Chapter 2
Looking at his watch, the Colonel sighed in barely constrained annoyance. He had been sitting here for several hours now and he really wanted the target to finally arrive. This mission was starting to get to him, and he almost wished he'd turned it down after all. Of course, he knew why he hadn't turned it down, despite his initial suspicions.
When the call had come, his first thought had been that it was a trap. The man that wanted to hire them had been an old client, but this time he had said that it wasn't for him, but a friend. All communication would continue to go through him, as would the payment, but they had to understand that he wasn't the one hiring them. Normally that wasn't something that mattered to him, but when the details became clear he wasn't so certain anymore.
He didn't so much mind the fact that he was ordered to kill a girl, not even a seventeen year old one. But the timing bothered him. He dictated the timing during these missions, or in some cases the circumstances did, but it was never the client who did so. That was not the way it was done. The Colonel had explained this to the client, who had then promised to call back after he had debated it with his so-called friend.
After several years in the mercenary slash hitman business he knew that the client wanted to think before amending his proposition, so he simply told him that was alright but his 'friend' shouldn't take too long. Less then two hours later the amended proposition came in and he'd decided to call for a meeting.
….…
"We've got a new mission?" B.A. was the first to ask.
"Maybe. There is an offer, but I wanted to discuss it before deciding if we should take it."
"Well, don't keep us waiting. Tell us." As always, Murdock blared out things that came far too close to insubordination and sooner or later he would have to deal with the man. He was a good fighter, but a time might come when it would be easier to just find a new man to fill out the group.
"We were contacted by one of our clients, who wanted to hire us for a friend-"
B.A. interrupted in an aside to Murdock. "I just bet it was a friend."
Raising his eyebrows the Colonel indicated to his subordinate that he should shut the hell up, as he was talking. "Yes, a friend. We don't care what the client does or says. We only care about the payment."
"So, what's the problem then?"
"This time they decided to make the contract time-specific."
"You mean we have to finish it within a certain amount of time? What's so strange about that?"
Okay, here it came. "We are meant to go to the town where the target lives, and remain there until the client calls us to say we have to do it. Once he calls we'll have the rest of that day to finish the objective."
"Hold on!"
"Wait a fuckin' minute!"
"No way!"
The reactions from the three other men were so predictable that he could have predicted them beforehand. In fact, he had done so, and the Colonel was now surreptitiously comparing the predictions he had written down with what was actually said. From the nine comments he had put on the paper, seven were among the first ten to be spoken. So, once he was sure that he could still predict the men, he decided to break the argument up.
"ENOUGH!" The bellow caused the team to stand down, and they all looked at him in expectation of what he was about to say.
"Don't you think I had the same ideas? Don't you think I immediately told the man no?"
"If you said no, then why are we still talking here?" Faceman wanted to know.
"Because he amended his offer. But before we'll go through that I want to discuss the contents of the mission itself. So that we're all aware of what exactly will need to be done." Grabbing the pile of printouts he showed them to his man. "This is the target, one Cordelia Chase."
"Hubba hubba, I wouldn't mind having some fun with her before the kill." Faceman said, obviously still trying to live up to the reputation that came with the name he'd chosen. That was one of the few things that the Colonel disliked about having based their names on a television show. At least the other two didn't act either crazy or had suddenly become afraid of flying.
"Never mind what she looks like. The objective is to kill her, not fuck her. And that's all that we'll do to her. We all know how much they can do with a little bit of DNA these days and I don't plan on having anyone trace us, simply because you couldn't keep it in your pants."
"Yes sir," came the sullen answer. But he knew that this order would be followed, the risks were simply too high not to.
"Alright then. This is what we know; she lives in a town called Sunnydale. This is in California, about two hours from Los Angeles. The target lives in the rich part of town and drives her expensive convertible to school every weekday. In the evening she often goes to a local club, called…" he had to look up the name of the club, but after shuffling through the papers a bit he found it, and continued, "the Bronze. There are no bodyguards of any kind around her. The target herself is not, I repeat not, a proficient fighter of any kind and is unlikely to offer any substantial defense."
"Sounds like a piece of cake. A sniper bullet while she's on her way to school, or even a simple stab while she's dancing in that club, and she's taken care off."
If only it were that easy. "Right, unfortunately there comes the first demand of the client. The cause of death must be beheading. No, I'm saying this wrong. Her head needs to be cut off, before or after she dies."
That silenced the three men for a moment and, while they were digesting that information, the Colonel took that time to take a sip from his beer. "We have to cut off her head?"
"Yes."
"Man, that's sick. We don't have to take it back with us or something, do we?"
"No B.A., that is fortunately something we'll be spared. The client only needs to be certain that she was beheaded, a picture will suffice and once he's confirmed it through the local newspaper we'll get paid."
"Hold on, let's get back to that whole timing thing now. Is that condition gone, or what?"
And now they came to the part that mattered. "No, that condition remains. But it is also tied into the price."
"Explain."
Murdock was really starting to push it, one more comment and an 'unfortunate' accident might happen during this mission. Unfortunately, for now the Colonel had to restrict himself to simply glaring at the man before explaining. "Accomplishing the mission itself will bag us seventy-five grand. However, as I said we'll need to be on standby during a rather long period of time; up to three weeks. We'll have to spend that time in this Sunnydale, which means we'll have to be careful about showing our faces too much. In return for being cooped up in some miserable hotel room we'll be netting ten grand a day."
"Ten grand, for doing nothing? That sounds good to me." Faceman said, and as the other two nodded in agreement the Colonel knew that they were very likely to accept the mission, but he had to explain the possible problems anyway.
"Because of the high-risk factor involved, I will demand that ten grand will be transferred to our account at the start of each day. If we don't get paid for a certain day, and don't receive the call that the mission is a go, we'll walk away. Simple as that. Similarly, if we ever feel that the whole thing is a set-up, we'll leave the town, cancel the contract, and scrap the client from our client list."
"If it's a trap, we'll scrap him from more than a stupid list."
The others seemed to more than agree with B.A.'s statement and even came with ideas of how to take care the man. But before the meeting degenerated into a discussion of the best way to deal with a traitor, the Colonel interfered one last time spoke in a more formal tone. "You've all heard the facts of the mission. You know what will need to be done; you know what we'll get in return. Knowing all this, do you want to accept the mission?"
In the end it was unanimously decided that they should agree to do the mission, leaving the Colonel to call the client to let him know that the A-team had accepted his mission.
Wasn't it wonderful that these days you could pick an alias from the television, and actually have it help you get clients?
….…
Coming up with a preliminary plan and gathering the needed supplies hadn't taken them very long, so within twenty-four hours the self-styled A-team had arrived in Sunnydale. Due to the nature of their mission they had decided on renting a cabin at the closest motel. That way they would have at least something approaching privacy, and nobody should notice that they hardly ever left their room.
The day after their arrival the group had split up, and each of them had taken a separate tour of the town. Visiting all the important buildings, or at least those important for their mission, the Colonel didn't exactly believe he needed a dose of culture in the form of a museum.
Those tours did show him exactly how small this town was, it wasn't the smallest town he had ever been in, but it was still damn small. But there was something else that bothered him, the citizens acted as if they were under a constant threat. Unfortunately he had no idea what from, and when he mentioned it to Faceman his partner had no idea either.
….…
"I agree it's strange, almost makes me feel like I've gone back in time and in enemy territory again."
Taking a deep breath of the delicious smell of the fine cup of coffee he was holding, the Colonel took his time answering. "Except of course that this is no fucking jungle."
"Except that of course, well that and that the pay's better too."
He let out a short barking laugh, but privately he had to admit that it wasn't so far from what he'd been thinking either. Not that he would let Faceman hear about that, there was no reason for him to make it easier for any of them to figure out how to predict his behavior. "Did you find out anything?"
The other threw a quick glance around the mostly empty coffee shop where they had met up, but when he too acknowledged that nobody was going to listen in, he started talking. "Actually, yeah I did. Do you think there's some way you could get the beheading thing lifted? Because if that's the case, we could make it look like a suicide."
