Night Falls

Notes: Thanks for the reviews

Previously:

"The way I see it, we have two options," Hailey said. "We can stay down here and hide until dawn. Or we go back up there and help as many people as we can."

Kennedy looked down at the floor thoughtfully. "Stare into the eyes of the thing you fear the most and don't back down, huh?" She asked, looking back up at Hailey.

Chapter Fifty:

"You know," Kennedy said as Hailey placed her foot on the ladder leading up the first manhole cover on Main Street, "I heard you and Buffy talking in the dining room. You wanted to come out here and help these people all along."

"What's your point?" Hailey asked, looking back at Kennedy as she grabbed the cool, metal rung of the ladder.

"Maybe you wanted to get stuck out here. That way, you could do what you wanted to do and have a damn good reason for it," Kennedy replied.

"You're saying that I put myself in grave danger, missed my only opportunity to reach the basement safely and hide with the others, and had to flee the house for my life…on purpose?" Hailey smiled, but thought. "Maybe a little."

"Did you have to bring me along?" Kennedy questioned, following Hailey up the ladder. The rungs were wet and slimy and Kennedy suppressed the urge to rake her hands raw on her pants to rid herself of the moldy feel of the ladder.

"No," Hailey admitted. "And if I'm wrong about this, feel free to hit me really hard," she said, "but I didn't think that you were the type of person who would want to hide in a dark basement while the very enemy you've been trained to fight and kill ran rampant and unchecked through your town."

"You're not wrong," Kennedy agreed. "I wasn't too happy about the proposition of hiding either."

"I do feel bad about one thing though," Hailey said, hesitating as she reached the top of the ladder. Reaching up with one hand, while she maintained a firm grip on the ladder with her other, she carefully slid the manhole cover to the side. She could see stars shining in the black sky above her. A light was flickering, but Hailey could not determine its source.

"What?" Kennedy asked.

"I promised Willow that I wouldn't leave her," Hailey replied regretfully, looking down at the younger girl.

"She'll understand," Kennedy smiled softly.

"You think?" Hailey asked.

"Trust me," Kennedy said. "She'll so happy to see you alive in the morning; she'll forget that she was ever mad at you."

Hailey laughed and glanced back up through the opening. "I don't know what we're going to see when we go up there," she said soberly. "Are you ready for this?"

"I've been ready all of my life," Kennedy whispered in response. Hailey gripped the sides of the road and pulled herself through the opening. Instantly, she knew why she had seen flickering light from down in the sewer. Fires were burning in the building nearest to the manhole. She moved to the side to allow Kennedy to climb up after her. Helping the younger girl to her feet, Hailey pulled out her gun. Her Slayer senses rang alarm bells in her mind. Kennedy coughed and covered her mouth to reduce the amount of smoke that she was inhaling.

"Come on," Hailey said, leading the way. They moved out of the alley and stepped onto Main Street, surveying the damage that the vampires had wreaked with shocked expressions.

"God," Kennedy muttered. "It looks like a war zone."

"It is," Hailey said steely as her eyes fell on the bodies of people struck down as they ran. Blood ran in the streets, gurgling through the gutters like rain. Bits of flesh mingled with the blood, blocking the tiny rivers. Everywhere, Hailey could smell death. "Be careful," Hailey instructed the younger girl softly. A sudden scream ripped out into the night and they rushed forward. The street was empty, but Hailey knew that there were vampires near.

"Over there!" Kennedy pointed, redirecting their footsteps towards the doorway of a bank. A vampire had pinned a woman against the wall, draining the blood from a streaming wound on her neck. Hailey and Kennedy both fired, striking the vampire in the back. Flames burst from its flesh and it turned to face them. Rushing towards them, it disintegrated into a pile of dust. The woman fell to the ground and did not rise.

"She's dead," Hailey said, restraining Kennedy from moving forward. "We don't need to check." Howls pierced the night. The vampires seemed to be moving closer.

"The gunshots must have alerted them to our presence," Kennedy said.

"That is the one drawback of using guns," Hailey admitted. "No element of surprise." A group of Turok-Hans appeared around a corner. Hailey and Kennedy stood fast. The vampires charged. Aiming their guns, they fired until all of the vampires had fallen. The sound of the shots echoed in their ears and smoke rose from the burning bodies of the dead demons.

"Why would the First send its army out now?" Kennedy questioned. "Surely it would've expected that we would fight back."

"This isn't its army," Hailey said grimly. "This is just a taste of its army. I don't think that the First sent them out to do any real damage. It sent them out to feed."

"To gather their strength," Kennedy added. Suddenly, a new thought dawned on her, one that had already dawned on the older girl. "If it's sending its vampires out to feed tonight, it wants them to strong…to be at their most powerful."

"Yes," Hailey concurred. "Because if they feed tonight…"

"They'll be ready to launch their war tomorrow," Kennedy finished, as a cold dread crept up her spine. "Will we be ready for that?" She asked anxiously.

Hailey smiled slightly. "There's something that we didn't tell all of you."

"What?" Kennedy asked, wondering what hidden plan the Slayers had been keeping from the Potentials.

"We discovered a spell," Hailey answered. "A spell that can turn all of you into us."

"Slayers?" Kennedy asked breathlessly. Ever since she had learned of her potential calling, she had dreamed of the day that she would become a Slayer. The thought that she never would had not crossed her mind. She had always believed that one day she would be called upon to defend the world from darkness. When Hailey had been called after Faith's brief death, Kennedy had felt that conviction slipping away from her. Suddenly, her future was in doubt. Now, however, the chance had come again for her to realize her true potential.

"Slayers," Hailey said, nodding. "We didn't want to tell all of you until the last moment."

"Why?" Kennedy asked.

"Faith," Hailey replied. "She felt very strongly about that. I don't know why."

