Election Day was approaching rapidly. Lilah Morgan's campaign was pulling out all the stops. She had just run a photoshoot for more billboards. She had a debate scheduled for tomorrow night. The Democratic Presidential candidate had a public appearance scheduled with her in one week. And Lilah herself was on her hands and knees in front of the porcelain throne, dry heaving.
"How? How is this possible? I have a superhuman physique. I barely need water, I don't produce waste of any kind-"
You sure don't, Darla deadpanned, glancing at the clean toilet. They'd been dry-heaving off and on for two days now, but that was the limit of it.
"-you shut up. How can I be sick when I barely even get tired any more?"
Don't look at me. If I knew the first thing about modern medicine, would I have been dying of syphilis when I was turned? Ask a doctor.
"Won't he notice-?" Never mind. Stupid question. She just needed to go to one of the Wolfram & Hart staff doctors, who dealt with everything from vampires to sapient tapeworms on a regular basis. They wouldn't bat an eye. "I guess I've been trying too hard to distance myself from my company stock portfolio. Didn't even occur to me. I'll call Doctor Blair."
If we're canceling today's morning schedule, can I have some time with Dru please? Drusilla was maintained in style in a company penthouse at the moment, though she did sometimes slip out to hunt. So far her precognition had kept her from doing anything too stupid.
Lilah thought that one over. "If the drugs kick in I'd be happy to. Standard campaign precautions, of course." California might be progressive, but it was still America. "Just be aware that if we get there and my stomach is still in knots there may not be much fun time."
Dru has a surprising flair for hurt/comfort play.Darla grinned, somewhere inside, and Lilah snickered at the images that came to mind. Hey, it could be worse. You haven't been with a man in months.
That was even funnier. "Definite advantage of vampire lovers in general: zero chance of getting knocked up."
Chapter 23-Beast in Her Belly
Doctor Blair examined the second set of test results. "No doubt about it. You're pregnant." She handed Lilah the printout. "Congratulations."
"Shit. Shit!" How was she supposed to run a campaign as an unwed mother? She might as well air out her relationship with Drusilla on live television! "That's not possible. There's no possible father."
"A urine sample would've been easier, but the bloodwork is unambiguous." Doctor Blair bit her index nail. "Have you been in close personal contact with any male demons? Sex isn't always required."
Lilah didn't bother answering beyond, "It doesn't matter. We're getting rid of it. Right now."
"I'll have to schedule an appoint-"
"Right. Now."
"Do I have time to sterilize the equipment?"
Dr. Blair looked as if she might scurry off to do it with dirty tools if pressed, so Lilah hastily said, "Yes, of course." Superhuman physiology apparently wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Off the books. I can't deal with a scandal right now."
The doctor nodded. "Naturally. Off the books it is. Standard D&C? Or shall we add a paranormal cleansing for good measure?"
"Gah. Give me the works." This could not be happening. There was literally no way. "Just get the little parasite out." Did you by any chance...?
Only with Angel, since you brought me back. You've got better odds with the doctor here. At least she's alive.
Right. Maybe it was a legal client. Could even be an accident with a few kinds of demon. She hadn't talen that into account.
Well, in a couple of hours it'd be done with.
"We're done already?" Lilah sat up. Surely that hadn't been long enough.
"Done. I don't understand it."
That couldn't be good. "You are a doctor. I pay you to understand it. Tell me what the matter is."
"The D&C did nothing. Zero. I have no tissue results of any kind. As for the paranormal, you read as dirty as they come...sorry, no offense-"
"Standard radiation analogy, don't get fidgety on me. Just explain."
"The cleansing didn't have any effect. You still read as supernaturally pregnant with a highly-probable demon baby, and...well, we can't exorcise it, fatally or otherwise."
Lilah put her head in her hands. "How the hell am I going to work this? I can't call off the campaign, I..."
Blair raised one finger. "Clean up the streets, even gubernatorial candidates aren't safe?"
