily,' Wesley replied. Off her look, he went on, 'I mean, of course we need to stop him from killing Kathy, and anyone else. But the demon turning 'solid' might not be a bad thing at this juncture.'
'Um, doesn't the demon not being solid mean that he can't, you know, kill us?'
'In his spirit form, Doodheks can influence others to do his killing for him. But corporeal, there is a way to destroy him for good. I suspect that is why he sent his flunkies to steal the book from the victim's home. He doesn't want us knowing that.'
'But now we do,' Tara said with a little smile. 'So, all we have to do is make him corporeal without any other witches dying. I think I might have the spell to do it.'
'You won't be doing any more spells, witch,' said a cold voice behind them. 'You will be another sacrifice for the Vessel of the Word.'
Wesley and Tara turned to see several monks closing in on them.
Victor wiped the blood from his knife as he approached Kathy. She looked at him defiantly, despite her eyes being swollen from her tears.
'Time to begin your purification, witch,' he told her.
Kathy shook her head. 'You're the one who needs purified, you monster. You think this is God's holy work you're doing? Killing innocent girls?'
'They were not innocent. They were witches. Servants of the devil.'
'There is no devil in the craft,' Kathy replied. 'And you're one to talk. You, who are in bed with a demon.'
'I serve the Lord. Lagos, his holy word.'
'You serve Doodheks, corruptor of mankind,' Kathy told him, her voice steady despite her fear. 'You feed him witches to bring him back to the earthly plane.'
Victor drew his hand back and sent it across her face, knocking the wind from her. 'Silence, witch!' he said angrily.
'Truth hurts, huh?'
'Yes it does,' Victor said with a sneer. 'As you will learn now, as I burn the truth into you.'
He gestured to one of his followers, who went to a fire at the side of the room and drew out a metal poker. Its tip glowed red as the monk handed it to his leader.
'Now, this may hurt,' Victor said, placing the hot metal near her skin. 'A lot.'
To Be Continued...
A/N: The Latin used by Victor translates as:
'Voice of death, sing for this witch. Purify her soul with your fire. Fill her black heart with your truth. Word (or cry) of God fill her and damn her for eternity.'
I used an English to Latin translation webpage for this, so if it isn't entirely accurate I appologise (but Latin isn't my first language) :-)