"I'm going to be a Slayer," Kennedy whispered to herself, smiling brilliantly.

"You are," Hailey agreed. "We'll be ready for them tomorrow. I have no doubt."

"Then let's kick some ass tonight," Kennedy said, energized. "The fewer vampires we have to fight tomorrow, the better."

The stars were starting to fade and the moon had fallen low on the horizon when Kennedy and Hailey encountered the last group of vampires that they would face that evening. They had killed many during the course of the night, but their ammunition was running low. Five Turok-Hans stood between them and the road that they needed to walk to return to the house. The sky was starting to lighten as the sun rose. Hailey could smell fear on the vampires. They knew that they had to hurry or they would not arrive back at the school before dawn.

The vampires charged at them. Kennedy fired two shots, only to hear the click of an empty cartridge as she tried to fire a third. "Shit," she growled one of the vampires tackled her. Hailey shot two through the chest and turned to the last, which had perched itself on top of Kennedy, and was trying to sink its teeth into the girl's neck, despite her rather effective struggles. Pulling the trigger, Hailey watched as the vampire burst into flames. The fire licked onto Kennedy, who rolled out the way into the gutter, slapping out the flames that had been dancing on her arm.

"You okay?" Hailey asked.

"I'm fine," Kennedy grumbled. "Out of ammo, though," she added. She was about to pull herself to her feet when a crumpled newspaper caught her attention. The gutter was filled with trash of all sorts, but the paper seemed to draw her eyes. Picking it up, she stared with horror at the picture featured on the front cover. "You have to look at this," she said, leaping to her feet, and shoving the paper into Hailey's hands.

"Body of teenage girl found in dumpster," Hailey read, letting her eyes fall onto the picture of a smiling, young girl. "Is that..." she trailed off, recognizing the girl's face.

"Lucy," Kennedy confirmed.

"But she's not dead," Hailey said confusedly, "she's living at our house."

Kennedy smirked and rolled her eyes. "Really? The dead girl is living at our house?"

"Yeah," Hailey replied, still perplexed.

"You have to be the densest person alive," Kennedy muttered. "She's not Lucy. She's the First."

"Oh," Hailey replied, the connections suddenly forming in her mind. "Oh!"

"We have to get back," Kennedy said. "Before someone says something that the First shouldn't hear."

"Like Buffy giving away our secret plan to the girls this morning to make them feel better about having to hide from the vampires they're eventually going to have to fight anyway," Hailey filled in the blanks.

Kennedy nodded. "Exactly."

……………………………..

The first light of dawn rose above the horizon. Buffy watched it through the small window in the basement. Faith walked over to her and placed her hand on the blonde Slayer's shoulder. "Do you think that they're gone?" Buffy asked. Faith smiled and nodded. "What about Kennedy and Hailey?"

Faith sighed and looked away. "I don't know. There were a lot of vampires."

Buffy surveyed the girls' faces as she looked around the basement, sensing their hopelessness. "We have to tell them now."

"What?" Faith asked.

"We have to tell them about the spell. They need to know. We just made them cower and hide from the very vampires that we're going to make them fight. They need to know why it's going to be okay then when it wasn't now," Buffy stated.

"I don't know why, but I still don't think that it's the right time," Faith argued. Buffy sighed.

"We can't wait for the right time anymore," she said. "Everyone, listen up," she said loudly so that everyone could hear her. "There's something that we need to tell you."

Before Buffy could begin to speak, however, the basement door suddenly burst open and two shadowy figures appeared at the top of the stairs. "What happened to the protection spell?" Faith demanded, grabbing a stake, and preparing to fight. The protection spell performed by the Coven and Willow had effectively blocked the Turok-Han vampires from entering the basement, though they had burst through the protection spell Willow had placed on the house some time before with little trouble.

"It doesn't protect against friends," Amelia explained with a smile. "Only foes."

"Friends?" Faith asked, glancing back to the figures, who had begun to descend the stairs.

"Honestly," Hailey said, "we weren't gone that long. You forget about us already?" Upon seeing Hailey's face, Willow jumped up from her seat on the floor and threw herself into the Slayer's arms.

"I was so worried," she said, her words muffled as she buried her face into Hailey's neck.

"I'm okay," Hailey said softly. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Willow asked, lifting her head to gaze into the dark haired girl's eyes.

"I left you," Hailey whispered.

"But you came back," Willow smiled and leaned forward, gently kissing the other girl. Hailey nearly melted into the kiss, forgetting where she was, until she heard Kennedy cough behind her.

"Oh yeah," she said, breaking her kiss with Willow. "We found out something tonight."

"What?" Buffy asked.

"Someone in this room isn't who she says she is," Kennedy stated bluntly.

"What do you mean?" Faith asked, suddenly fearing that the suspicions that had been nudging at the back of her mind were true.

"Should we tell them?" Hailey asked, turning to Lucy. "Or do you want to?"

Lucy laughed and the evil sound resounded throughout the room. Everyone turned to face her and the Potentials standing near her scattered out of the way. "So you finally figured me out?" The First asked, stepping forward. "Just when we were about to get to the good stuff. But please, Buffy, continued your speech. What great gem of hope were you about to give these girls?"

"You'll never find out now," Buffy growled angrily.

"What's going on?" Willow asked, her question sounding the confusion harbored by nearly everyone else.

"Lucy isn't Lucy," Faith confirmed. "Lucy is the First. I knew there was something off about you," she added, speaking to the once Potential.

"Well, apparently you were the only one. Not even the great Coven knew that the very essence of evil was lurking within this house," the First said mockingly.

"Get out," Buffy commanded. "You're not welcome here."

"Enjoy your command while you have it, Slayer," the First snarled, before it began to fade rapidly from sight. "By tomorrow night, you'll all be dead."