"A suicide? From a rich kid like that? Explain," The Colonel demanded before taking a sip of the hot, black liquid.
"Okay, it's like this. I've been snooping around a bit, like you ordered us too, and I kinda overheard a conversation between two girls. Not exactly the brightest bulbs around, but from what I understood they were close to the target once." At this Faceman decided it was time for a sip as well, and the Colonel was forced to wait impatiently for him to continue. "Anyways, they were talking about how her reputation was, and I quote, like totally ruined now."
The impression of an airhead was so good that the Colonel couldn't contain his laughter, even though he had just taken another sip. Some of the coffee escaped his mouth in a stream, and the part that he tried to swallow went down the wrong pipe, causing a coughing fit. "Damn it man, don't," more coughing interfered with what he was trying to say, but before long he'd overcome this bout as well, "don't do that while I'm drinking."
"Oops, sorry." The unrepentant grin belied the words however, but Faceman was the only of the three from which he'd accept behavior like this. The two of them had history going back before the other two had joined them to start the A-team. They had served in the same black ops unit, and that kind of thing taught you more about a guy than anything else possibly could.
"Go on with your story. My coffee has been ruined already, so you can skip the acting part."
"Sure thing boss. Like I was saying, these two girls then continued talking of how she had managed to ruin her reputation, and I have to say it was a weird tale." Always the showman, Faceman paused here for effect, but as the Colonel refused to ask for him to continue, he continued out of his own volition. "Alright. It's like this. We've both seen what a hot piece of ass the target is. Now, from my way of thinking someone that looks like that and is rich to boot will always be at the top of the food chain in high school."
"That makes sense," the Colonel grudgingly admitted into the silence that fell. If he were to wait for the other to continue out of his own volition every time he stopped, this tale would take hours.
"Right, now apparently some time in the last year or so, she had taken up with someone who the airheads described as the biggest loser of the school. Now, as if this wasn't bad enough, it seems that a couple of days ago the guy had cheated on her, with some kind of geek."
"And where does the suicide thing come in?"
Faceman looked at him as if he'd just said water was burning, but eventually explained his theory, which in the Colonel's opinion was rather shady. "I was coming to that, look the little girl is depressed, and while she's still in the hospital at the moment."
"Hold on. Hospital?"
"Did I forget to mention that?"
Gnashing his teeth in frustration, the Colonel hissed his words at the other man. "Yes, you forgot to bloody mention she was in the hospital."
"Oops." Seeing the expression on his face, and probably taking a hint from it, Faceman hurried to give an explanation. "That happened when she walked in on the cheating guy. Apparently she was so shocked by the whole thing that she didn't look where she was going and fell down the stairs, where a piece of rebar was waiting for her. Instant shish kebab. Well, Chase kebab actually."
Rolling his eyes at the bad pun, the Colonel asked for more information. "But she survived, despite such a grave wound?"
"Yeah, but things like that happen, I mean last week I read an article about a little kid that fell down nine stories and didn't even have a scratch."
The Colonel didn't intend to dismiss that so easily though, in his opinion people who survived that kind of trauma usually got out stronger, not weaker. Besides, he rather doubted the client would go for something besides a beheading anyway. While he hadn't told the others yet, it was that part of the mission that bothered him most. There was of course the chance that it was all a trap, but in his opinion that was a rather remote possibility. The whole beheading thing however meant that there was more going on than met the eye, and this whole hospital thing only complicated matters even more.
"But she's still in the hospital?"
"Yeah, but she'll be released tomorrow."
….…
Knowing the target would be released the next day had been a good thing, as he really wanted to see for himself how she behaved. For a beautiful teenage girl there was only one place that could possibly be considered a natural environment and he wanted to see how she acted there. See how the wound influenced her, and get a general feeling about her behavior. Which meant he had to wade into the throngs of teenybopping, headache inducing children going out for the evening.
If he had been certain that he'd get the information he needed, the Colonel would have told one of the others to go. But as he wasn't sure they'd manage that, he was the one forced to do this dirty job. If it hadn't been for the mask he was wearing, he would have rubbed his ears to ease their suffering. Suffering that had been caused by exposure to that stuff kids dared to call music.
….…
The loud music first became audible to him right outside the doors to the club, and he had to admit that it wasn't nearly as bad as he'd imagined it would be. Not that it took away his worries, there was always the chance that this was only a quiet song. The Colonel had known what he should expect though, and if the sound became too much… well that was why he'd brought those earplugs, wasn't it?
Stepping through the door was the experience of a lifetime. The atmosphere wasn't as bad as he'd expected, apparently this was a club for the younger crowd so there wasn't much alcohol being used. Which meant that it didn't so much smell like spilled beers, but that instead he was faced with a far less interesting odor. If Kurt Cobain was to be believed this was the so-called teen spirit, to him however it was more like stale sweat.
Weaving his way through the masses he made his way towards the bar, a trip that didn't go as smoothly as he would have liked. Somehow these kids managed to avoid each other, but they didn't manage to do the same for him. Pest after pest bumped into him, and he had to refrain himself from taking hold of one and throwing him across the floor. Doing so would ruin his goal for the evening however, so he tried to constrain himself.
Thank God he'd left his gun at the motel, if he hadn't done that the temptation to simply blow some of these kids away might have proved to be too much.
Patience. He took a deep breath in order to calm himself. Right now he should simply go to the bar, order a nice refreshing beer, drink it and see what he could find out about their target. Once the mission was a go he could work out his anger in the best way possible. Violently. No, don't think about the violence. Patience is the name of the game right now.
Doing his best to restrain his simmering anger, the Colonel had finally reached the bar and pulled on the shirt of the bartender. "Gimme a beer."
"Show me some ID first," was the reply given by the young man who was only paying attention to a couple of gyrating, young, female bodies on the dance floor.
The Colonel however, had had enough. Grabbing the bartender by his collar he dragged the foolish boy towards him and when the scared, wild-looking eyes were only inches from his own he hissed. "Do I fuckin' look like I'm underage? Give me that beer. Now!" And with those words he released the bartender, who while taking a couple of steps back to regain his balance almost managed to cause the bottles behind him to crash to the floor.
"Y-yes sir."
"Good boy." See? The only way to get some decent service these days was to demand it.
When he finally had the beer in his hand, a beer that he had to admit had been exceedingly well-tapped, he turned around to take his own look at the floor. Surveying the dance floor he couldn't spot the target yet but he had a feeling she'd show up sooner or later. If her reputation had been ruined as much as Faceman believed, she needed to restore it as quickly as she could. And the best place to do that was here.
Noticing a free table in a corner he made his way there, the only reason it was still free was probably because of the lack of light. It wasn't completely dark, but it wasn't as well lit as the other tables either, something that suited his purpose just fine. Taking a seat on one chair, he placed his legs on another. Nothing was likely to happen so there was no need for him to remain ready to move at a moment's notice. Besides, he validated the reasoning to himself, this way he wouldn't look so much out of place.
As a preparation for when the target would actually show up, the Colonel decided to do some crowd-watching. The jocks and cheerleaders were easily distinguishable, jackets thrown over their chairs in a way that was obviously meant to be cool, or whatever you called it these days, and the lack of brains just seemed to radiate from them. It was a fairly large group, and he was pretty certain that when she arrived, the target would go to them first.
But until she arrived he could spend his time looking at more interesting people, one small group stood out to him and he focused his attention there. Two girls, one blonde and one redhead, and a dark-haired boy sitting together. Unlike the other children though, these seemed depressed. The boy was alternately staring between his friends and a fourth chair, where he was obviously hoping that someone would join them. The redhead did her own bit of staring, but skipped the chair and kept looking between the boy and a member of the band. The blond on the other only stared straight ahead, probably depressed because her friends were.
If he guessed their ages right, and he was pretty sure he did, that little group could very well be the reason for the target's depression. Good, that could mean a confrontation when she showed up, something to look forward to. The blond suddenly seemed to come back to reality, and asking her friends something, she stood up and walked to the bar.
