FIC: Cleveland Calling (18?)
Xander nudged Faith as she stared longingly at the shadow-shrouded gym. "Angel will have the manhole cover open in a minute."
"What?" the brunette Slayer started slightly. "Nah, I was just thinking," the raven-tressed beauty's wistful voice trailed off.
"Thinking what?" He prompted with another nudge to the ribs.
Faith half-smiled. "Remember that scene in 'Fist Of Fury' where Bruce Lee kicks all the other martial artists' asses?" Xander groaned, he could see where this was heading. Faith glared at him. "Shut up. I'd love to do that, it looked so fuckin' cool."
"You're nuts," he accused.
Faith winked back at him. "You bought that Firefly DVD set, there's true insanity."
"No," Xander corrected. "I'm dating you, that's insanity."
"Bite me, Harris."
"Last time you said that it was more in a moan." He paused, brow furrowing theatrically in thought. "Now how did it go? It was a little high-pitched-."
"How about I permanently move your voice up a couple of octaves?" Faith tried to glare, but Xander saw her full lips twitch unwillingly into a grin.
"When you two have finished playing," they both turned at Angel's whisper, "we're ready for you."
"Wicked," Faith strode over to the hole and peered down. It was murky as hell, an impregnable, swirling darkness. She looked to Angel for guidance.
"The rest of us can just drop, but Xander," her mentor pointed to the far side of the hole, "will have to use the rungs there."
"Okay," Xander stepped forward. Faith grabbed his elbow and turned him round to face her. Her man raised a questioning eyebrow.
"See you on the other side, hon." She winked before leaping into the hole, feet spread, and knees bent to cushion the impact. The stale air whistled around as she fell blindly, eyes closed as she enjoyed the illusion, the freedom, of flying.
And then she hit the ground. Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she turned to see Connor, yeah, she nodded inwardly, that made sense, he was the only one who saw close to good as Fang. "Over here," the demon-human hybrid muttered. "Out of the way of the hole."
"Yeah," Faith scurried over to the wall. In seconds the other Slayers and Angel had joined them. A minute later and a huffing Xander dropped into view. Faith looked towards Angel. "Which way?"
Angel looked around and then at his son. "Left?"
"That's what I smell, humans have been living down there," Connor agreed.
"Creepy," Xander commented as he fell in beside her, just behind Connor and Angel.
Faith gave Xander a warning nudge in the ribs before starting off. The tunnels were dank and grey, cut into a half-circle, the stone-paved ground clicking underfoot, the light from their torches providing only meagre illumination. Suddenly Angel stopped and turned to his left, crouching by a grille in the wall. "Ventilation shaft."
"So?" Dana grunted. "Some of us actually have to breathe."
"So," Angel said patiently. "We've passed four and they've all been grey, this is light blue."
"You think it's been replaced recently?"
Angel nodded at Xander's question before reaching out and yanking the grille off. "Yeah," the demon peered inside, "it's been burrowed through, there's a tunnel behind here."
"Okay," Xander looked around. "Connor, Angel, Faith, and Dana with me. Bree, you and the others stand guard in case someone comes. Okay?"
"Maybe if you loaded the information onto another computer I could hel-."
"I'm afraid not, wondrous Amy, mistress of the pagan arts," Amy rolled her eyes. Only Andrew could make saying no into a short story. "The information contained here is deemed top-secret by the Watchers' Council of England and only to be accessed by authorised personnel."
Amy opened her mouth to remind the delusional twit that he wasn't actually authorised, Xander was but had given Andrew his password because he hated computers. Shutting her mouth, she shook her head. It was best to rise above it. It wasn't worth winning an argument to have to watch a semi-grown man cry. She turned at a sound in the kitchen. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Andrew remained fixed to the computer, eyes boring into the screen. "This is really interesting. It mentions a treaty in 1725-."
"I think the others are back, I heard something in the kitchen."
Andrew looked up and shook his head. "They can't be, they'll barely have arrived -," Andrew paused at the sound of a door closing. Suddenly pale, the geek rose. "It can't be them."
"Let's see," Amy opened the door and crept into the dimly lit lounge, Andrew following behind.
"Oww!" the youth hopped around on one foot, holding the other as he glared at the telephone table he'd kicked over. "That hurt!"