At least the idea gave Lilah the mental space to count to ten. "Still politically risky, sad to say, but I'm glad you're thinking. I believe you just saved your life."
The doctor backed out, thanking her profusely, and Lilah let her thoughts spin into overdrive. There was a way. Always.
Faith flinched. She always did when it came time for this. And then she made herself hold still and let Harmony get down to business.
The vampire had been as good as her word-so far-about not hunting. She looked as harmless as they came, and acted it most of the time. In the end, though, she was still a predator.
Harmony drank her fill and let Faith go. "Thanks!"
"It's five by five. You gotta eat, and better me than street people. I heal." There was disturbing activity going on under her eyepatch, as if even that injury might be trying to repair itself.
"You're always good to eat! Slayers are delicious!" Was she really as oblivious as she seemed? Willow hadn't shown much sign either, and girly-girl Harmony had more cause to repress. Hadn't Angel said something about Slayer blood being an aphrodisiac back in the day?
Faith went for an unconcerned, "Thanks," and got up to get some grub. Buffybot and Kate were up to their elbows in raw meat and flour.
"Sorry," B-bot blurted out. "The pasta isn't working like the recipe says."
"She's got no experience cooking," Kate explained. "I tried to tell her you can't just scale things up."
"How long?" Faith just needed to eat something. She'd get woozy trying to feed Harm on an empty stomach.
Kate tilted her head toward the timer. "Looking at a couple more hours."
"Mind if I go out? I'll go patrol too." Random demonic activity was on the downswing, but that just meant whatever she ran into was important.
"Suit yourself. Spaghetti when you get back."
"I'm a big eater." Did she sound to Kate the way Harm sounded to her? She was halfway out the door when Harmony popped out of a side room. "You coming along?"
"I gotta earn my keep, right?"
Faith gave her a half-smile. Harm really did seem to be trying, but where Angel tried to be good for redemption's sake, Harmony saw good deeds as a way of buying time. No more, no less. Not only was it a reminder that she was no different inside from any other vampire, it was depressing as hell.
"We're running by Mickey D's first. You eat much human food?" Vampires ranged from "finds regular food bland" to "horrible cramps and vomiting", but the former seemed more common. Blended better, probably. Faith wasn't sure where the food went and didn't want to know.
"Got McRibs? I like the sauce."
"I dunno. It's a little early in the year still." Maybe a little test? "I didn't think you seemed like a pork type of girl."
Harmony tilted her head to one side. "Um. Humans usually overcook meat. No blood left in it." Well, that was useless.
Faith put on her helmet; she hated the things but getting arrested wouldn't help at all. "Hop on." Harm climbed on and clung to her waist, but it didn't feel like a snuggly grip. The vampire just seemed terrified. "You need a helmet. It'll keep you safe." More so than Faith, really. All she really needed to protect was her head. She grabbed a helmet off B-bot's bike. "Wanna learn how to ride?"
Harmony gulped. "Maybe sometime?"
"Show you on the way home. No takebacks." Faith revved the engine and took off before Harm could change her mind.
"McRibs!" Harmony shrieked. "Woohoo!"
"Anyone ever tell you you make a strange and disturbing vampire?"
Harmony just laughed. "Only other vamps. You should see them when I sing 'Steal My Sunshine'."
Good thing they were parked, cause Faith nearly fell off the cycle laughing. "And I thought that was a weird thing for humans to like!"
"You know, I think you get me better than most people," Harm said as they made their way in. There was a television with a basketball game playing, but Faith couldn't make out which teams.
"How's that go? Because we both go hunt at night?" There was something to that, maybe, but she and Harmony dodn't have much else in common.
"Well, yeah, but...Kate talks to me like I'm a human with these urges that aren't really part of me. Maybe Angel's like that. I dunno. She's all like, 'you can resist that, you can behave yourself'. And I can...sorta."
As usual, no one in line was paying attention to the conversation. Faith nodded. "I know you can, or you'd be dust."