No. That shouldn't be possible. The way that girl moved through the crowd wasn't something he'd expected to see here. She gracefully weaved her way through the people without paying any real attention to them. Of course, there might be no more to it then the fact that she was used to walking through a crowd like this. But something seemed off about it. He couldn't really put his finger on it, but there was something about the girl that was different.
Then, from one moment to the next, her attitude completely changed and she appeared more like a hunter on the prowl. As she turned around he allowed his eyes to glide past her, trusting that she wouldn't notice he had been staring at her. The Colonel didn't look at the girl again until he was sure that her attention was back where it belonged. Somewhere he wasn't. Strange. The fact that she noticed him looking wasn't all that special, but her reaction to it was.
The feeling of a pair of eyes examining him made him put his musing about the girl on the back burner while he casually looked around to identify the source; he didn't want anyone to remember him clearly enough to ever tell the police about him. Not that it was likely anyone in this crowd would be able to describe him, but then again, he hadn't counted on the weird blond either.
It was a bit disconcerting when he didn't find anyone looking at him though as he was sure that someone had been doing so. The closest thing to someone watching him however, was some kind of brunette girl who had been scanning the crowd near him before turning back to her two friends. And he wasn't paranoid enough to credit a girl that was barely a teenager with that much acting ability.
Suddenly the crowd seemed to lose its sparkle however, and he joined most of the others by staring at the door through which his target was just walking in. Wow, he wasn't sure what it was that made her look so spectacular but if he had been the one to determine her status, she would have been up on top immediately. When she made to move to the group of jocks he'd spied out earlier, the girls at that table turned their backs on her.
The target stopped, and the Colonel saw the mask of strength waver. Lifting his glass to his mouth he tried to take a sip, only to discover he'd already finished it. Oh well, nothing to be done about that. There were bigger fish to fry right now, or at least one bigger fish. A fish called Cordelia. Huh, almost like that movie. But back to business, the target had started moving again and the resolved look on her face showed that she meant business.
The closer she got to the group, the less likely it seemed she would be allowed to interact with them though. They closed in on themselves, in fact it was almost as if they were creating a wall she'd need to pass. But there was no way to pass that wall, and it wasn't long before the target realized that as well. Uncertainty had come back on her face, but it lasted only a moment as she had suddenly spotted the little group. At that moment a brief flash of hatred crossed her face, and the Colonel was pretty sure that if he'd been able to see her eyes, they would have been spitting fire.
By then the blonde had returned from getting her drinks and approached the target. Clearly she was the only one of the three who still dared to do that, which probably meant the boy had been doing the redhead. Personally he would have gone for the blonde, but there was no accounting for taste, was there? Back to the confrontation; the blonde seemed to be pleading, probably trying to convince the target that she should forgive and move on. But if the reply was even half as harsh as it looked from where he was sitting, he wished he had heard it.
As the target suddenly turned around however, the young brunette he'd noticed before called to her, and unlike the blonde, she didn't receive a tongue-lashing. In fact, the target joined her and her two friends for a brief conversation, and, if the amount of nodding and angry glances towards the boy was any indication, these girls were firmly on her side.
But none of that really mattered anymore, he had seen what he had come to see. Rising from his chair, the Colonel walked towards the exit with a far lighter heart than when he had come in. The target might not be as weak as Faceman had hoped, but she wasn't nearly as strong as he'd feared either.
Maybe after time had healed the wounds a bit she would become a force to be reckoned with, but she didn't have that time. Which might have made Faceman's plan workable if it hadn't been for that damned clause. No use complaining about that anymore though, best to focus on how to go about the mission. Well, at least he'd have to make sure that the blonde wasn't around when the mission went about though, she might pose a threat. Unless… He had an idea how he might even deal with a problem like that.
….…
Two days later the team had been sitting in their cabin, each member entertaining himself in his own way. It had only been five days since they had arrived in Sunnydale, but boredom had already set in. So it was with more than a little interest that the other three looked at him, when the Colonel walked over to answer the ringing phone.
"Yes?"
"It is time." The cool meticulous voice on the other end of the line said.
Finally. The money they got for their time in the cabin was good, but if it had gone on much longer he was pretty sure that the team would have lost a member or two. "Do all conditions still apply?" Just checking, he might be lucky.
"Yes. She has classes until about three o'clock, after which she will make her way home. Don't be surprised if this takes a while though."
Whatever. He didn't need to hear more and finished the call as fast as he could, by saying goodbye and closing the connection. Done with that he turned to the team and opened his mouth to speak the liberating words. "We're on."
"Hallelujah. It's about fuckin' time."
Within minutes the team had changed their clothes, gathered everything they needed, and were on their way. Leaving the cabin bereft of anything that could be a clue to their identities. They wouldn't return there, the decision to leave the town the moment the mission was accomplished had been unanimous.
Coming to a stop in front of the target's home they got out of their van, and wearing the overalls that constituted their cover they made their way to the front door. There was no way that any of the neighbors could spy out their actions, so the only one they needed to fool was the person opening the door.
According to the information they'd received there were no servants present today, and the one who should be opening the door would be one Patricia Chase, mother of their target. It was possible the father was still at home as well, but after checking with the client it seemed that both of these were expendable as well. The rich people home alone in the middle of the day, and expendable too?
Oh well, he shrugged, nobody ever said these missions had to make sense. He focused back when Murdock rang the doorbell, and joined in the anxious waiting for someone to answer the door. He hated this part of a mission, it was always small things like this that couldn't be planned in every detail and might prove to be the one thing to ruin the mission. But no, he was pretty sure he'd pegged this situation right. Despite the gloomy atmosphere that was always there, but rarely noticeable, the people in Sunnydale were the trusting sort.
The click from a lock that was opened was clearly audible, and moments later a woman peered through what little opening the security-chain allowed. As if such a tiny little thing was going to stop him. "Who are you?"
"We're here to deal with the pest problem," Murdock answered, drawing a frown from the woman.
"There's no pest problem here, who are you people?" the suddenly suspicious woman demanded while already starting to close the door.
"Oh no you don't," the Colonel said while kicking against the door in order to keep it open. While the wood creaked from the blow, it wasn't enough as the chain didn't give way. Luckily the woman wasn't very strong, and unable to counter the weight he put against the door to keep it at least partly open until Murdock was able to use the cutter at the chain, allowing him a second chance to kick the door open.
Seeing the silly chain being destroyed, the woman hadn't waited and started running to the back before he'd even taken his first step inside. "Anthony! Invaders!"
Invaders? Who the hell talked liked that? But the woman had already entered the living room and, cursing that he hadn't been able to get a clear shot before that happened, he set out after her. If she got the chance to raise an alarm they were screwed.
The chase didn't last long, even with her head start the woman couldn't get away while wearing those high heeled shoes. When he himself stepped into the living room, he saw her on the other side where she was making her way towards the backyard. And letting her out there was a risk he didn't intend to take, so, without any regrets, he aimed his .45 and pulled the trigger.
The silencer worked perfectly and muffled the sound of the shot itself, the loudest part of the whole operation was the sound of the impact of the bullet that caused the woman's brain to get splattered all over the room. Damn, a powerful weapon like that really made a mess at so short a range, didn't it? Hiding a smile he turned back to where he could hear the others playing with this Anthony.
B.A. and Faceman were holding the man up, while Murdock was demanding information about the family's valuables. Okay, not exactly, demanding information sounded so kind compared to the torture he was inflicting. But hey, if the man wanted the hurting to stop he should just speak up.
"Now, why don't you tell us what we want to know?" Murdock kindly asked the man, before punching him in the face. An action that obviously didn't happen for the first time. But the man remained silent, in fact he acted as if he was protecting something that mattered more to him than his life.
The Colonel had never understood something like that, in his opinion there wasn't anything more important than his own life. In fact, that had been one of the reasons he had given up on the army life. They kept trying to convince him that the army as a whole was more important than the tiny part of it that he was. He disagreed with that, and after his discharge he'd set about creating his own group.