"Andrew!" Amy twisted her head to glare at the chef. "Quiet!"
"Quisling!" suddenly the door to the kitchen burst open and a trio of burly men charged in. Amy tried to back away, but a backhander knocked her to the ground. She dazedly saw Andrew throw the phone at one of the men and kick him in the knee, but his resistance ended when another of the men grabbed him by the collar, threw him through the stairwell, and punched him in the face as he struggled back up. And then their hands were grabbing her, dragging her to her feet. She tried to pull away only to feel a prick in her neck. Then her vision blurred and her body went limp.
"Damn," Faith cursed as she dropped into the cult's den. She crawled all the way through a dingy hole, got dust all over her best leather trousers and new denim jacket and what for? They weren't even in.
Angel looked rather more pleased with the situation. But then with the way he been trying to avoid getting into a fight with these dudes, you'd think he'd been possessed by Martin Luther King's ghost. "Okay," Angel looked around, "let's search the place, see if we can find out anything. Remember-."
"Knowledge is power, yada, yada," Faith finished for her idol, winking unrepentantly at his glower. Faith's eyes narrowed as she looked around the den. Ms. Post would definitely call this place Spartan. There were four bunk beds covered in rough sheets in the centre, a rack of weapons on the wall behind, an altar with a cloth embroidered with a battle-hardened warrior on it to the far right, and a desk with a leather-bound book on it. And that was it.
Angel immediately strode over to the desk and started flipping through the book. "It's in Latin," the vampire reported before sitting down. "It's the leader's diary. Oh," he flipped back a couple of pages, his shoulders hunching, "this isn't good." Angel looked towards her, face drawn. "You weren't the target. Tonight was a mistake."
"And them not trying to kill me is a bad thing?" Faith squinted. "Why am I not feelin' the love?"
"No," Angel shook his head. "You don't understand. They've been watching us for a few nights. Watching who Xander was patrolling with, when they saw him tonight, they decided to take the woman with him. But she wasn't the target-."
"Amy was," Dana finished for the slow in the room.
Faith felt the wind leave her as if punched in the gut. If she'd listened to Angel, she and the other Slayers would be with Amy and Andrew. As it was Amy and Andrew were unprotected, thanks to her. Her legs almost buckled beneath her.
"Are you alright?" She looked up, feeling Xander's hand on her elbow. She briefly hated him for the concern in his eye. She didn't deserve it, she was such a fuck-up.
"Will they come back here?" Connor asked.
"No," Angel shook his head. "This place is unclean. 'The Cleansing' takes place at a specially sanctified place."
"We've gotta get back," she croaked. "And fast."
Angel nodded. "Me and Connor will hit the rooftops. We can travel faster."
"Go," Xander agreed.
Justus shoved the house door open, a smirk spread firmly across his face. Things had gone far smoother than he'd expected, the Slayers having foolishly left their base unprotected. As he reached their black, tinted-window van, he flung its double-doors open before glancing over his shoulder to the men carrying the limp witch. "Her hands and feet, are they securely bound?" he barked even as he checked the knots for himself and nodded as he noted the drugged rag shoved in her mouth. Without her hands and mouth, she was just another girl.
A girl whose foolishness had led her into dark paths, he reminded himself. He watched as the girl was flung into the back of the van and his men jumped in the back. Once he's slammed the doors shut, he looked back towards the house. The Slayers' wrath would be doubtless terrible, but they followed a greater cause, that of justice. Rushing to the front of the van, he leapt in and started up the engine, pulling away from the kerb with a screech.
Faith crashed through the front door at a run, just behind Angel and beating the others by a few paces. Her heart skipped a beat as she rushed through the darkened hall and into the lounge. She stood impotently in the lounge she stared at Andrew sat on the couch, a bag of frozen peas held to his face. She tore her gaze away and looked towards Angel as he hurried out of the kitchen. "Amy?" she asked, not caring about the tremble in her voice.
The vampire shook his head. "Nothing."
"Okay," she glanced behind at Xander's voice, her boyfriend stood in the doorway she'd just charged through, her sister Slayers behind him. "How do we get her back?"
