HOW LIKE A FALLEN ANGEL – CHAPTER 4

We had spent the night in a seedy little motel outside of Rome, New York. Word had come down that something bad was going to happen. I realize how lame that sounds, I mean, bad things happen all the time; right. But you need to understand that the scale we use is probably different than most people. So to us, bad equates to unimaginably evil and horrific. Be that as it may, I really hate vague instructions; we had no idea what to look for or plan for. We were flying blind. So we prepped a couple of extra cylinders each for our revolvers, but other than that, we just went with our usual rig. We did a sweep early in the day, looking for evidence of mystical or demonic activity. We sensed a few things, but nothing definite or serious enough to warrant attention. We were forced to play 'Hardy Boys' all day, trying to figure out what was coming down. Unfortunately we came up with nothing and had settled in about seven in the evening for a burger at the local diner.

We were nearly done, so it was about eight PM when we felt a flare of power; someone was summoning a demon. We both realized our mistake at the same time. It wasn't one big bad, it was a bunch of little bads, working together. They were in the woods, west of town, and area that had tweaked our senses earlier, but as I said, there was nothing definite. We left the diner and found a quite ally and jumped to the woods. When we had figured out where we were, we started moving towards the group of people and the demon. I thought that there was a female presence, but I could not be sure and even if there was, I didn't know if she was a willing participant or sacrifice. We were moving fast, but definitely in serious stealth mode, but somehow they saw us anyway, because they started shooting. I looked around the tree that I was using for cover and ahead I could see a clearing, an altar and several men. I extended my senses and could tell that there were five men near the altar and another ten that seemed to be functioning as guards. One was close to me, so I dashed out and cut through his chest as I ran from my tree to another. He still managed to get out a shriek and that brought al of the guards running towards us. I opened up a channel to Dawn:

'Any ideas?'

'One, but it sucks.'

'I'm listening'

'I draw all the guards to me, you go in and save the girl; then hit em from the rear if there are any left.'

'You're right, that does suck.'

'You got anything better?'

'Role reversal?'

'Nope, you can teleport and I can't, you're better with demons than me, and I'm a better shot than you.'

'I hate it when you're right.'

I popped back to her; we had our senses up, and could feel the remaining guards coming. Unfortunately, a bad situation got worse when a couple of them opened fire. It was way too close for random shooting and way to dark to be aimed, unless they had night vision devices. Dawn started swearing like a sailor with a hangover, and we dashed back from cover to cover, using our superior speed to keep us safe for now. I must confess; I was a bit surprised. Groups that are into demon summoning, using magic and the like have an almost pathological disdain for modern weapons and devices; but these clowns just bristled with contemporary gadgetry. At last, all of the guards were between us and the altar. I handed Dawn my pistol and three prepared cylinders. Giving her a quick kiss, I said "keep safe".

"As much as you will" she answered. She was looking at me, and her eyes were wild, a sneer much like Faith's on her lips. I wondered if Buffy had ever seen he sister like this, craving battle, aching for the conflict, ready and eager to kill. It was both beautiful and terrible to see.

"Love you" we said at the same time, and I popped in behind the guards and Dawn opened up.

I was within five feet of the chanters; they appeared to be keeping up a containment spell. The spell was for a demon that was raping a girl who was currently tied to an altar. The symbols on the altar were definitely not Christian. Her horrified screams kicked the idea that she was a willing participant right out the window. I realized that I had to be quick. If the demon finished with the girl, I was sure she would be pregnant, and what was in her would kill her when it was born. I suppose that this was some sort of half baked coven, hoping to use the half demon result as a willing power node. Well, time to shut it down. My swords were in my hands, and I was moving before the chanters even knew that I was there. With no subtlety at all, I ran my swords through the two closest of the five, the speed and power of my strikes hammering the life out of their bodies. I tore my swords from their corpses and kept moving. A spray of blood from one of my first victims had blinded another chanter, so he didn't see my sword as it cut his throat. In the background I could hear the occasional stutter of automatic fire, punctuated by the booming roar of the Colts. Number four was reaching for something in his robes, when my right hand sword ripped his chest open as I slashed him from his left shoulder to his right hip. A part of me noticed that I had also severed a hand with and odd device in it, but I didn't spare it much thought. The last had managed to get a pistol clear of his robes. Without even thinking, I clipped through his right fore-arm with my left hand sword. His muscles convulsed when they were severed and s single shot rang out. I felt a burning sensation in my right calf, but it didn't slow me down. He was just looking at his severed hand on the ground, as though trying to rationalize what he was seeing when my right hand sword thrust through his head. For an instant, I could hear gunfire continuing from the woods, and then I turned my attention to the demon. Surprisingly the demon had also turned its attention to me. I didn't know if that meant he had impregnated the girl or if he just wanted to fight; worry about that later. I ran at him and stuck both my swords into his chest; and nothing happened. That was my first surprise; the second was a sudden burning sensation in my chest and abdomen, followed by a very feminine scream from the woods. 'Oh God' I thought, 'Dawn's been shot'.

