DISCLAIMER: I know I promised to update this story. I promised to stop smoking. I promised to start going to the gym. I promised to try drinking red wine instead of beer. I promised we'd go on holiday. And you can see how well those turned out. But anyway, here's a new chapter. Hope it was worth the wait.
This one's for BebopCowgirl, who's been relocated to Houston because of Hurricane Katrina. And to all the people who made it through Katrina, Rita and Wilma—stay strong, stay safe, and here's hoping your lives get back to some semblance of normalcy real soon.
"Heads up, ladies and gentlemen," Julian announced, striding confidently up the gravel path in full-on leader mode. "Eyes and ears open. And don't cast out anything that looks benevolent…though I know it's getting harder to tell these days."
Julian marched up to the hotel entrance with the Council team at his heels - and Ashford close by - while the Penrith police gradually, cautiously started to fall back. The detective attempted to make something of the battery of hand signals Julian flashed at the members of the team, who dispersed rapidly to cover the windows and the other entrances. Julian inhaled deeply and braced himself against the door, casting a glace toward Ashford who now had her back against the threshold, looking back at him expectantly, hands clutched tightly on her gun.
"We've no way of knowing what's on the other side of this door, detective," he confided. "All I can tell you is...expect strangeness. And keep on your toes."
"That's a given," she replied. Julian gave a nod to the two brawny Council agents holding the battering ram, who charged at the door. A loud crash followed by a supernatural shriek, and the team spilled into the foyer...met by the sight of dozens of startled ghosts. In the rafters, on the stair rails, halfway in and out of the walls. Ashford's jaw went slack but she kept her firearm cocked and ready.
"Steady, steady on, you lot keep working...I'll handle this." A silvery, smoky mist appeared and wafted its way down the grand staircase, materializing into a form that Julian recognized only too well.
"William," he nodded. "How're ya?"
"Cheers, Julian...up to my rotten ears in work, as it were, but nice of you to ask before you trotted in the bloody cavalry."
"Sorry," Ashford interrupted, "you know this…this...man...thing...person?"
"We have a mutual friend," Julian replied. "Sara. Er, Helen," he added hastily in response to Ashford's blank look.
"Who happens to be in way over her head at the moment," Will added, and as if on cue, the entire building began to quake. Through the grand hall's elongated windows, they witnessed a shower of green sparks and an eerie phosphorescence coming from the West Wing.
"Sara, you're letting her intimidate you. Damn...I'll take the stronger ones with me, see if we can put a leash on Maggie," Will said, evaporating again before their eyes.
"Hang on, I'm in charge here, Collins!" Julian protested.
"Then you'd better charge on up to Room 34, West," the dead handler's disembodied voice. "Help Shaun protect her. Corporeally. Bring the detective, if she's a good shot..."
"If!"Ashford exclaimed. "Who the hell does he think he is?"
"Insufferable twat taught me everything I know," Julian confided, in a reluctant tone of voice. "And if you ever tell him I said that, I'll kill you. Come on!"
"What, where am I...ohh, God my head," Evelyn Fairfax spluttered, soaking wet and splayed across a bathroom floor. She raised her sopping hand - the one on the end of her throbbing wrist - to her spinning head and tried to focus, but the darkness kept overtaking her.
"Stay with me, Miss Fairfax. You nearly drowned," Shaun said, shaking her lightly. "I've got to get you out of here."
"Where is here?...wait, hang on, I know you. You're the dead girl's boyfriend," Evie mumbled. Shaun winced at that comment, glancing up and seeing Sara and Prunella Davies about to have a rematch not ten feet away.
"Bad choice of words at the moment, Evie," he said, struggling to get her on her feet. "Come on..."
Meanwhile, young Pru was staring down Sara and caressing her stricken jaw, chuckling lightly. She took two steps forward and with a sweeping arm gesture, sent Sara hurtling backward. She crashed against the headboard, bounced onto the bed and slammed onto the floor. Before she could get back to her feet, Pru pounced and wound a lamp cord around her neck. Sara - by this point utterly fed up with people trying to throttle her - clutched at the gaudy lamp on the end table and broke it over Pru's head.
That only loosened her grip slightly, but it was enough for Sara to roll out of her grasp. She leapt to the floor, ran halfway up the wall and flipped to land behind Pru, launching a kick that sent the witch into the vanity at the far end of the room. As she sailed toward the oval-shaped mirror, though, Pru waved her arm again and Sara came off her feet, rocketing straight up into the ceiling and bashing her head but good.
