Chapter 4
Faith

At first, when Robin rolled up his eyes and started sagging, Faith assumed he was just goofing around. Guys didn't faint because you suggested sex in public place - yeah, okay, so some guys might, but Robin wasn't one of them. But he went from sagging to actually sliding down on the floor in an ungraceful heap, and she realized that it wasn't a joke.

She dropped down on her knees and turned him face up, laying his head in her lap. There were lines in his face she had never seen before, making him look at least ten years older.

His eyes rolled back, and he moved his head in her lap. "What..."

"You passed out," she told him, and added with more heat than she would have preferred, "What the hell is happening to you?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled, sitting up. His movements belied his words – they were slow and awkward, as if he didn't know his own body.

"The fuck you are," she replied. "You look..." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't think of anything less than insulting to tell him.

"I look... what?" he asked.

"Well, let's just say, if you had hair I'm willing to bet it would have gone grey."

He stroke his hand across his scalp self-consciously. His hands were different too, she noticed. Bonier.

"You don't think you have what they had, do you?" she asked, suddenly scared for his life.

"What?"

She gestured up towards the corridor they'd just left. "Those people... what they had. Do you think you brought it on yourself?"

"No," he said dismissively right away, but then paused for a moment, considering her words. "No," he repeated after a while. "I don't think so. But it's... taxing. I won't deny that."

She helped him to his feet. "We got to investigate that sheath."

He nodded, clearly as shook up as she felt. "But how? I still can't get hold of my guy."

A couple of months ago, she would have suggested calling Angel. Even now, she had to remind herself that wasn't an option anymore before her brain came up with the next name: "Giles. He still has some resources, right? We could call him."

"Yeah," he agreed, pressing the button to start the elevator again. "Let's."

She stuck close to his side as they left the hospital. Part of her wanted to keep him there, get him examined, but he refused, and she supposed she could see why. He got out to the car no problem, moving just a little slower than he normally would, but he didn't argue when she demanded to be given the keys.

"You're gonna have to feed her," she told him as she drove through downtown Cleveland towards his home.

"Who?"

"Vampirella. If you really mean to keep her around, you'll have to feed her, and I very much doubt she'll be satisfied with tofu."

He scowled, causing yet more lines to appear on his face. Careful, she thought, you might get stuck like that... but the joke wasn't funny. Not right now.

"I suppose," he said. "So, where do we... pet shops?"

"Ew, gross!" she replied. "Butchers' shops sell blood."

"Oh. Of course."

"Pet shops?" she said with disdain, wrinkling up her face. "Sometime you really freak me out."

She was freaked out, but it had nothing to do with the pet shop suggestion. He must have known it too, because he glanced at her and then squeezed her knee gently. "It'll be all right."

"It'd better be," she replied, keeping her eyes on the road. She was afraid that if she looked at him right now, she'd lose it completely.

The apartment was freezing when they returned, light rain coming in through the hole in the kitchen window. It made Faith kind of miss Xander – he would have fixed the window in no time, paying little attention to the vampire in the living room.

Said vampire sat on the living room floor staring at the ceiling, and she looked more bored than anything else.

"It's cold," she told them, still staring at the ceiling.

"It gets that way when you enter through a closed window," Faith snapped. "And should you even notice? Do you, like, have a body temperature now?"

Ella took her gaze of the ceiling and met Faith's. "Fuck you," she said very clearly, "and fuck the broom you rode in on."

Faith had to grin. "She's got some balls, considering she's a tiny little thing I could kill in a heartbeat."

Ella leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. "You can't. You want to know what's happening to me."

"Actually," Robin chimed in, "We want to know what's happening to me. At least I do." He sat down heavily in an armchair. "But she's right. I need her for that. Plus there's the whole issue of leaving a corpse."

Was he looking even worse than he had at the hospital? Maybe it was just the way he sat down.

"I'm calling Giles," Faith said. She was almost relieved to have an excuse to take her attention off both of them. The weirdness factor was getting so high she was thinking of throwing that damned old sword and sheath away before it did more damage, but she knew Robin would nix that idea. No getting rid of the clues.

She still had Giles's number in her notebook. Angel's was on the same page – she'd never cared much for alphabetizing things. The old Hyperion number had been stricken out. She ought to do the same thing with the Wolfram and Hart one. It was ridiculous to keep it; the place was nothing but a pile of rubble, they wouldn't return there even if... and that was a pretty big if.

There was a pen by the phone in the kitchen, but she didn't pick it up. She needed to hold on to hope, about a great many things.