The demon didn't give me much of a chance to think, it was on me while I stood there stunned. The next thing I knew was that I was flying backwards and that my jaw was killing me. Hitting the ground knocked a little sense back into me. One, I could still feel Dawn, so she wasn't dead, and two, I was facing an Alvorian demon, and metal didn't effect them. Being in a bit of a hurry, I pulled Gabriel's dagger from its place in my duster, and rammed it into the demons chest. Since it was a heavenly weapon, it was not really metal, and the demon could feel this. It pulled back its arms to strike, so I flared my power through the dagger and liquefied its innards. The demon froze with a bit of a surprised look on its face. It wasn't sure what had just happened but was fairly confident that it wasn't good. I picked up my swords from the ground where the demon had thrown them and freed the girl from the altar; fortunately she had passed out. All the time the thought 'Dawn's been shot' was echoing through my mind. It made it a bit hard to concentrate. I looked down at the girl I we had just saved. She looked to be about fourteen, with blond hair and braces. I did a quick scan and was relieved to find that the demon had not left anything unpleasant in her. I put my weapons away and picked her up; then I turned and sprinted back to help Dawn. I could feel her agony; it was coming off her in waves and nearly knocking me to the ground. I could feel her, and I could feel one other who was still alive. She came out from between two trees, one pistol still cocked and in her right hand; her left arm was pressed tight across her middle, as though she was trying to keep the pain inside. All the blood scared me, but what was worse was the look on her face, like she had reverted to being that frightened sixteen year old that I had first met, as though she couldn't understand what had happened. I simply dropped the girl and ran towards her, when I saw the last guard. 'Behind you' I screamed in her mind, showing her where the threat was. She spun, dropped and fired in one fluid motion. Her slug entered the jerks mouth and blew both his functional brain cells out the back of his head. As he was falling his finger convulsed on the trigger of his Uzi; I felt a tearing sensation in my shoulder, and Dawn's head snapped back and she went down hard. I could no longer feel her or my left arm. I dropped down next to her and realized that the bullet had creased her skull, but not penetrated; she was injured but still alive. I was losing power fast due to my wounds, so I put in a call to either Janice or Daniel for help. I was stunned when I got back two answers of flat out no. Not knowing what else to do, I tried contacting a higher power, and again my efforts were rebuffed. For some reason, I was on my own. I wanted to use all my power to heal Dawn, but the girl also had very real injuries both physical and mental. I couldn't heal them both, the girl was our mission, but Dawn had been shot. I wavered, knowing what I should do and what I wanted to do. This girl was an innocent victim of evil, but Dawn had been shot. She had no say in what happened to her, but Dawn had been shot. I had to heal her, but Dawn had been shot.

Reluctantly, but knowing it was the right thing to do, I healed the girl as best I could. I plunged into her mind and soothed as much of the trauma as I was able, I repaired the damage the demon had done to her body, and then I made her sleep. Finally I turned back to Dawn. I stopped the bleeding from the two bullet wounds in her chest and gut, but I didn't have enough power to truly heal her. I decided to catch the express back to Spain and let Dr. Bement take over. I grabbed both girls, and prepared to go, but then I realized that I didn't even have enough power left for that. Understanding that I had no choice; I pushed the dials to overload, and went anyway.