And now some other delusional lunatic was keeping him from money that was rightfully his. But it was obvious to him that there was no way that the man would give them the information, so he decided there and then to stop this interrogation. Grabbing the man by the collar, he dragged him to the living room.
Strangely enough, the man didn't even struggle, obviously realizing the futility of such an action. Not that it really mattered, if he had the other members of his team would undoubtedly have jumped in. When he finally reached the corpse of the woman, he looked back at the man. Oh for... "Open your eyes."
A shake of his head, and a couple of stray tears was all the reply he got. So, the man wasn't stupid and had realized what he'd be shown here. Of course, Murdock wasn't the most patient of men and kicked the man in the stomach. "Look at her fool. That's how you'll end up if you don't speak."
The man opened his eyes, an action that was undoubtedly inspired more by the kick than the words. Upon seeing the corpse of his wife he let out a sob, but aside from that and moving his head there was very little reaction. Why? He no longer cared though, and bending over he grabbed the man by the head. If he reacted like this to the death of his wife, the Colonel expected there was little that would get more of a reaction.
Nonetheless, while forcing the man to face his wife—although he probably had his eyes closed again—the Colonel put his gun to the back of the man's head. "Where's the money?"
No answer came, and with a sigh of regret he pulled the trigger and as the man's brains splattered over the corpse of his wife he let the body drop to the floor.
"Damnit Colonel, whatd'ya do that for?" B.A. complained, while looking at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief showing in his eyes.
"We can look ourselves. We've got a couple of hours left before the target is due to arrive. We'll look until about a quarter to three, when we'll take up our positions. B.A., Faceman, you two go and get cleaned up first; Murdock, drive the van into the garage. Meanwhile I'll try to clean this place up a bit. I doubt even the target would fall for our trap if this place smells like a slaughterhouse." And with those words they each set about their duties.
….…
The cleaning hadn't been a lot of fun, but searching through the house they had managed to dig up some amazing stuff. Really, it made you wonder what kind of weird hobbies these rich people had. Aside from being late for appointments that is. Thinking that he finally heard the sounds that indicated the arrival of the target and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.
Excellent, now all they had to do was wait for a couple of minutes and the fee would be theirs. The Colonel was almost starting to relax when the sudden sound of glass breaking indicated that plan A had failed. A curse slipped from his mouth, before he caught himself and signaled the others that they needed to take direct action.
x.x.x
Breathing heavily, while leaning on all fours, made it difficult for Cordelia to watch the sword as it made its long journey downward. How could this have happened? How was it possible for her to be killed by probably the only person in town she hadn't considered a danger? She pressed her eyelids closed in a desperate effort not to watch her own demise as it approached.
It wouldn't be long now before she could feel the hard impact of the sharp blade on the skin of her neck. The events as they would transpire flashed through her mind's eye. The cool metal first parting the skin, sending a brief but sharp sign to her brain that something was hurting. That wouldn't last very long however as those pain receptors would be among the next things to go, which only meant that even more of them would start sending their messages.
The whole experience would only last moments, terrible moments during which the pain receptors would continue to report on the amount of agony she was suffering. Indications from her body that what she was doing was something that should have been avoided at all cost. But as the sword would continue on its way, and slice between the vertebrae it would be too late to do anything about it. Once her spine had been severed there wouldn't be anything she'd be able to do to save that most precious of all commodities. Her life.
Another piece of that frozen moment in time was wasted by Cordelia as she reflected on the way her perfect look would be ruined completely by the way the sword would finish its descent. In movies there was often only a small thin red line, but she had seen the sword that was about to take her life. It would leave a big gaping hole, ensuring that she wouldn't even look good in her casket.
Casket? Had she given up already? There were still moments left before the terrible deed would actually be committed. She could do something in that time, couldn't she? Of course she could. For whatever reason she seemed to be able to think faster and clearer than ever before, probably a side effect of knowing the end was so close. What could she do however? She had already tried to use words to stop Dawn from doing this, and by now those wouldn't be enough anyway.
There was no way that the young Summers girl could possibly stop the sword from ending over three hundred years of near-perfection. And if Dawn couldn't do that left only one person with the slightest chance of stopping this situation from ending with some badly dressed police officer drawing a white line around her body. And a smaller one around her head.
Moving her hands from their supporting position as well, Cordelia allowed herself to drop to the ground. But gravity wasn't fast enough, and she knew it. In mid-fall she tried to turn on her own axis while sticking out her arms in the direction she believed the sword to be. It might not have been the best way to deal with it, but it was the only thing she could come up with that had even the slightest chance of working.
As she hit the ground with her right shoulder her left arm intercepted the sword that would have cut through her neck. Instead of encountering the weak space between the vertebrae however it now sliced through her arm. And the only reason that it didn't cut off her arm, but got stuck there, was the angle she'd held her arm. Which was definitely a case of having more luck than wisdom.
She screamed in pain.
The dual pain of the jarring crash to the ground and having her arm laid open like that was just too much to bear. But as Dawn was already tearing the sword out of her arm, which only took so long because of how deeply it was lodged in the bone, Cordelia realized she didn't have time for pain. She needed to move, and move quickly.
For a moment their eyes locked. And Cordelia realized that whatever fear she'd felt before had been nothing compared to what she was feeling now. If she hadn't had confirmation about the identity of her attacker earlier, she might have mistaken her for someone else. For who, she didn't know, but not sweet little Dawnie.
The girl's eyes were empty, she wouldn't have believed that any pair of eyes could look that devoid of emotions but there it was. It lasted once again for what seemed an eternity, but the moment the lock broke Cordelia attempted to free her arm from the hold the sword had on it.
To an outside observer the scene might have looked almost comical, but the short tug-of-war, that was the result of Dawn's attempt to dislodge the sword and Cordelia's frantic yanking, hurt like hell. And when they finally separated, it was the young girl who reacted most efficiently. Instead of staggering back in a desperate attempt to stabilize the suddenly freed sword she moved with it, turning in a neat circle and turning it into another swing.
With her heart lodged firmly in her throat Cordelia saw this happening and knew exactly what the result would be. The brief respite that her earlier actions had given her hadn't been enough, this cold-blooded killer masquerading as a little girl would end her life. NO! She would survive! Other people died, people of her stature always found a way to survive.
Once more she felt cold sweat break out all over her body, but unlike seconds—minutes? hours?—earlier she didn't just sit there watching it happen. No, there was no more sitting idly by while someone tried to end her life, this time she acted quickly.
Sitting on the ground wasn't the best pose to handle something like this however, so she rolled over until she was once again in a position from which she could easily rise to her feet. The sudden movement also had the benefit of throwing off Dawn's aim. Not that the little girl missed—whoever had taught her how to use a sword had done an excellent job—but instead of causing a mortal wound, the stroke merely sliced her back. Cordelia couldn't contain the sob of pain that caused, but by now she had a feeling that she was getting used to the pain and instead of having it cripple her, she did her best to ignore the searing feeling and got to her feet.
The move was obviously unexpected as her assailant didn't immediately follow up with yet another swing, and the Immortal calling herself Cordelia Chase made use of the slight opening in the only way that made sense to her. She ran.
One step away from her doom, two steps, another step, and yet another. Every bruise, abrasion, and cut on her body did its best to slow her down, telling her that she couldn't treat her body like she was doing. There would be a price to pay for this behavior, but she didn't care. In fact, there was little she could care less about. If she remained in this alley she would be killed, so when the first impact came she was still solely focused on the exit of the alley.
But while her complete and utter focus on the way out suppressed the already existing pain to a more bearable level, there was no way she could miss the bullet as it crashed into her shoulder. She wasn't at first sure what it was, but as its impact spun her around, and showed her Dawn aiming a gun at her head, it was obvious to her even before the second bullet created a hole between her eyes.
x.x.x
What kind of sick and twisted creature was this? Kevin thought while staring at the corpse lying less than two meters away from him. She had just hunted down what appeared to be a friend of hers. And had done so without anything that might charitably be called regret. Nope, the little girl—no, monster—hadn't even blinked once while she was using the sword to try and kill the Immortal.
