Kennedy slipped in through the front door. She was ahead of the rest of the group by maybe fifty feet, but she was still pretty sure that she'd avoided notice. Now, all she had to do was hide…
The door opened again. Kennedy dove behind the couch. Thirty kids filed in, flanked by Fiery Eyes. The bitter anger seemed to be coming off of him in waves now. The group came into the room slowly, but none of them settled in, or did anything other than stand where they were. Fiery Eyes crossed to the front of the room, by a door that led to what Kennedy presumed to be another area of the Center.
Fiery Eyes addressed the crowd. "What happened to Mike did not need to happen," he said. "He was a good guy. We all knew him, and we all knew that he was willing to give his life for us, if it came to that. It did not come to that. From now on, hunting parties do not engage vampires unless the odds are at least two to one in our favor."
"But Jonathan," one of the kids spoke up. "That'll limit us even more."
Jonathan turned his gaze to the kid who had spoken up. Though that terrible gaze didn't soften at all, it didn't seem as angry, if it seemed every bit as harsh. "I am not going to let anyone else die."
"Jon, you can't blame yourself for Mike's death," one of the females said. She seemed about to move to Jonathan's side, but stopped.
"If not me, than who?!" Jonathan yelled. His eyes flashed red. Kennedy's attention was caught entirely. That was not natural.
"Look," Jonathan said, regaining some semblance of calm. "We agreed that I would be the leader, right? You're going to follow orders, or all that we've worked to maintain falls apart. Do you get it?"
When no one responded, Jonathan's fire came back. "Do you get it?" he asked, louder this time.
Most of the kids nodded. "Fine," he said. He looked at them, then at the room. "Do something with yourselves," he said. "No hunting tonight."
He turned, already removing his tie, and went through the unknown door. Stealthily, so as to not attract attention, Kennedy got up from behind the couch and followed.
Going through the door, Kennedy found that the casual teen center atmosphere changed sharply to a utilitarian training room. Jonathan was busy attempting to destroy a punching bag even as Kennedy entered.
"Who are you?" Jonathan asked, without turning around.
"My name is Kennedy," Kennedy replied, wondering at once how he could help her and if he really fought vampires. "I'm here to help you."
To her surprise, Jonathan laughed. "You're going to help me?" he asked. He finally turned to survey her. "Hmm…you don't look tough enough to take on a group of elementary school brats. Do you have any idea how strong a vampire is?"
Kennedy wondered if blowing her cover was worth it. Before she could come to a decision, however, Jonathan had stepped forward. "Let me show you," he said.
Jonathan was faster and stronger than Kennedy had anticipated, but she was still able to block his blow. His left hook blocked, Jonathan reached in quickly for a left jab. It connected, but the blow was hardly very powerful. Kennedy stumbled a bit, but was still on her feet. Kennedy stepped up and attempted to deliver a midlevel kick to Jonathan's torso, but Jonathan, quick as lightning, grabbed her foot and twisted. Before she knew what, exactly, was happening, Kennedy was in the air and spinning. She landed on her hands and knees, hard.
Jonathan advanced on her, but Kennedy delivered a devastating uppercut to him that Jonathan had not expected. He stumbled back, tasting blood. He shook his head to clear it, then looked, dumbstruck, at Kennedy.
"What are you?" he asked, bluntly. Disbelief had begun to cloud over into a dark suspicion.
Kennedy considered then decided that she might as well tell him. "I'm a Slayer," she said, attempting to sound both proud and virtuous…whatever that was.
Jonathan surprised her again. "Fuck!" he said, loudly.
"What's wrong?" Kennedy asked. "You've heard of the Slayers before?"
Jonathan's fiery look of anger and bitterness was back. "Yeah, " he said, his voice loaded to the brim with sarcasm. "Yeah, I've known a few Slayers."
Kennedy's heart leapt at first, then, at his tone and the word choice, plummeted straight for the ground. She gulped. "You've known them…you don't know t hem now?"
