A/N: Big thank you to all who've taken the time to leave reviews. Please continue to do so - you make me smile.
Only around two chapters to go after this - the end is near...
Angel grabbed his favorite broadsword which lay beside him and leapt out of the car. Metal clashed on metal as his first opponent swung his weapon at Angel's head, and Angel deflected the blow. One boot in the chest later, the monk was staggering backwards and two more were charging forward to take his place.
Two monks circled around the battle and moved towards Willow, who had gotten out of the car, looking for an opportunity to use her magic to help Angel. The monks thought they were sneaking up on her, but Willow had long since spotted them out of the corner of her eye. Over the years, she had more than enough practice playing the damsel in distress, and right now she was playing it to perfection. When the first monk was within grabbing distance she turned, and sent him flying with a flick of her wrist. He in turn crashed into the second guy, both of them landing in a heap. Willow smiled. She'd been practicing a lot over the past month, just like Kathy had suggested.
Angel cracked two of the attacking monks' heads together. As they sprawled to the ground, five more jumped on top of the vampire, figuring that five on one might be better odds. They thought wrong. They may have their fair share of fighting skills, but they weren't any match for Angel. Moments later, all the monks lay unconscious or dead and Angel grinned over at Willow.
'Well, that was bracing.'
'Come on. You could have taken them in your sleep.'
'Yeah, well… I don't like to brag,' he said, before getting serious. 'Let's do what we came here to do.'
'Sure thing,' Willow replied, grabbing a candle from her bag. 'This'll just take a minute.'
Wesley regarded the several feet that separated him from the weapons cabinet. He didn't like his chances of getting there before the monks got to him or Tara. But their robed friends were getting closer by the second. Looking at the frightened witch at his side he drew her attention towards him.
'Uh, Tara, you couldn't possibly…?'
Tara got his meaning. Holding her hand out in front of her she murmured, 'Congelo.' The monks immediately froze on the spot, and didn't look happy about it.
'Uh, that'll only last a few seconds, so hurry,' she told him.
Jumping hurriedly over the counter, he ran for the cabinet. He managed to put his hands on a sword and an axe when the spell wore off and the monks charged. Wesley braced himself, a weapon in each hand, batting away the first attacker with the side of the axe.
Swinging his sword around, he parried a strike from another attacker. Over the monk's shoulder, he could see Tara magically throwing books, small pieces of furniture and, Wesley noticed with a wince, his china teapot, at three monks who were closing in on her. Her efforts were keeping them at bay – for now. Turing his attention back to his own fight, he had managed to cut down his opponent and faced the next one when he heard Tara scream.
Two other monks had snuck up behind the witch and grabbed her from behind when she was fending off their three friends. Quickly covering her head with a sack and securing her hands behind her back so that she couldn't perform any defensive magic, they were now dragging her out of the lobby. Frantic, Wesley didn't see how he could get to her in time. He still had three armed monks of his own blocking his path.
Suddenly, one of the monks holding Tara looked down at his chest. A look of surprise crossed his hooded features as he saw blood, and the tip of a sword protruding from his chest. As he fell to the ground, his friends saw the man who had killed him. Charles Gunn stood there, smiling.
'Time I had a little prayer meeting with y'all,' he said, hefting his favorite, home-made axe. Before the shocked monks even had time to blink, Gunn had cut down two of them. The third had managed to pull himself together by the time Gunn came to him, and met the blow of his axe with his sword.
A fourth monk was about jump into the fight when he felt a soft tap on his shoulder. The appearance of Gunn had meant that Tara's captors had let go of her hands and she had been able to remove the sack from her head. The monk turned to see Tara's smiling face before she said, 'Caecus', blinding the monk temporarily. She took advantage of his situation with a swift kick to his shin and a heavy ornament across the back of his head. He fell to the ground, unconscious. As his friend lunged at her, Tara swung the ornament up, catching him under the chin and sending him flying backwards. As he too fell to the ground, she intoned, 'Immobilus'. The monk wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon.
Gunn defeated his third opponent and turned in time to see Wesley finish one off, with two more coming at him. Hefting his axe, Gunn flung it at one of his friend's attackers. The robed figure fell to the ground, Gunn's axe in his back. Wesley took advantage of the remaining monk's shock and punched him in the face, knocking him out cold.
Gunn looked appreciatively down at the ground at the monks that Tara had taken out. 'Damn, girl. You got game.'
'Do you sense anything?' Angel asked the flame-haired witch.
Willow was deep in concentration, a single candle in her hands, using its flame for focus. 'Yeah. Wow, it's a pretty simple concealment charm. Won't take us long to bring it down. Amateurs,' she said with distain.