"Sara!" Shaun shouted. The witch roared with frustration, shaking the broken glass from her hair and observing a barely-conscious Evie slung over the slayer's precious lad's shoulder.
"This is barely a fair fight as it is, sweetie. Get locked." Before he had a chance to decipher what she meant, Shaun felt himself rocketing backward - straight into the large cedar wardrobe in the corner of the room. Slamming against the back of it with a thud, both he and Evie buckled and soon found themselves in complete darkness as the doors slammed shut, locking them inside.
Groaning in pain, Sara rolled onto her back and tried to catch her breath as Pru approached; she could see the witch's uber-goth lace-up boots come into frame, the sound of Shaun calling her name muffled in the background.
"What...do to him," Sara burbled, spitting blood onto the carpet. She staggered to her feet, then tumbled forward onto her knees. "Let him go."
"Is that all you got, slayer?" the witch taunted, "…'Cause I could stand to go another ten rounds. Whereas you…can barely stand." She kneeled down beside her, at eye-to-eye level. "Alright then, if you really need a moment...what say I kill your boyfriend and then you can have some time to think about your next move? There's a good girl." She patted Sara on the head and returned toward the wardrobe...
Sara crawled to a nearby candle from the makeshift shrine and turfed it in Pru's direction. The fire took hold of the fabric in her Bohemian skirt and quickly began to spread. Pru shrieked, quickly mounting a chant which summoned a luminous blue mist that seemed to instantly douse the flames. Too late for the charred garment around her now nearly-naked, coltish legs.
"That was my favorite skirt!" Pru hissed, grabbing Sara by the neck and hauling her to her feet.
"I did you a favor," Sara gritted.
Inside the wardrobe, Evie began to get her wits about her. Enough to realize the two of them cramped inside the wardrobe was only going to get less comfortable by the second. "Exactly what are you doing?" she inquired, barely able to make out Shaun's profile against a sliver of light from the crack in the door, shuffling about with something small in his hand.
"Trying to read the Book of Really Useful Spells, but it's not enough light. You haven't got a match have you?"
"I've given up."
"I swear, no one but Ed smokes anymore and all it does is come right out the hole in his neck!" Shaun protested. "This is ridiculous, there's got to be some way out of here..."
Outside, Pru heaved Sara backward, sending her crashing through the French doors and out onto the stone patio. Sara smashed into a table and then hit the concrete, hard. Pru stood in the doorway of broken panes and jagged glass, gazing out into the misty moonlight on the slayer's unconscious form. "Well," she sighed contentedly, "that's taken care of. Now where was I?" She approached Sara but was stopped dead in her tracks by a voice she'd been waiting a very long time to hear...
"I could have handled that myself, my dear...she'd only have gotten in my way eventually. But thank you. The body of a slayer is more than I could have asked for..." Pru fell to her knees, gazing back into the room into a swirling vortex of spectral light like nothing she'd ever seen. It was magnificent.
"It's been my honor, Auntie. Now get a move on, will ya?"
Indeed...In the hallway outside Room 34, Julian and the Council team were seconds away from battering down the door. And inside the wardrobe, Shaun's panic subsided just in time for a revelation. "Hang on a minute...I remember it now!" he suddenly laughed. "I remember the protection spell!"
"Oh, fuck-a-doodle-doo, lad! What are you going to do about it from in here?" Evie barked.
"Just tell me one thing, Evie, and I promise no matter what happens I won't let my girlfriend break your other wrist. Do you remember the spell to open the hell dimension, the one you dredged up the demon with?"
"I...I think so."
"Good. So listen, count of three, I'm going to start chanting...the second we hit carpet, you start opening your portal and I'm going to boot that anorexic witch straight in. Got it?"
"I think so."
"We don't have time to think," Shaun uttered, suddenly feeling inordinately cool. He could do this. "Here goes...gureme, neneme, cheneme, dodala..."
Well, the first bit worked. Shaun's chant had zapped Pru's spell on the wardrobe, alright, and with a crash he kicked the door open and pulled an obediently chanting Evie to freedom. The wardrobe crash, mind you, was rapidly upstaged by the hotel room door smashing down, a gaggle of black-clad, heavily-armed Council operatives storming into the room with Julian and Detective Ashford in tow.
"Shaun, are you alright!" Julian asked.
"Wait!" Shaun pleaded. "We've got it under control..."
"Do you?" a voice inquired. "Do you rrrreeeeeally?" It was so familiar...so heartbreaking. Sara, and yet...not Sara. Alien. Ugly. Unspeakable. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Shaun and Julian exchanged horrified glances, and unwillingly turned to face the source of that voice.