Angel scowled. "The Cleansing has to take place at a place where a hero died recently, fell in battle. Their blood cleanses the evil-doer making their passing to the other side easier. Andrew has an address of a police officer shot dead in a bank heist last month."
"Aren't banks closed now?" Dana commented. "I know you do your banking at night, but everyone else…."
Angel glared at the Slayer. "They'll be on the roof."
"Okay, let's go then-." Faith started to turn towards the door, anxious to right her mistake.
"Wait!" Andrew shouted then winced. "I know how to end this without violence."
"Really?" Angel silenced her opening mouth with a wave, his eyes fixed on the computer nerd. "Do tell?"
Justus shivered as a cold wind blew over the moonlit rooftop. Distracting himself with an examination of the surrounding terrain, he looked around the skyline with its towering buildings, the sounds of cars roaring past and passer-bys walking by floating up on the night breeze.
Finally he turned his attention to the rooftop itself. All four sides were lined with candles and patrolled by his order's other seven members. In the centre of the gravel-covered ground, tied spread-eagled beneath her ceremonial grey sheet, the colour signifying that once one had turned to darkness, one could never be truly white again, lay Amy Madison awaiting her release.
Justus shook his head. It was hard to believe that evil could beat under such a beautiful exterior, so confusing. But then, he stepped towards the spread-eagled girl, that was why Forseti's Followers existed, to wipe away all doubt, all evil, no matter in how fair a package it came.
"You know," he spun around at a voice behind him to see the vampire Angel and the freak Connor stood behind him, having somehow slipped past his men, "a guy could catch fire here. And I am not fond of fire."
"Desecrator!" Makoto leapt at the vampire, hand dropping to his sword.
"Oh please," Justus' eyes widened as the demon stepped towards Makoto, grabbed his sword-arm even as it reached his weapon and drove the palm of his hand full into Makoto's jaw. The cult member's eyes rolled and his head snapped back, blood spewing from his mouth. "At least try."
"Get him!" Justus raged. His men started forward. "Kill them all!"
"I enact the 1725 Council – Forseti Treaty!" the vampire yelled.
His men halted immediately. "You?" Justus sneered. "You are a vampire, you cannot enact it. It is an abomination that you even mention it!"
"No," he looked towards an one eyed man climbing up onto the roof behind the cross-bow wielding Slayers. "He can't, but I can. Alexander Lavelle-."
"You're dating a man called 'Lavelle'," snorted an Irish-sounding lovely.
"Shut it, Bree," snapped the devastating beauty who had to be Faith Lehane.
"Harris of the Watchers Council," the one-eyed man shot the bickering Slayers an irritated look. "The Treaty of 1725 clearly states that the Followers will not operate in any city that the Council issues a claim for, for as long as the current Slayer lives. I now enact such a claim in Cleveland."
"There was only one Slayer then!" he roared, fists clenching. "We couldn't have known that some idiot would create several hundred of them!"
""That's as maybe," the ensoulled vampire replied evenly. "But your cult is known for its honour and integrity. Are you going to throw centuries of nobility away?"
"Very well, we'll leave." Justus glowered at the demon. "But one day, vampire. One day, you'll no longer be in a Slayer city, and then Forseti's Followers will come for you!"
A chill ran through him at the vampire's answering smile. "I'll look forward to it. Now," the demon morphed out, "get out of here before the last of my ebbing patience runs out."
"You're sure you're okay?"
Amy smiled wearily at Faith's concerned query, the seventh time she'd heard it in the half hour since they'd returned to the house and congregated in the kitchen for the Xander-imposed traditional post-patrol and pre-bed hot chocolate with marshmallows. Right now she could steal Xander off her and Faith wouldn't say a thing, she was so contrite. "I'm fine," she reached across the table and squeezed the former renegade's hand, "my condition hasn't changed since you asked me five minutes ago," she gently jibed.
Faith looked down at the table. "I'm sorry-."
"You and the others came through, that's the import-," she broke off when the kitchen door swung open. Looking across she saw a muscular stranger walking into the kitchen. She joined the others in looking and half-rising, noting even as she did so Faith's paling face and Xander's slight flinch, her fellow Sunnydaler almost seeming to curl up into himself.
The man smiled. "Hello Faith."