The only good thing in his opinion was that she hadn't seemed to be enjoying herself either. There just hadn't been any emotion present, and if it hadn't been for her initial reaction to the quickening he probably would have doubted she was capable of feeling emotions.
But the events during the quickening had proved beyond a doubt that she could feel emotions. And she wasn't the only one on whom that had a great effect. In fact, even from where he was hiding he had been able to smell the ozone generated by the lightning bolts. But compared to the rest, the smell was an insignificant little something. During his training he had heard descriptions of what happened when an Immortal lost their head, but not even watching some of the tapes of such an event had prepared him for witnessing it himself.
Everything Washington had been, everything he had done, seen, and experienced. In fact, everything that made him who he was had been turned into a pulsing mass of electricity. The alley had seemed on fire, and while there was considerable danger in doing so, he had stood up. He just had to see what was happening. And he saw, oh boy, did he see. Lightning everywhere, Washington's body had been surrounded by it. Heck, he'd even seen it crawling up the walls, only to suddenly jump to the nearest metal object, be it a lamppost, fire escape, or even the sword that the girl had been holding at the time. Until finally the bolts started crashing into the lifeless body of the young looking Immortal woman.
When the quickening had hit the girl's sword however, she immediately dropped it and jumped away from the lightning. As she had been standing with her back towards him he hadn't been able to see her face, but he could easily imagine what it would have looked like. For the little girl it was probably the first experience she had with the supernatural and that might be the reason for her behavior concerning her friend. After all, you didn't expect a dead person to suddenly wake up, did you?
But at that sudden jump backwards Kevin had remembered that while the girl might look innocent, she had been the one to cut off his friend's head. Within moments he was back behind the foul-smelling dumpster that he'd been using as his cover. But even calculating in the fact that the girl hadn't known anything about Immortals her reaction to the other's awakening had been extreme.
But now that situation was over, at least for the moment. The alley was silent again and he was trying to sit as still as he could, taking care not to let even the slightest sound betray his position. Doing so however turned his attention away from the girl for the first time since Washington's last awakening and made him remember the other reason he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The police had to be on their way, and he was still stuck here. Casting a longing glance at the exit corner that was less than a dozen meters behind him, he once again considered taking the risk. But no, if she was that quick with shooting a friend, who knew what she'd do to him if she knew what he'd seen?
That thought almost made him afraid to move, and so, instead of checking his watch, Kevin tried to calculate the time since the shots had been fired. He remembered that it had been about half an hour before Washington had revived, only to betray the secret of how to kill people like him. That interrogation couldn't have lasted more than a minute or two, five at the most. Actually taking the head hadn't taken all that long either as the girl seemed to be able to handle the sword just fine, and had either been lucky not to hit any bones or knew how to decapitate someone.
Forty minutes at least. The resulting quickening didn't take more than a minute or two, and the attempt to kill her friend had taken, what? Five minutes, ten? Probably less, but so much seemed to happen in so little time that it was almost impossible to tell. If he had to take a guess he might as well go for ten minutes. Which made it a bit over fifty minutes? Almost an hour had passed and the police had yet to arrive. Police? There weren't even some curious citizen around. What kind of town was this that nobody would go and watch when something strange happened?
Sounds of exertion suddenly sounded from the place where the Immortal—what was her name again? Cordelia, Cecilia? Something like that—was lying. When Kevin then heard the sound of something being dragged he understood that the girl was dragging Cordelia further into the alley. The Immortal didn't look all that heavy, but for a little girl it must still have been difficult as she frequently paused until she was finally satisfied.
When it had been silent for a while he finally dared to sneak another look around the dumpster, but he couldn't see anything other than the girl patiently waiting for the Immortal to wake up. At least she didn't take this one's head while she was incapable of defending herself. But neither did she walk away, so that he could leave as well before someone showed up. If anyone ever would.
….…
"Stop." The calmly spoken word after the long silence shook Kevin and he once again carefully peered deeper into the alley.
"D-dawn?" the Immortal asked the girl, clearly confused by what was going on. "Do you believe me now? That it's still me?"
"No." Damn that was cold.
"But you haven't taken my head yet."
Somehow Kevin had a feeling that Cordelia would have phrased that differently if the stone-faced girl hadn't been aiming the silenced gun at her head. That kind of thing was very likely to make you very polite. "No." Of course, if you had the gun you didn't need to be polite. Or answer in complete sentences for that matter.
"Why not?" Man, he didn't know the woman, but even he could see that she was slowly building up steam for a nice anger bout.
"Doubt."
"Doubt?" One of Cordelia's eyebrows rose at this answer, and she peered intently at the girl while her anger once more seemed to fade into the background where he had no doubt it would simmer until it was ready to be used. But that was just his impression of the woman's behavior and he might be wrong—although he doubted that. "You're starting to think that I might actually be telling the truth about being me?"
"Your behavior," the girl nodded. He really ought to stop thinking of her as the girl though, what was it the other one had called her? Rain? No, but it was something with the weather.
"What?"
The girl seemed to be a bit exasperated by her need to explain, but there also seemed to be something else driving her. "You didn't act like him."
"Of course I didn't act like some two-bit slave! Just because we have," a short look at the corpse made her amend that sentence, "had something in common, doesn't mean we're the same person."
"What are you?"
Such a simple question, but such a difficult one to answer, and Kevin wondered how the Immortal would explain her species to the girl. "Ah, don't you think it would be better if we went somewhere else? Even the Sunnydale police will show up eventually so they can blame this on a gang on PCP. Talking of gangs, that bastard must've hired them or something. Oh, are they gonna regret taking that money."
"Don't change the subject. I know you're not a vampire, but the only other demon I've read about that can come back to life is a Mohra demon." She paused when a sudden thought hit her. "Oh, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But I don't think you're either of those, so what are you?" Vampires? Demons? What kind of fantasy books had the girl been reading?
"I'm a Lady of standing, and would have been a peer of the realm. Well," she corrected her error, "it was my intention to be the wife of one, unfortunately I died before I got around to finding a husband with the required title. When I woke up from being dead, I discovered that there was only one way I could die, and that my kind is called Immortals. Is that enough? Can we go away from here now? I'm not exactly comfortable here y'know. Not to mention that my clothes are totally ruined. I need to get home to change. You can come of course."
After biting out those words Cordelia paused for a reply, but Kevin had another thought on his mind. This was perfect, that bit of information should give him something to work with when he'd report the Challenge. There couldn't be that many Immortal noblewomen running around, could there?
"How nice of you to invite me. Let's do it like this though, you put your jacket on so that nobody will notice all the blood, and then we'll walk side by side. My gun will be constantly pointed at you and if you make a wrong move you'll die. Publicly." Ouch, if there was one thing that would screw up an Immortal's life it was a public death, especially if she were to revive there as well.
"Whatever," the exasperated brunette asked, happy that she had gotten her wish and probably not gunning for another fight, "by the way, does your sister know about you playing around with guns?"
Instead of answering, the girl motioned for Cordelia to put on the ruined jacket and lead the way out of the alley. Kevin however decided against immediately following them, he really needed to report this entire mess. However, as he watched the two girls—women?—exit the alley, his eye fell on the corpse of his one-time friend and he decided that before he'd do anything else, he'd have a stiff drink. Trying to get up he felt his muscles ache in protest, apparently his body hadn't approved of the tension. Tension that he still felt and which only started to dissipate once he'd managed put a decent distance between himself and the alley.
x.x.x
Okay, Cordelia tried to talk some courage into herself, so far she had survived everything the day had managed to throw at her. The ridicule at school and the punks that messed with her car—she really needed to get back at them for that—had only been the beginning of course. After that had come the really difficult stuff, first she had been Challenged by that foolish slave and, after she had miraculously survived that, her savior had tried to kill her. Good God, when had Dawn gotten so good at fighting?