Sara stepped gracefully and slowly through the broken doorframe and into the room. But it wasn't Sara. Not anymore; the spirit of Margaret Winfield had possessed her, seemingly completely. Dark jagged veins crept across the sickly, white pallor of her skin, and her eyes were completely black; the stench of standing water, centuries old began to fill the room. Julian motioned to the team to hold their fire and Shaun sank to his knees, fighting back tears.
Pru kneeled before her. "Welcome to your new life," she enthused. "I did not know that these…insects would be here to witness your rebirth. I beg your forgiveness."
Sara/Maggie held out her hands, examining them as if for the first time. Then she turned to Pru. "My dear, sweet child…you have done everything you should have. I can ask nothing more of you." She placed her hands on either side of Pru's hopeful face. "Bored now." With a rapid movement, she twisted Pru's head and tossed her aside like a plaything. From the ghastly, crooked orientation of her head upon her shoulders, it was clear the witch's neck had been broken.
"Such an obedient thing. I couldn't ask for a more loyal descendant," Sara/Maggie chortled. "For a student of black magic, however, she was far too trusting of a malevolent spirit, family ties or no. And so boastful. Outlived her usefulness."
Julian tried to gather his senses. "Margaret Winfield, I hereby order you to vacate this human and return to the astral dimension from which you came."
She turned and regarded him. "You must be so very disappointed. You were supposed to prepare her, weren't you? To face the Big Bad. But in the end, she was just like every other Slayer you've trained. No better than a lamb to the slaughter. Which isn't entirely your fault. Oh, wait, yes it is."
She crossed to Shaun and kneeled in front of him. "You think she's coming back, don't you?"
"Sara, I know there's some part of you still in there. You just have to fight her…"
She placed her fingers over his mouth. "Such a sentimental fool. I can see why she likes you. Not too bright, though." She searched his eyes. "You still believe that love will conquer all? Not likely. I loved someone once. I thought he would be my saving grace. Instead, he put his hands around my throat and held me under the water until I drowned. Smiling the whole time. Helluva wedding gift, wasn't it?" She stood to cross the room.
"You're not leaving this room, Maggie," Julian declared.
"How do you plan to stop me? Shoot me? Burn me? This body that stands in front of you…it's still the body of someone you care about. And you can't bring yourself to do it any harm, can you?"
Just then, the only person in the room who hadn't been shocked into submission - Evelyn Fairfax - managed to complete her chant and a gust of wind roared from beyond where Sara/Maggie was standing, hurtling out into the hallway and knocking a few of the operatives off their feet. A pulsating light began to emanate from a swirling, magenta-hued vortex spewing dust, smoke and short bursts of electricity from a dimension beyond their plain.
"Very clever, Evie," Sara/Maggie admitted. "But you know how much I hate to travel alone. If you aren't going to let me go about my business, I really must insist that Miss Cross accompany me back home...you'll just have to follow us if you want to finish this."
"No!" Shaun cried out. Then the being who was not Sara looked directly him.
"Be seeing you," she said…
"…Or not."
Shaun and the others puzzled at the source of the third voice, then it clicked….who else would it be?
"Right, then," Will replied, folding his arms calmly. "Check-out time, Mags." And with a gust of air and a flash of cerulean blue, the walls of Room 34 came alive with ghosts of all shapes, sizes and infirmities. Shaun covered his mouth in shock as the spirits manifested into an eight-foot-tall funnel of spectral energy in a matter of seconds…then like a bolt of lightning, channeled themselves directly at Sara/Maggie's face.
"Oh, bollocks," she mumbled…and the tornado of poltergeists dove down her throat. Sara's body quaked violently, gagging, grasping at her throat as if she were being smothered.
"Somebody, do something!" Shaun hollered.
"Not yet, Shaun," Julian instructed. "Wait until I tell you then grab her!"
"How do you feel about a Crazy Ivan?" Will asked his replacement.
"Always wanted to try one," Julian replied, pulling a slim, green leather-bound volume from his flak jacket and flipping through the pages. Shaun turned quickly to see Julian beginning a long, complex incantation in what sounded like Russian…then figured it was probably not a good idea to take his eyes off Sara. Maggie. Oh, God…
"Julian, hurry!" It seemed to be working; though the veins in her face were throbbing in a fairly grotesque way, the whites and pupils of her eyes were beginning to show again.
"You're not getting her without a fight!" Sara/Maggie blurted. And just then, Julian finished the incantation and with a wave of his hand, cast a force field toward the portal that made the whole room tremble. Sara's body toppled backward, went rigid, and like a pillar of blue flame, the spirits exited her body. Taking Maggie's spirit with them: a nexus of green mist in the middle of the stream, she howled in frustration as Shaun reached forward and latched both arms around Sara's waist.