She dialled Giles's number and waited for someone to pick up. Buzz after buzz came through. What time was it over there? Not night yet, it couldn't be - and in any case, shouldn't he have voice mail or something?

A click in the other end was followed by a slightly whiny tenor voice that most definitely wasn't Giles's. Still familiar, though.

"Andrew?" she asked. "Weren't you in Rome?"

"Yeah, I just got back two weeks ago," he said. "Uh... who is this?"

"Faith. Listen, you got Giles there?"

"He's at a retreat."

She cursed. Of all the bad luck... "Well, can you get hold of him?"

"I can try. Hey, you can tell me what's going on. I'm in charge until he gets back. You could say I'm his number one."

Faith translated that in her head into 'I got stuck doing boring phone duty.' Like she wanted to get the input of a guy who used the word vampyre seriously. "Just tell him I called, and that it's kind of important."

There was a pause. "You know," Andrew said, "it'd be a lot easier if you just filled me in on the details. I can put the entire Justice League on it, and should you suffer a horrible death, there will be a witness to your final mission."

"I'm not gonna suffer a horrible death," she said irritably, but the little creep had a point about the other stuff - although, the what League? "Will you still call Giles?"

"The jungle drums will keep sounding until he gets here, I promise you."

"Okay, fine, whatever." She filled him in on the events of the past few days, detailing everything she could remember about the sword and sheath.

"And now he's all worn out and the vamp's chained in his living room."

"Wow." Andrew was quiet for a while and then asked, "Is he saving her soul?"

"Whose soul?"

"The vampyre's."

Faith held the phone away from her mouth and cursed to herself. Then she got back to Andrew: "No, he's not fucking saving her soul. She doesn't have a soul. At least I don't think she does, and even if she does, who gives a shit? I'm on a hellmouth here. Do you understand that? I'm on a hellmouth, and the guy who's supposed to be helping me out is... cursed, or something. I want to know what the hell is going on with that sword. Who made it, who owned it, why was it buried, and most of all, what's the deal with the sheath? Got that, infoboy?"

"I do," he said, sounding somewhat subdued. "But Faith, I'm not Luthor in this scenario of yours."

"And what does that mean in non-nerd speak?"

"I'm not your enemy."

"Then tell me who is," she said and hung up.

She remained by the phone for a few minutes to collect her thoughts, and Robin came out to her.

"Is everything all right?" he asked, wrapping his arms around his chest against the cold.

"Not really," she said. "Shouldn't you be lying down?"

"I'm not an old man yet, Faith," he said.

No, but you're getting there, she thought, though she didn't say it out loud.

"I couldn't get hold of Giles," she said instead. "Just Andrew playing Santa's little helper. Apparently he's doing number one in Watcher City now."

"Right," Robin said after a moment's pause, and his tone of voice was so very Robin that Faith felt a lot calmer.

It was raining outside now, and a gust of wind sent the rain spraying far enough into the kitchen for Faith to feel the drops on her face. She shook her head. "Jesus, that window..."

"Mm," he agreed. "We have to do something about it."

"Kill the vampire and call the glazier?" she suggested without much hope.

He smiled. "For now, I think we should just board it up."

It didn't have the neatness of a professional job – neither one of them was the handyman type – but together, Faith and Robin managed to get the window boarded up. Faith would have expected Robin to be exhausted by the effort, but on the contrary, he looked better than before. Maybe non-healing work was good for him.

Once they were done, Robin started another round of phone calls, trying to catch his archaeologist, and Faith headed out to find a butcher store. He'd left her his wallet, too, which meant she could take the opportunity to buy some fat, bloody, honest-to-god meat. A fridge just didn't look right with no meat in it.

The first place kosher, which meant no blood. To Faith's mind it was as bad as vegetarianism – what was the point of eating meat if you were going to be all choosy about what kind it was and how it had been prepared? People were way too picky about food. She could still remember the appalled look on B's face once she realized that as far as Faith was concerned, 'I could eat a horse' was not so much a saying as an unrealised opportunity. If she was hungry, she'd eat pretty much anything as long as it was cleaned, chopped up, and cooked.

"Cannibalism included?" Robin had asked when she explained her food philosophy to him, and she had given it a good thought and come to the conclusion that no, cannibalism excluded unless it was really an emergency.

She still preferred the traditional stuff, though, and when she found the right place, she skipped all the fancy stuff and got bacon and ground beef along with her bags of blood.