"No one knows them now," he said. "Let me show you."
Jonathan lead Kennedy to another door leading to another part of the Center. This door lead to a staircase – going down.
"Down here," Jonathan said.
At the foot of the staircase was a long hallway made entirely of brick. On either side of the somewhat narrow, dank corridor were cells. "You keep prisoners?" Kennedy asked.
"Something like that," Jonathan replied. He lead Kennedy to the end of the corridor, where three of the cells seemed different. Upon closer inspection, Kennedy realized that these cells were reinforced with steel and titanium.
"There," Jonathan said, pointing, and Kennedy gasped.
Inside each metal cage was a young girl. The insides of the cells were full of scratch marks and dents. The girls themselves were each barely dressed; their clothes had been torn to shreds. They seemed feral to Kennedy.
"Meet Sharon, Harriet, and Jane," Jonathan said. "Sharon was a part of my team. Nice girl, though she was always particularly talented at fighting. A couple months ago, she started experiencing…well, we weren't sure what was going on. She just kept saying one thing over and over in her sleep…"
Kennedy opened her mouth and started to say "Slayer", but Jonathan hushed her quickly. "Don't say it around them!" he said. "It's the only word any of them respond to anymore, and they respond violently."
Kennedy shut her mouth.
"Sharon started getting faster, stronger, more agile," Jonathan went on. "At first, it was nothing big. Then it got noticeable. She started taking on vampires alone. Then she started sneaking out at night. She became more and more of a disciplinary problem."
Kennedy waited, eying the three feral young women.
"Then, one day…I still don't know what, exactly, happened," Jonathan said, eying the cages bitterly. "She just sort of glowed for a second, then she hit me and ran off. I was the one who disciplined her, you see…when whatever happened happened, she must have felt stronger and bolder, she lashed out at me for that reason."
"When you say "disciplined"…" Kennedy began.
Jonathan's eyes were hard. "We do what we must to survive. A weak link in the group could bring us all down."
Kennedy swallowed her reply.
"We went out looking for Sharon, all of us," Jonathan said. "She was hard to track, but we've had a lot practice. When we found her, she was ripping up a store…I guess that all those weeks resenting my authority made her criminal, but who knows now?
"It took ten of us to hold her down. She fought tooth and nail, and in the process, killed two of my friends. That's when she let go completely, I think, but I can't be sure. Since that night…this has been all that's left."
Kennedy swallowed. "And the other two?"
Jonathan once again turned his eyes back to hers, and once again, the look there was terrifying. "I don't know the whole story in either case," he said. "But I remember seeing what was left. Harriet was in the care of the state, because of severe mental instability – she tried to kill her parents when she was four. She broke out the night Sharon ran off on us. She killed half a dozen people before we got to her…and Jane…Jane apparently had to watch her entire family get eaten. She didn't know anything about her powers, and was too scared to act. They got her whole family: mother, father, and kid brother, right before her eyes. Drove her crazy."
Kennedy was horrified. She tried not to show it, but doubted she was doing a very good job. "What have you done for them?" she asked, worry in her voice.
"Everything we can," Jonathan said. "Unfortunately, no one but us has the ability to store them; these cages are magical."
Kennedy was lost for words. "I'm…sorry," she said, aware of just how pathetic that was.
"Not nearly as sorry as I am," Jonathan said. "Now…what the hell are you doing in my city?"
Kennedy bit at her tongue a bit. "I told you," she said. "I came to help."
"And just how are you planning on doing that?" Jonathan asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"Well…" Kennedy said, then decided that it was time to spew the whole story. "It's a bit complicated. Is there anywhere we can sit down?"
"Wow," Jonathan said. "That's…amazing."
"You believe me?" Kennedy asked.
"Honey, after all the things I've seen…First Evils and mad preachers and armies of vampires don't seem too farfetched," Jonathan said. "Still, I have an issue with you all activating all the Slayers in the world at once."