Sneaking a peak at the girl who was walking to her right, she once more shuddered at the memory of looking into those eyes. Never had she seen such a lack of compassion in anyone's eyes. Lack of compassion? Shaking her head she amended that, it hadn't merely been a lack of compassion, it had been a total lack of emotion. The girl who was even now pointing a gun at her, hidden though it might be, could hardly be compared to the one she had gotten to know.
On the other hand, the way she fought seemed to imply training. And a lot of it at that, but where had she gotten that training? Or the weapons she so casually wielded? No thirteen-year-old girl should be able to handle weapons that proficiently.
All important questions, but she couldn't afford to pay attention to them now. She understood exactly what she had gotten, a temporary reprieve. And unlike the people to whom she had given something like that, she intended to use it to save her life.
Her blood-soaked clothes felt sticky, and where the blood had dried on her body it was itching. If anyone were to see her now, she was sure that she'd lose whatever reputation she had left. The mud-smeared jacket might hide the even bigger mess beneath, but Cordelia was still uncomfortable about wearing it. And besides, it only managed to hide the upper part of her body, her legs still clearly showed the aftereffects of the scrapes she had received during the fights. And she didn't even want to imagine what her face and hair looked like.
And through it all, the little girl had managed to remain unscathed. And that was the one thing that would normally have pissed her off more than anything else. They had gone through the same things, but she had come out looking like hell, while Dawn still looked clean and fresh. Normally she would have been so incredibly angry with the little girl for everything that had happened, after all she needed to lash out at someone and she'd take the first person available, but the fear kept her anger in check.
She was so scared. It felt like cowardice to even admit it to herself, but there was simply no way around it, and she couldn't wait until she got back home where the presence of security systems would dispel that fear. At least partly; if Dawn got inside with her that still left one thing to be afraid of. And the most dangerous one at that.
Raising her head, Cordelia scanned the neighborhood to ensure she was walking the right path. Good, they were almost there. All that was needed now was to go left at the next turn and she would already be able to see her house. Maybe once they had arrived the silence would be broken as well. And Dawn thought she was the one possessed? Who was she trying to kid? If there was anyone around who didn't act the way she should it was the Slayer's sister.
Was that it? Had some demon possessed Dawn as a way to get at Buffy? If that was the case it was doing a good job. Oh, she had no doubt that Buffy would be physically be able to beat whatever it was that possessed Dawn, the last couple of years had given her a healthy respect for a Slayer's abilities, but would she be able to fight something wearing the body of someone she loved? The whole mess with Angel last year had already shown she had problems with that.
Her thoughts had managed to take her mind off the current situation, but as her feet suddenly led her up the path to her front door, she started to panic again. Oh no! Dawn would demand proof that she was who she said she was, and she had totally forgotten to think something up! What was she to say? Standing in front of the door she only noticed her wildly beating heart, until she suddenly discovered that she was holding the key in her hands, and was about to turn the lock.
Patient. No matter what else she was, Dawn was a very patient little girl. Even after she had been standing with the key in the lock for over five minutes nothing had been said to make her hurry up. But instead of using that time to think something up, anything that would save her life, Cordelia had only stared at the traitorous key in her hand.
How could such a tiny thing have such a great impact? Did that key know what would happen after she had turned it and stepped through the door? Finally overcoming that last vestige of the shock that had haunted her since so narrowly escaping Dawn's death stroke, Cordelia turned the key. If she was going to die, let her die the way she had lived. In control of the situation and without showing any fear.
Taking the first step inside, Cordelia already knew that something was wrong. She wasn't able to identify exactly what it was that gave it away, but somewhere in this house there was something completely wrong. Not again. To show her despair at the situation she let out something between a sniff and a sigh, but even as she kicked off her shoes, so that she could feel the expensive carpet while she walked over it, she tried to calculate her chances of survival.
Due to receiving a Quickening she was no longer protected by the spell. Everything and everybody capable of detecting a Quickening would now know what she was; on the other hand it also meant that she'd regained the ability to heal quickly again. The memory of that useless feeling she had the last couple of times she had been hurt, something that seemed to happen ever more often, wasn't something she ever wanted to go through again.
As always after taking a head, or at least like the other two times, she was already starting to feel tired. Cordelia hadn't expected the drowsiness to strike this fast, at least not while she was still on an adrenaline high, but she had known it was coming so it didn't come as that much of a surprise. At least, it didn't until behind her she suddenly heard a sword drop to the floor.
Spinning around she saw Dawn slowly dropping to the floor with a surprised look at her face. "Dawn? What's wrong?"
"Sl- sleeping gas," the girl managed to say through lips that seemed numb. Sleeping gas? That meant she wasn't naturally feeling tired, but that it was the effect of some invader in her home. The conclusion fit with the observations as well. Not only was she tired, but Dawn as well. And as the girl was both smaller and lacked an Immortal's constitution she had been the first to fall victim to it. But why would someone use sleeping gas? She would just wake up again.
Unless they didn't want her to wake up. That realization worked its way past the effects of the gas and she knew that immediate action was required. They needed to do something, but what? Dawn seemed incapable of helping because while she was fighting for all that she was worth she was still losing the battle against unconsciousness. "What do I do?"
A quizzical look appeared in the girl's eyes, as if the answer was so obvious she shouldn't have needed to ask it. And perhaps it was, but the events of the day had so rattled her that she still couldn't think clearly. After what seemed to be interminably long time, Dawn finally answered the question. "A- air."
Air? What did she mean? Cordelia wanted to ask for more information, but when she opened her mouth to do so Dawn had lost the battle. And she was steadily going that way as well. Air. Think woman! What do you need to dispel gasses? Air. Of course, how stupid. She needed fresh air. All she needed to do was open a window and it would be alright.
But wouldn't opening the door have already done that? Or was that why it had taken this long for the gas to have its effect? Did the how actually matter?
Without taking any more time for thought on the matter, she rose to her full length and walked over to the window. Or so the plan went. Rising caused dizziness, but compared to that first step that was nothing. Like what had happened to Dawn less than a minute earlier, her knees too started to buckle, causing her to lose her own battle with gravity. She needed to open a window, but if she wasn't able to walk to it, how would she do that?
A solution came to her, and turning around to her friend, the Immortal crawled over so that she could reach the gun. Why the girl hadn't done this herself remained a mystery, but not one that she needed solve immediately. And when she tried to lift the gun, the reason became glaringly obvious. Her arms felt like they were encased in lead, and together with the gun it was almost as if she was trying to lift an elephant, single-handedly.
But she persevered, and while lying on her back she finally managed to aim at the closest window and pull the trigger of the unfamiliar weapon. The first shot went wide, but she had used firearms before, and seeing where the first bullet impacted showed her how to compensate. While the shots themselves had been almost silent—apparently these silencer things actually worked—the sound of the crashing window was loud, but for once the sound of something she owned breaking didn't bother her in the least.
But that wasn't enough. Waiting for the fresh air to arrive, she suddenly realized that she needed flowing air for it to have an effect. How? Her eyes fell on the window in the door, and once again she tried to shoot something that belonged to her. This time when the glass broke she could feel the movement of the air and was soon busy gulping in the fresh air. An action that was so desperate it even stopped her from thinking about the fact that she'd been the one who paid for those windows.
"I did it." Cordelia sighed while allowing herself to drop back to the floor. "I saved us Dawn. That makes us even, doesn't it?"
The girl didn't answer her however so she made an attempt to wake her up. Placing her hands on Dawn's shoulders so she could shake her, Cordelia felt something sticky. Lifting her hands and turning them around to look at them she saw traces of blood on them, but with the amount of blood she had lost the implications didn't immediately occur to her. Only when she then took her first real look at Dawn's back did she notice the long gash in her jacket, and the wound beneath it. "Shit Dawn, why didn't you say something? I'll have Patricia take care of you immediately."
That reminded her, where was Patricia? She was supposed to be here today. She didn't have long to wonder about the whereabouts of her wayward servant though; as she was suddenly distracted by the sound of someone destroying a window at the backside of her house, closely followed by another person busting in through her front door.