When she got back to Robin's place, there was a ginger cat walking to and fro in front of the building. It was a huge fucking thing, but as she came closer she could see that the size was all bone - it had clearly been a while since it was last properly fed. It was pretty for a stray, though, fur gleaming and head held high.

Faith wasn't very fond of cats, especially not stray beggar cats, but the damn animal tried to follow her inside, and she put her bag down, taking a handful of the ground beef and tossing it towards the cat. "There you go, you dumb cat," she told it. "Satisfied?"

The cat was very clearly satisfied, because it sat down crouched over the meat, eating with a deep, almost religious concentration.

Faith grinned - there was some kind of weird pleasure in seeing someone really enjoy their food, even if it was just a stray cat - and picked her bags up, heading inside.

Ella perked up considerably when Faith passed her in the living room. "You smell like blood," she said, stretching her chains to get closer.

"I do," Faith said. "Be a good girl and maybe you'll get some."

Ella made a begging sound in the back of her throat and stretched her chains even further, trying to lick Faith's hand.

"Back off, Vampirella," Faith said, kicking her in the stomach. "I'm not your lunch today. Jesus, you're worse than the cat!"

"What cat?" Robin asked, coming out from the kitchen. He looked better than before, and a bit happier too.

"There was a cat outside," Faith said. "I fed it some ground beef." She caught Robin's grimace and asked, "What? Bad move?"

"Oh, no no no," he hurried to reassure her. "Just as long as you're prepared to keep doing it. You feed a cat, it tends to come back and ask for more."

"Kind of like guys."

"I'll take your word for it," he said dryly, walking up to look in her bag. "Why do you have ground beef anyway? Trying out a new diet for the vampire?"

"Ooh, good idea!" she said. "We ought to try that later. But no, the meat's for me."

He took the bag from her and moved the bags aside. "Bacon too? You bought this with my money?"

"Well, yeah. I come here to work, you can't expect me to do it fasting."

"No, but I'd expect you to buy something I could eat too," he said. "I don't think I'm obliged to supply you with meat."

"I'm not obliged to pick you off elevator floors," she said, giving him a wide grin. "It's called friendship."

"I'm not feeling very friendly right now," he said, taking a slice of thick, white-rimmed bacon from the bag and scowling at it. "I suppose you want to use my frying pan, too?"

"Don't be so anal," she said, taking the bacon from his hand. "You could use a bit of fat on your bones, especially if you're going sick."

"Speaking of which," he said, "I finally got in touch with Hanlon."

She tried to remember who Hanlon was, but drew a blank.

Robin seemed to realize this, because he continued: "The archaeologist."

"Oh! Right. The thief." Even now that she was back on the straight and narrow, thief sounded better to her than archaeologist. "What did he say?"

"It's definitely from a Viking grave. Three people buried, one of them a woman - I'm thinking that's our Slayer. Judging by the state of the bones, they all died in battle."

Sounded like a Slayer, all right - she'd never heard of one that died of natural causes. "Anything on the sword?"

"I'm getting there. They have a translation of the runes - well, part of a translation. The sword says 'Blessed be the killer of evil.' "

"Slayer," Faith filled in, and Robin nodded.

"Slayer. The sheath was apparently harder to decipher; all they could read was 'ik liuuse konu.' Hanlon's guess is that 'konu' stands for 'konung' and 'ik' is the last part of a name, like Erik or Patrik. In which case it would mean 'something-ik, the light King.'"

"Huh." She mulled that over. Weird that the sheath would speak of a king. Maybe they had been wrong to assume that the sword belonged to a Slayer - but it made so much sense, with the small hands and the woman in the grave. Still, it told her one thing for sure. "So it's definitely blessed then, not cursed."

"Ninety percent," Robin said with a half-shrug. "There is an alternative interpretation of the sword's inscription as 'the evil killer,' but Hanlon and his colleagues - former colleagues, I guess I should say - found that very unlikely. Apparently the design suggests goodness; don't ask me how."

"Yeah!" Faith said, happy about the good news, swinging her hips in a half-dance as she proceeded into the kitchen with her butcher's bag. "I'm taking that sword out for a spin tonight. It'll be a blast!"

She was rather sad that night was still so far away.

Robin made Faith use a rickety old frying pan with a cracked handle to fry her bacon and ground beef, which was pretty lame, but at least he stepped out of the kitchen after that and let her do her thing.

She reappeared in the living room with a tray where she'd put a plate of fried bacon and meat, a plate with it raw, the blood bags and a pair of scissors.