"I've got you, babe," he smiled. "I've got…"
"You've got fuck all," Maggie's voice declared.
It all happened so fast. When it was over, none of them could figure what they might have done to stop it...just that they should have done something. So fragile, yet powerful – like a tendril of poison ivy – a single green plume of vapor reached out from the mouth of the portal just as it began to shrink. Sara came to, only for a second – looked into Shaun's eyes with a terrible fear in her own, and was violently pulled into the disappearing vortex. Shaun had leapt forward to get a better grip on her, but was too late...she slipped through his arms and he tumbled face-first into the carpet, one arm outstretched; at that very moment, a spectral burst overtook him and occupied the same space as the portal...forcing it open as it was trying to close.
"Miss Fairfax, is that you?" Detective Ashford asked.
"It's not me," the proprietress protested.
"Of course not, it's us you silly woman," Will replied, and cast a frustrated glance toward her current handler. "When will they ever learn?" He walked around the portal, now being pried it ajar by the hotel's spirits as they had done with the wall earlier, and kneeled down to offer Shaun a dusty hand.
"You've got to pull yourself together, Riley. It's not too late, but this is your last chance."
Shaun wiped the tears from his eyes, took a deep breath and nodded. "I know. I have to go in after her," he declared.
"Collins, are you mad!" Julian cried, blocking their way. "Shaun, it's suicide! Trans-dimensional travel is completely uncharted territory."
"So it's fine for Sara, who had no choice! Not for me?" he protested. "I don't care. Someone has to bring her back!"
"You've never done this before!" Julian shouted.
"Neither have you!" Shaun countered.
Julian stared at him, blinking. He turned to Will, who merely cocked an eyebrow, then back to Shaun.
"You're right. You go." Shaun nodded determinedly as Julian began to issue orders to his team. "Matthews, we'll need rapelling wire. Secure the mooring to the floor. We'll give Shaun as much slack as we can. As soon as they return, I'll close the portal. I want an armed team standing by, in case we get any unwanted visitors, and I want a full medical team ready; we don't know what condition they'll be in when they get back. Fuller, take Miss Fairfax downstairs and secure her."
The innkeeper's protests fell on deaf ears as everyone scurried about making their preparations. Julian returned to Shaun. "You're sure about this?"
"I'll bring her back, Jules, or die trying."
"Well, let's think positive, shall we? Remember, once you find her, three tugs on the line and we'll pull you back." He clapped a hand on Shaun's shoulder and gritted his teeth. "Good luck."
Shaun nodded in the affirmative, and stared down at the floor as the Council operatives began fitting him with a harness and spraying him down with holy water. First he tried to convince himself this was all a dream; that didn't work, clearly, and he reckoned it was a bad idea to convince himself of such things when he had to save his girlfriend from spiritual possession. Then again, most of the time in dreams you have no fear, and that'd come in handy right about now. He looked up into the unknown darkness beyond the portal's energy field and quickly closed his eyes again.
"You're doing what's right, Shaun." He'd heard that voice before; suddenly, Shaun looked just above the portal's rim and spied a familiar face. Abigail, the tiny spirit from the lobby earlier. She winked her one good eye at him and he stifled a nervous laugh...then gasped as her face morphed into that of his mother.
"You always do what's right, Shaun. We can all count on you," Barbara smiled, then disappeared beyond the edge of the dimension rift. A sea of unfamiliar, ghostly hands overtook where her face had been, and Shaun shook off the shock long enough to hear Julian call out.
"Shaun, are you ready!"
He didn't feel ready. He didn't know if he ever would...but there was no time to lose. He'd just have to be. Mustering any ounce of confidence he had in him, he turned round to face Julian, the operatives, Will and Detective Ashford...
"Are you?" Shaun asked them. Then without warning, he took two rapid strides and hurtled himself into the vortex.
"Wait, Shaun...dammit!" Julian exclaimed; Matthews, who was anchoring the slack on the wire hadn't had time to secure it. The entire team lost their footing and began to slide toward the portal's gaping maw, taking down Ashford with them.
Just when it appeared they were all lost, the wire went taut with a loud twang and they tipped backward onto their arses. Clinging to the line, checking it for Shaun's weight at the other end, Julian stood to his feet and saw Will's ghost at the rear of the line, holding the entire harness system in place with his decrepit index finger.
"Thank me later," the spirit dead-panned.