Her troubles were far from over, but as she swiveled her head to focus on the most immediate threat she vowed that this time she would come out on top. After all, this time the fight would take place in her home, her castle. And in here there was only one rule that mattered: she was the law.
x.x.x
Where was she? Waking up Kirika felt disorientated, and it took her a few moments to get her bearings. How had she gotten here? The earlier events slowly started coming back to her, but she was still groggy from the effects of the sleeping gas. That had been stupid. She never should have allowed her wounds to remain untreated that long, it had lowered her resistance and someone had taken advantage of that beginner's mistake.
In fact, she could clearly remember that she had been caught so unaware that she hadn't known what was happening before it was too late. When she had finally figured it out she had already been lying prone on the carpet, only then noticing the signs of an earlier struggle. She had tried to shoot a window, but her arm had felt so heavy that despite all her willpower she hadn't been able to lift it, let alone aim her gun.
And now she was here, in Dawn's bed, having finally figured out that it was only another of those dreams. Blinking wildly she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes, but it wasn't enough so she decided that the only sure way she would be able to wake up was with a shower. Throwing off her blanket, Kirika swung her legs over the side of her bed and stretched her back, trying to dispel the lingering grogginess.
Tentatively she then reached for her back where she could feel the outline of her latest scar. Yes, it had been one of THOSE dreams again, and by now she was getting truly sick of them. She had to find a way to deal with them, or risk getting killed during one of them.
Wouldn't that be something? Almost like that horror movie guy, what was his name again? Freddy Krueger or something? He killed people while they were sleeping as well, the only difference being that she could get killed by anyone, anywhere, anytime. One night it was demons that she fought, the next she would be facing a large group of humans, and the day after that she'd be in that world with the Terminators again.
Thinking about movies. This last dream reminded her of something Dawn had seen as well. There was something familiar about the whole decapitation thing. With her mind still focused on the dream itself, Kirika simply couldn't put her finger on what it was that seemed so familiar. It was something with a movie, or maybe a television series...
With a disgusted sigh she gave up for the moment. She'd figure it out sooner or later, and it wasn't that important right now anyway. That dream was over and done with. Not that she intended to give up, but it could wait until later.
On the other hand, for some strange reason that world traveling did some good too. Gingerly she removed the bandages from her other wound and couldn't help but be relieved by the way it seemed to have gotten better again. She had been shot there, less than two weeks ago, but after every single one of those dreams she'd had the injury had lessened, until all that was left now was a very thin layer of extremely sensitive pink skin. The healing process was almost complete; whoever was doing the magic thing to her was helping her hide that wound from her classmates.
If only she didn't end up with so many extra scars after such a dream. Thinking of which… The dream was still fresh in her mind now, so she decided to postpone the shower until she had completed her usual task.
During Christmas she had managed to overhear a conversation between Buffy and Willow about her sister's dreams. Most of it she had already known, but she had completely forgotten about another detail. Buffy wrote her dreams down. When she heard Willow ask about the dream diary she had suddenly remembered its existence. It had been stupid of her to forget, and the only reason she could come up with that was at least vaguely satisfactory was that she had only heard about it once. And that had been during that first day after the spell had hit her.
But even knowing that she didn't consider the reason sufficient. She had received extensive training throughout most of her life, and yet she couldn't even remember something like that? What would Mireille think of that?
No, the pain at that loss was still too great for her to think about it. That had been a different life, and she needed to make a new one here, or more precisely, she needed to retain an old one.
These dreams only reinforced her main problem though. In all of these dreams it had been a strange mesh of the personalities that ruled her body. That too was one of the reasons for the disorientation she had felt earlier, the sudden emptiness left behind by the departure of the others. If a mind could feel cold and lonely, that was how she imagined her mind to be during those first moments after waking up. It was strange how all personalities had their place in the dreams, while in the real world they still bickered, fought, or even hid.
No, the dream. She had to write down the dream before she forgot some important detail about it. Rising to her feet, she tugged at the hem of the t-shirt she was wearing before walking over to her desk. Out of habit she checked if her real diary had been moved, but as she had last checked it right before going to sleep, she knew it was unnecessary to do so. Not doing it might get her out of the habit though, and she didn't want that to happen either.
Once she knew for certain that nothing had happened, Kirika took the book and opened it on her desk. The beautiful Kanji pictograms stared out of the book and she couldn't help but read some snippets of the earlier entries that she had written down. 'This night the dream had been about a world similar to this one, with the exception that we never moved from Los Angeles. Despite not being present in Sunnydale during that night, I was complete. How this came to be is something I don't know.'
Questions, every time she woke up after one of those dreams she remembered the details of what had happened during her dream, but the life she must have led before it was always shrouded in mystery. The part she had just read was just one of many unsolved riddles; and, while it was strange, she was certain there was a good reason for her getting caught in the same spell. If there hadn't been she would have noticed it during the dream itself, but how it could have happened remained a mystery. Without going to Sunnydale she wouldn't have even met Jane, who was the one to introduce her to Noir in the first place.
Had she just thought her? Was she starting to lose the distinction between her, the Kirika personality, and the real Dawn? Considering that possibility she tried to reach the Dawn personality again, but even had she known how to contact something that was only a part of her brain she doubted anything would have come from it. No, Dawn was still hiding from the world and any loss of distinction was more likely to be due to overlapping memories.
While letting out a sigh of desperation, Kirka shook her head in order to dispel those thoughts. She really needed to write that dream down and if she continued thinking about all this she would never get to it. So she started flipping the smooth pages to find the next empty page that she could use. Even then, while she was moving the pages along at a high speed, she was able to read a bit of the contents. A word here, half a sentence there, and three words on the next page.
It was time to face reality. Where in the beginning she had only had these dreams once or twice a week, they were coming more and more often. Pausing at a dream she suddenly frowned while noticing the date tied to it, that couldn't possibly be right. So she went back a couple of pages, only to discover a different dream that had been written down during the same day. Two dreams during one single night. While that was still rare it was a fact that the dates in the book followed each other closely.
And now she was about to write down the first dream of the New Year. Yes, she needed help. She needed it badly, but who could she ask? Who could she trust enough not to tell anyone about it, but was still smart enough to actually help her?
"No." This time she spoke the word, hoping that it would have more effect. She kept getting distracted by things that could wait until later, now it was time for her to write down what she remembered about the strange events that surrounded her latest dream. And indeed, speaking out loud seemed to have done the trick, as she grabbed a pen—she really needed to get something decent to write with—and put it to the blank page she had finally reached.
….…
In the end she had postponed the shower, and as she felt the cold wind blow over her face Kirika didn't mind it one bit. It was so quiet out here now, nobody would get up early on the first of January, giving her the rare opportunity to simply run in the middle of the road. She had started her run more than half an hour ago, and it gave her great hope for this body.
She didn't go quite full out, but she came close. The delicious feeling of her burning lungs had after a while given way to that familiar feeling of freedom. She had a feeling there was a name for it but had never bothered to learn it, to her it was simply that feeling you got when you focused everything on your body. It meant that everything got ignored, the stitches in her side, the fact that she was desperately starting to get out of breath, and even the pain emanating from the half-healed wounds.
Could she do it? Yes, she could. Putting in an extra burst of speed, Kirika had the feeling she was flying over the streets in the light that came shortly before the namesake of the girl whose body this was. It was the first time that she had managed to do this with this body, the first time that she managed to maintain a speed like this for even a couple of minutes. In the two months since Halloween she had been training this body, and now she had the proof that there actually was progress.
Not that she had managed to keep running the entire time, but that would come later. Patience was the name of the game, next year she would repeat this run but by then she would be able to keep running the entire time, and at a higher speed as well. Yes, that would be her goal for this year. Of course, that was just her goal, the other personalities probably had different ones.
What would their goals be? she wondered before indulging herself in a bit of a fantasy. The harder her would probably demand some level of training with weapons, yeah that made sense. Progress would probably be measured in how often she hit the targets on her make-shift range, but despite how silly that sounded it was an important skill that needed to be improved on.