Robin, who was watching the news, looked up and grinned. "You look like the hotel breakfast from hell."

"Yeah, well, that's not so far off the mark," Faith said, sitting down on the floor opposite Ella but some distance away. She put one of the crispy slices of bacon in her mouth and reached another to Ella. "Here you go, Vampirella, eat up!"

Ella wrinkled her nose. "It smells like burned flesh."

"You got that right," Robin said. He left the sofa and sat down next to Faith, though he kept the TV on in the background. His face was serious, but there was something in his eyes that suggested that he was very amused by the situation.

"It's not burned," Faith said, moving her hand back and forth, like she wanted to coax Ella to take the food. "It's crispy."

"It's gross," Ella said, turning her head.

Faith slapped her. "Eat!"

"It doesn't prove anything if she does," Robin pointed out. "Vampires can eat if they want to."

Ella reluctantly opened her mouth and let Faith slide in the slice of bacon.

"It proves something if she can taste it," Faith said, recalling something Angel had said. She watched how Ella's expression went from hostile to apprehensive to disgusted. Oh yeah, she could taste it all right. Pure moral outrage couldn't cause a grimace like that.

"Ith'sh foul!" Ella exclaimed, clearly trying to avoid touching the food with her tongue as much as possible. Finally, she just spat the bacon out on the floor.

"Experimental result: defanged vampires do not like bacon," Faith said, laughing a little at the way Ella stretched out her tongue to get rid of the taste. She scooped up a spoonful of ground beef to try next, but Robin halted her hand.

"Give her some blood in between."

"Why? I was going to save that for last."

"She still tastes the bacon. If you really want to know what she likes or not, let her rinse her mouth."

"Mostly, I just want to see her make those funny faces," Faith said, but she cut open one of the blood bags and fed Ella a mouthful. The vampire drank greedily, and if it bothered her that the blood was animal rather than human, she didn't show it.

Faith snatched the bag away before Ella had time to finish it, and handed her some of the ground beef.

"No," Ella said with great determination.

Faith slapped her, but Ella pinched her lips together and turned the other way.

"Don't be a baby," Faith said with a sigh. "We got a room full of weapons and a healer. You've got nothing, and you're only gonna get hungrier. You know you'll eat sooner or later, so it might as well be now."

There was a pause, and then Ella said between clenched teeth and barely moving lips, "The pink stuff."

"What?"

"I'll eat the pink stuff. Not the burned."

Faith felt an increasing appreciation for the good old 'take no prisoners' approach, but she put the fried meat back on the plate and scooped up some raw instead. Ella reluctantly opened her mouth and ate it, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. It was like feeding a kid, and Faith wondered what was up with vamp chicks acting like children. It didn't matter how long they'd been around, or how old they had been when they were turned. She'd seen scabby old vamps with childish pouts and cooey little voices.

Was it an act, or did some people go all retarded when they became vampires?

"Can I have my blood now?"

Faith stared at Ella; she'd half forgotten what they were doing. The vampire had eaten the whole spoonful of ground beef and not complained about the taste even once. Huh.

"Did you like it?"

Ella gave a half-shrug. "It was chewy."

"Chewy bad or chewy good?"

"Chewy chewy."

Faith fed her the rest of the bag of blood, thinking of asking her why she couldn't act her age, but she doubted she'd get much of a reply.

She was starting to get bored with this whole feeding situation. Robin clearly already was, because he had headed back to the TV and stood watching the news. A frown was forming on his face, and Faith realized why when she started listening to what was said.

'...There is no evidence to support that rumour. By the state of their homes, all or most of the missing people had every intention to return there.'

'So the police have definitely ruled out a mass suicide?'

'At this point, we cannot rule out anything.'

'Is it possible that the missing are still alive?'

'Very much so, in which case we urge them to contact their families as soon as possible.'

The news report went on in the same style, trying to make the most of what was basically a whole bunch of people saying 'we have absolutely no idea what has happened with these schmucks.' Faith clicked her tongue.

"Think they'd appreciate it if we told'em these guys are probably in some demon's stomach by now?"

"Or vampire's," Robin said. "No. Still, we have to investigate this, even if I very much doubt anyone will ever see those stupid kids again."

There was a glimmer of something smile-like on Ella's face, and Faith narrowed her eyes.

"What are you looking so smug for?"

Robin caught on quickly and his face hardened as he quickly moved over to them. "What do you know?" When he didn't get a reply right away, he barked, "Tell me!"