'What about Kathy?' Angel said with urgency in his voice. 'Anything?'
'It's really faint,' Willow told him, screwing up her eyes with concentration. 'I think I sense her…' Her eyes flew open. 'I got her. I can feel her fear. Oh god, Angel, she's in so much pain.'
'Where?' the vampire asked, now frantic.
'I can't pinpoint the location. I'm going to need Tara and the spell ingredients.'
'There's no time to go back to hotel!'
'Then call them and get them here.'
Kathy screamed for what felt like the thousandth time that night. She had been determined not to let Victor get to her, to not give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream, of seeing her cry. But all that determination was lost when the searing pain racked her body. After her had tortured her for an hour or more with red hot pokers, he switched to using a whip, which frankly she thought was a brief respite from the previous burning pain. But now the fire was back, and she was wishing for death. Death she knew she had a lifetime of pain to wait for.
As he moved the hot metal away from her skin, she dry heaved. Her throat was raw from screaming and her eyes almost swollen shut from her tears. Through their slits, she could see Victor, and right now he was smiling.
'Do you feel it, witch?' he asked. 'Do you feel the burn of salvation?'
She swallowed, trying to get some strength into her voice for an answer. 'No,' she managed hoarsely. 'Mostly, I just feel bored with your self-righteous voice.'
He rewarded her cheek with another burn, this time to her leg. 'You will wish for death before the end. But first you will be purified.'
'Purify yourself, you bastard,' she told him, defiance burning in her eyes, as hot as the poker he was using to torture her. He might make her scream, but he wasn't going to break her. 'Or does your demon buddy like you dirty?'
She saw a flash of light behind Victor, and an angelic vision appear in its midst. The figure had golden hair and features, clad in shimmering white robes.
'Victor,' it spoke with an almost harmonic voice. 'This witch will corrupt you if you let her.'
Victor had knelt before the figure, his head bowed in reverence. 'I am your devoted servant, my Lord,' the monk replied.
'Gag her mouth,' the figure ordered him.
Kathy had no doubt who this glittering figure was. Despite the purity of his image, her witch's eyes could see beneath it, realizing that all that glitters most certainly wasn't gold. And this was no angel. He was a demon.
'Getting too close to the truth for your liking, Doodheks?' she asked the creature. 'Like the outfit, by the way. Some demons like to dress up as little kids. You go with the Annatar disguise. Professor Tolkien would be flattered.'
'Gag the witch, Victor,' Doodheks ordered, ignoring Kathy. 'And then prepare your monks. The vampire will be coming for her.'
'Angel,' Kathy whispered, hope building within her.
Gunn had driven faster than usual and soon he was parking his truck behind Angel's convertible. He, Wesley and Tara jumped out.
'We need to do this fast, people,' Angel told them. 'Kathy is being tortured as we speak.'
Willow and Tara got to work, casting a reversal spell on the monks' concealment charm.
'Angel,' Wesley approached the agitated vampire. 'We found out some useful information about Doodheks.'
Angel looked around at the group as something suddenly struck him. 'Wait. What about Cordelia? Who's watching her?'
'We moved her to one of the hotel's bedrooms, and Tara put a protection spell around her. She's safe,' Wesley reassured him. 'Now, Doodheks means to become corporeal again, by using the slain witches' energy. The power that Kathy possesses will probably mean that he gets his wish.'
'They're not going to kill Kathy, so he won't get his wish,' Angel said angrily.
'Agreed. But it may be to our advantage if we returned his corporeal body to him. Magically,' Wesley said. 'That's why the monks stole the book from Melissa's apartment. It contains a spell that, once Doodheks is of flesh and blood, will remove his immortality.'
'What English is saying is that we need to turn the spirity demon into a real live boy, then squish him,' Gunn elaborated.
'Sounds like a plan,' Angel agreed, as a flash of light told him the concealment charm had been disabled. 'We good to go?' he asked the witches.
'Almost,' Willow replied. Side by side with Tara, they now began to chant. 'Aradia, Goddess of the lost, the path is murky, the woods are dense, darkness pervades, I beseech thee, bring the light.'
A ball of green light appeared before them. 'Take us to Kathy,' Tara commanded it. With only a second's hesitation, it took off.
'Let's go,' Willow said.
To Be Continued...
A/N: 'Congelo' is freeze in Latin, 'Caecus' means blind or sightless, also in Latin. As for 'Immobilus' , I'm pretty sure I stole it from Harry Potter.
Annatar is the angelic form that Sauron took in order to fool the Elves of Middle Earth into making the rings of Power (Lord of the Rings)
The spell to Aradia that Willow and Tara use is taken from Buffy, Season 4 episode 'Fear, Itself'