That left only two others, the real Dawn was going to try to learn all the stuff in the high school library. Know thy enemy, and all that stuff. That too was something she agreed on, especially when combined with the exercise both versions of her would insist on. Healthy body, healthy mind. A killer combination.
That thought led her directly to the remaining personality. What would she want? A body count? A minimum number of torture victims? Or was it simply to make as many people suffer one way or the other?
Immersed in anger about these thoughts, Kirika didn't notice the way her body sped up until it was too late and she had overexerted herself. Slowing down she took deep breaths in an attempt to slow her wildly beating heart. Okay, she was still a far way from her desired goal, and if she kept doing stupid things like this it wasn't going to change anytime soon.
Running fast was the best way to improve herself, jogging was nice for endurance and to generally keep in shape but to really improve you had to go beyond your current limits. It did require a strategy behind it though.
After some stretching she checked her watch to see how long she'd been out now, and seeing that it was close to the hour mark she'd set herself Kirika decided to call it a day. A simple, slow, run back home would be the end of this and once there she'd finally be able to take that shower.
….…
As she came down the stairs, freshly showered, she was greeted by the sight of her mother preparing breakfast. "Good morning Dawn."
"Morning mom," Kirika replied, confident that she would at least be able to fool her mother. Again with the 'her mother'. Not that she minded the merging, but it kept coming forward at the weirdest moments.
"You were up early, I'd expected you to sleep in like Buffy."
'I would, but well, I kinda woke up after dreaming about killing another complete stranger and almost doing the same to Cordelia,' was what she thought, but not what she said. Instead came an answer that was more suitable to the situation. "I was awake." Hey, she never claimed it was a good answer.
"Teenagers." Somehow she had a feeling she hadn't been meant to hear that mutter, but from a tactical point of view it might be best not to point out that she had heard it. Besides, her mother continued talking anyway. "I heard you come back in, where have you been?"
"I went running."
"Again? Not that I'm against the fact that you're getting in shape, but aren't you overdoing it a bit?"
Not for the level of fitness she was interested in. "It's fine mom. I know what I'm doing."
"Are you sure, because it really seems to me that you're trying to do too much in too short a time. Shouldn't you talk it over with someone?"
"I got the program from an expert."
"Oh," Joyce said—now it was Joyce again?—clearly feeling as if all her arguments were beaten. As they were, although that didn't stop her from asking one last question. "Who?"
"Altena."
"Oh, alright. I've never heard of him, who is he?"
"She. And she isn't very well known outside certain circles."
"How did you get to know her then?"
"I was born at the right time?" This time it was her mother who wasn't supposed to hear the mutter, but did anyway.
"What do you mean, born at the right time?" And clearly, she didn't feel any compunction about asking. Note to self, don't mutter in English, use Japanese instead.
"Doesn't matter. It's a rather long story."
The sudden frown on her mother's face indicated that this wasn't how the real Dawn would have answered that question, but it was the best she could come up with. She just really didn't like to lie to the woman. Luckily though, Joyce seemed to file this as just another teenager thing and, while Dawn started to dig into her breakfast, went on to talk about something else. Well, it wasn't about Altena anymore. "It's just that I'm not happy about you going out alone like that. Especially after what happened to Jane."
Happened to Jane? Mixed with the anxiety about her friend, or Dawn's friend, was happiness. Focusing her attention on the inner workings of her mind she noticed that her suspicion was proved true. This news had been the first thing that had managed to shock the Dawn personality out of her self-imposed exile, and more into the light.
The personality wasn't yet ready to take back control of the body, but after almost ten days there was finally some progress. Meanwhile she did her best to pretend she knew what her mother was talking about, admitting to not knowing would definitely arouse suspicion. "I'm watching out, it won't happen to me."
"That's what she thought, but they attacked her anyway."
Attacked! The word entered Kirika's mind and seemed to bounce of the walls of her skull, increasing in loudness every pass, until finally she could hardly focus on the conversation. She was dimly aware that she was still putting food in her mouth, and continuing the conversation with her mother, but most of her attention was focused on this one single word.
Jane had been attacked, in Sunnydale, probably at night. Which could mean only one thing, vampires, demons, or other filthy magical creatures. The curse was starting again, the black hands of death had already started to reach out to take away those she cared about. Normal people who weren't able to mount a sufficient defense would be the first to go. One by one they would fall until all that was left would be a small group of trained fighters and people capable of doing that filthy thing. But eventually even they would leave and she would once again be alone. Completely alone, in a world not her own.
Mireille! Why couldn't you be here as well? Why had she been the only one affected by the spell? Why hadn't Jane and Sara worn their own costumes? Then there would have been three of them, each ensuring that the others would be able to live. She had to snort at that thought; Mireille and Chloe keeping each other alive. Sure, and on that same day the devil would be buying his ice-skates.
Surprisingly her mother hadn't noticed the snort and had continued her monologue about the dangers of going out alone. But when she suddenly mentioned something, Dawn couldn't resist the question. "What young man?"
"Don't you know?" Simply shaking her head in denial, Dawn waited for her mother to continue. "Oh, I had been hoping you did. Elizabeth never told me his name."
"Huh, weird. I'll go visit Jane this afternoon and ask her. I wanna know too." Because she knew of only one person who could be described as a young man who saved people from vampires. And if it wasn't Xander she wanted to know who it was.
….…
Entering Jane's room felt like stepping into a courtroom, never a place she had wanted to end up in, but the openly suspicious looks she received from the two girls already present told her how important this was.
"Hi guys."
"Cut the crap Dawn. You called and I think all three of us want answers to some questions," Jane bit out. Okay, she was pissed. And she knew something was going on, Dawn had to admit that it might have been better to warn them so that a situation like this could have been prevented from happening. After all, her friend had been extremely lucky. On the other hand… if they wanted to play it like this, play it like this they would.
"Alright." Taking her time to walk to the chair she turned it around so that while straddling it, she would face the two that were sitting on the bed. Let's do this courtroom style. "The facts as I know them. During an unfortunate incident-" a scream of protest suddenly appeared from the Dawn personality, proclaiming that this was more than an unfortunate incident.
"Unfortunate incident what?" Sara asked, making her realize that she had suddenly broken of her sentence.
Continuing her strain of thought, Kirika went on. "During an unfortunate incident you discovered something. Something that you probably had difficulty believing, but something that you couldn't deny either. Correct?"
"Yeah, vampires are real and you knew about them."
Well, there was no denying or talking around such a crude statement. "Yes."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Sara wanted to know, sounding desperate.
"Something had happened that I had to deal with first."
"During Halloween?" So, she had been right about the fact that they suspected something. But how much of what they suspected was true? Her assessment of the night before hadn't factored in that they were aware of the existence of vampires, so this could be anything.
"Yes."
"Something happened to you on that night, didn't it? Something changed you." It was Jane now, driving hard for the answers she so desperately needed. It wasn't even funny to watch, so obvious was her need to know.
"Yes."
"And will you stop answering every other question with yes! I'm getting sick of it! I need to know!"
"Alright." She hadn't meant to give another one sentence answer, she really hadn't, but it just came out.
"Aargh! You're driving me nuts Dawn, you were one of my best friends, but you betrayed me, us, and unless you give me a reason to forgive you, I can't."
So, it had come to this. What was she to do? Right at this very moment she had what was probably the best possibility to save the lives of her friends. All she had to do was walk away and the two of them would never fall victim to the curse. Was loneliness too high a price for the lives of the people she cared about? No, it wasn't. Making her decision Kirika stood up, and started for the door.
Post-fic comments: Thank you for the feedback.
Darklight: I think that most of your questions were answered here, and don't worry about the real Dawn. The waiting is almost over.
Allen Pitt: Okay, let's get the pre-Immortal thing out of the way. No. Dawn is not and never will be Immortal. I'm afraid that doing something like that would destroy her character and make her far too powerful. On another subject, you now know at least one series they watch there: repeats of the A-team…
Bob-From-Accounting: The sequel to Things that Matter is still being planned. I know most of the events that will take place, but I'm currently working on something else first.