The vampire's face got an innocent expression that was utterly unconvincing.

Robin didn't ask twice. Instead, he walked over to the weapons cabinet, and his hand hovered over a cross for a second before he chose a small knife instead. The brief hesitation gave Faith time to realize what he was about to do and remind herself that it was only a vampire, not a person. Still, when he returned and plunged the knife into Ella's thigh, Faith saw a seedy demon bar, a girl stoned out of her mind, and a grim-faced Englishman. From there her mind's eye wandered even further, and she saw herself cut and punch, taunt and threaten, not to get information, just to see the pain and to know that she wasn't the only one feeling it.

She didn't flinch or turn her head. It was only a vampire.

"You know what happened to those people, don't you?" she asked, crouching down. There were tears of pain in Ella's eyes, but she didn't say anything.

Faith put her hand over Robin's, braced herself, and twisted the knife. This wasn't about pleasure and pain, but the dead and the dying.

"You trying to protect your friends?" she asked. "'Cause I have a feeling they don't give a shit. They've left you out in the cold, haven't they? You're not vampire enough for them."

Ella's eyes didn't meet hers – they were entirely focused on Robin, who closed his fingers around the handle of the knife and slowly pulled it out.

"Ella," he said, putting his bare hand on the wound. His voice was gentle but commanding, and Faith wondered if this was what he sounded like in school, trying to talk sense into nasty little teenagers. It would have been nice to have a Robin Wood back when she went to school. Not that she thought it would have made any difference. It'd just have been something nice to remember.

There was a moment's silence. Ella chewed on her lip, scowling. Faith was holding her breath, and she suspected Robin was, too, since the room fell so silent.

"They're turned," Ella finally said in a low voice.

"All of them?" Robin asked, not much louder.

She nodded, then shook her head. "Two died. But all the others."

"When?"

"Same night you came for us."

"Not wasting any time, are they?" Robin mulled over her answer. In the unlit room, the lines on his face deepened with shadows and made him look ancient. Suddenly fearful, Faith glanced down and found his hand still resting on Ella's leg. She snatched it away without thinking. The pant leg was torn, but underneath there was no wound, not even any blood.

"Don't," she said, even though it was too late.

He followed her gaze, but it was impossible to tell if he had kept his hand still for so long on purpose or if he had just forgotten.

Ella hadn't forgotten, that much was clear. Her blue eyes were wide with fear, and when Robin calmly continued to ask her questions, she answered each one readily, without any more complaining or lies. She gave directions to their main nest so detailed Faith could have drawn a map with her eyes closed, and she'd never even been to those streets.

She'd heard somewhere that torture was a lousy investigation technique, that the victim would just tell you what you wanted to hear whether it was true or not. But she could bet her ass Ella was telling the truth; either that, or she was a hell of a good liar, a lot better than she looked.

"You think you can find it?" Robin asked Faith.

"You're not coming." It wasn't a question; she knew he wasn't and why, and she was only grateful he knew it too.

"Not today."

Some sort of self-preservation stopped them from voicing the reason, but she couldn't stop herself from saying, "You'll be all right, yeah?" though she did manage to sound flippant.

A smile tugged at his lips. "That's my line."

"Oh, baby, I'll be better than all right," she said, standing up and looking around the room. "I'm gonna take that old Slayer sword with me, and me and her are gonna kick some serious ass together."

He started to frown, but the frown smoothed out again and he nodded. "I bet you will."

One thing Faith really really hated was vamps living in fancy places. They were dead, for fuck's sake, they had no right to have better living arrangements than humans. That was how she'd been able to stand the motel rooms and seedy apartments since being called - at least it was better than a grave. Hell, even the prison cell had had TV.

But shit like this house made her feel like her place was a dump even though it was the best place she'd ever had. It made Robin's place seem like a dump, especially now that the kitchen window was boarded up and there was a vampire shackled to the living room wall.

This... this was a home. Bay windows, frosted glass on the porch, and a garden that would probably have been full of flowers if anyone in the house had been alive enough to give a shit.

It was stupid, but she felt offended that there weren't any flowers.

Another thing made it different from a human's home too: the curtains were drawn for all the windows. Good thing they hadn't boarded them up; this time she had easy escapes ready if she needed them. Thirteen to one wasn't the kind of odds she liked even in daytime.

Well, thirteen to two. The sword felt damned nearly like a person of its own, and she held onto it harder as she tried the door. Locked, but thin - after a few kicks and some hacking with the sword, she was through to the other side. She hadn't been able to keep it quiet, though. They were bound to know she was coming.