"Why?" Kennedy asked. "It was our only option."
"I realize that," Jonathan said. "But consider…we have three insane, super strong, super agile, super fast girls locked up downstairs…and this is just one city. What if it's like this everywhere?"
Kennedy hadn't thought of that. Now, as she did, a cold chill swept down her spine. "I mean, here alone, you gave incredible powers to an undisciplined vigilante, an unbalanced sociopath, and a girl with incredible trauma. What about the rest of the world? There are what, hundreds of girls with these powers now? And you have no way of supervising all of them?"
"We're in the process of locating them all," Kennedy said, weakly.
"And that's why you're here, isn't it?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes," Kennedy said.
"How many are there supposed to be in Cleveland?" Jonathan asked.
"We don't know," Kennedy said. "But we figured it would be two or three…you are on a Hellmouth, after all."
"A what?" Jonathan asked.
When Willow arrived home that day, at four, as promised, there was a message on the answering machine and no Kennedy. She hit the play button and listened.
"Will, you have to get down to the Cleveland Teen Center, right now. I found three Slayers here, and they're all in rough shape. They're in the care of…oh, I can't explain it all here, it's just too complicated. Come on, quick. You know the address."
Willow was a bit alarmed by the urgency and excitement in Kennedy's voice. The young Slayer didn't usually get so worked. Grabbing her coat, Willow was out the door.
Several minutes later, she stood at the door of the Cleveland Teen Center. She knocked, and a voice came from the inside. "Who are you?" it asked.
"My name is Willow Rosenberg," Willow said. Before she had to think of a decent cover story, the voice replied.
"We've been waiting, Ms. Rosenberg," the voice said, and the door opened.
In the doorway stood Kennedy, with a tall young man with fiery eyes.
"Hello, Will," Kennedy said, considering sneaking a kiss and deciding quickly against it.
"Hey," Willow replied. "What's the big?"
"Found our Slayers," the young man said. "I'm Jonathan Banks, I'm in charge of things here."
"Nice to meet you," Willow said, despite the fact that she unable to look him in the eye.
"The pleasure is mine," Jonathan replied. "If you'll follow me, we have a lot to talk about."
Willow followed Jonathan through the Teen Center, avoiding the curious looks of the Cleveland teens. Kennedy walked beside Willow, looking a bit more at ease than her lover. They entered a kitchen that lay off the main room. Jonathan offered Kennedy and Willow drinks; they both declined, so he sat down empty handed.
"First of all," Jonathan said. "We have your Slayers. Three of them."
Willow breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like things might go easier than she'd expected.
"All three of them are terminally insane," Banks continued.
"Oh," Willow said, her face falling.
"For numerous reasons," Banks concluded, "I don't think there's any help for any of them."
Willow took a second to digest that. "Then we failed," she said, simply.
Before Jonathan could say anything further, a teen burst into the kitchen. "I asked not to be disturbed, Luke," he said, irritably.
"Jon, we just got word: the school is going to go ahead with the Graduation tomorrow night."
"God damn it!" Banks yelled, momentarily forgetting that he was entertaining guests and rising quickly, knocking over his chair. His eyes flashed red again, and both Kennedy and Willow caught it. "How many times do I have to paint a picture of what'll happen if they go through with this?"
"I don't know," the messenger said. "You'd think they'd have figured it out by now."
"Apparently they're just dumb asses," Jonathan said, seething. "And the worst part is…we still have to save their dumb assess."
The messenger ducked back out.
"Congratulations," Jonathan said, turning back to Willow and Kennedy. "You arrived just in time for the biggest massacre in Cleveland's history."
I know, I know…this took TOO long to come out. But the rest is coming, eventually, mostly because I know where I want this story to go, and I want it finished. Well, anyway, see you all in the future, and please, R&R. Bye.