There was no one in the hall, but she left the door open just in case as she moved further into the building, glancing into rooms as she walked by. A kitchen to the left, with empty but well-cleaned shelves. Someone was a neat freak.

Moving through the house, she could hear no sounds except of her own feet. Vampires could move very slowly if they wanted to, so the question was, were they still asleep, or were they waiting for her somewhere?

She caught sight of a movement at the top of the stairs and quickly looked up. For a split second, she saw the yellow glimmer of eyes in a gameface, and then the vampire ran in the other direction, so fast that Faith couldn't even tell its sex or the colour of its hair.

She ran after up the stairs and into a corridor, sword held high.

A loud slam made her start and spun around, catching now what she didn't the first time: that the corridor was a closed one, with only a small ledge connecting it to the stairway. A ledge that was now out of sight, since the vampire that had been hiding behind the door had now slammed it shut. He gave her a gleaming smile.

She slowly turned back. Vampires were coming out of every room. There weren't a dozen of them yet, but she had no doubt that soon there would be. Trapped like a mouse and she'd rushed straight into it without even thinking. Damn it! She could see B's little scowl of so many years ago, accusing her of being reckless... and for good reason.

The vampire in the middle - the one that had been prattling on back in the other nest - smiled at her. "Slayer."

"Sucker," she replied and attacked. Two other vampires immediately stepped up in front of him, and her sword cut one of them, slicing his arm almost clean through. Vampires were softer than humans, spongier, but even so the force of her blow surprised her.

The other vampire grabbed hold of her left arm, and she swung the sword around, hacking off his head. Sweet. She loved this sword!

But no matter how great it was, it could only strike in one direction at a time, and the vamps just kept coming at her. She kicked and elbowed and slashed and hacked, but there was always at least one out of reach. She started counting the clouds of dust, just to feel that she was getting somewhere: one, two, three, four... Yeah, she was thinning out the herd, but she wasn't so sure it would matter in the long run.

There was something else, in the back of her head. Each time she cut the sword through vampire flesh, some other kind of demon flashed behind her eyes and gave her a strange urge to turn around and see if perhaps that creepy crawly thing was right behind her. It was like she was fighting two battles at once – like she was two people at once – and the only upside was that she was pretty sure the other her was a pretty kick-ass fighter too.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't going to lose to a bunch of fledgling vampires and their stick-up-his-ass sire. She increased his efforts, using strength she was pretty sure she didn't have, and managed to drive her sword through two of them at once. The blow made her lose her footing, and all three of them stumbled through a doorway. She would have fallen straight onto them if they hadn't dusted; as it was, she landed with her hands and knees on the floor.

Vamps swarmed behind her, and she felt a familiar sting of pain in her back. One of the little fuckers had stabbed her. If she didn't get up fast, she'd be dead in minutes.

She forced herself to her feet and faced the vampires, realizing as she did so that she was in a room, an actual room with a window facing the street. She wouldn't last long against the vampires now, but she didn't have to – all she had to do was draw the curtains, or get the hell out, or preferably both.

She'd have to do it fast, though, before the vamps were all around her again. No point attacking the ones by the doorway; more would just come up behind them. Instead, she furiously slashed at the vamp coming up on her right side and then quickly spun around to strike another blow to the one on her left. Only one of them dusted – her aim was off. Still, it bought her some time, and she used it to start running. The window was only maybe ten feet off, but it felt like a fucking ballroom as she desperately tried to get the pace up.

She felt as if she was going excruciatingly slow, but when she hit the window it broke, and she fell to the ground taking the curtain with her. The heavy cloth and the pain prevented her from moving properly, and her back hit the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her.

Her eyes blurred with tears of pain, she looked up at the sky, shining in pink, blue and yellow. Sunset. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax for a second, though she was still gasping for air. Pretty soon, she'd have to start moving or this stunt would have been for nothing, but at least she was safe for the moment.

When her lungs started working properly again, she slowly disentangled herself from the curtain and stood up. She could see her bike at the corner, and she was pretty sure she could still drive it, even if her head was spinning a bit.

Reaching up, she touched her back and then stared at the red stain on her hand. Okay, gotta deal with that. Hospital? But she couldn't bring the sword to a hospital, not even if she wrapped it in the curtain. People were bound to ask questions or try to take it away.

Which left only one option, really. Wrap herself up – and get back to Robin.

"Fucking hell," she muttered to herself.