"Yeah but that's not it. She has my parts mixed up, like most people. Like maybe for humans the smart part, the part that talks and thinks, maybe that's you. And the rest of you, the hungry part and the angry part and-"
"'The horny part?"
"-that too, they're like voices in the back of your head? Like, not really part of you? Two McRibs and a coke please. Well, that's backwards for me, ok?"
Faith thought that over. "The thinking part is just a voice in the animal's head? Big Mac Meal with root beer."
"Yeah, kind of. It's in there, sure, but...the scary hungry animal...that part is me. Am I making any sense?"
Faith shrugged and handed over the money. "Eh. I'm not sure we're really that different. Maybe we're all fooling ourselves about which part we are."
Faith had almost gotten to the table with the tray when the game suddenly cut out. "We're live with a special announcement from San Francisco, where Democratic candidates Al Gore and Joe Lieberman were about to speak in favor of gubernatorial candidate Lilah Morgan, currently the front runner. Roy, what just happened here?"
"Tracy, your guess is as good as mine about the reasons, but our footage shows that Joe Lieberman suddenly, and completely without warning, physically assaulted Ms. Morgan, shouting that she was attacking him."
"Is there any evidence that she did so?"
"Not a shred, Tracy."
Faith stared at the screen as it replayed the critical moments. Sure enough, the fucking Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate lunged at Lilah for no apparent reason, leaving baffled Secret Service agents swinging their guns back and forth. Finally one of them yelled at Lieberman to stand down, and he did, his face plastered with a look of stunned confusion.
"What just happened, Roy?"
"I don't have a clue, but we're about to get a statement from Lieberman himself on the matter."
Disheveled, sweating, plainly totally confused by whatever had just happened, Lieberman stepped up to the mic. "I sincerely apologize for my actions, which I admit I cannot explain in any rational manner. I can only assume that the stresses of this presidential campaign have taken a psychological toll on me. As of this moment, I am withdrawing my candidacy for the office of Vice-President. It seems clear that my mental stability is in serious question."
Reporters erupted with questions. Lieberman chose the loudest. "I'm afraid I can't speak to that. That decision is now in the hands of Mr. Gore and the Democratic Party."
"Fucking shit." Faith began to stuff food into her face. "Eat fast, Harm. No patrol tonight. I don't know why he attacked her, but I'll give you three guesses who replaces him, an' the first two don't count."
"She's not even governor yet," was Kate's response. "And Gore is just going to let her latch on to his campaign?"
"Already has," Faith pointed out. "Whatever power she's got, it affects people's minds, right? If she's half as tough that way as I am with my fists, nobody's gonna care about her experience, and scandal's gonna slide right off her. She probably made Joe hit her."
"Then what do we do?" Kate spread out a pile of paperwork on the desk. "If that's true, none of the dirt I have on her or Wolfram and Hart's going to matter one hair."
"Maybe she's not that powerful yet. Or maybe I can still take her with my fists before she gets any worse." Faith put her hands down flat on the table. "If she has a weakness, there's only one place to find it. We have to hit Wolfram and Hart."
"You've got to be kidding, Faith. This isn't a movie. Wolfram and Hart's offices are a fortress, and if we did get in nothing we found would be admissible in court."
"In a few months she's going to be runnin' the courts. You can't believe she'll stop at veep. We can't beat her that way." Faith pulled out a stake. "Either we can still take her down in the court of public attention, or there's a way to beat her ass down. Swords. Stakes. Guns. Nobody's invulnerable."
"You want to go down in history as a presidential assassin?" Kate raised her eyebrows at that.
"If she was a vampire, you'd do it. Right?" Faith drove the stake into the desk. "Either we do this or we let her take over the world. You wanna wait?"
"When you put it that way...All right, I'm in."
Kate was parked across the street. She was insurance. Even as an ex-cop she was rhe most respectable of them, so if they had to start over she had to be the one to survive. Also, her beat-up convertible was what passed for a getaway car if they needed one.
Faith hated the idea of losing her motorcycle, but she could always steal a new one if it came to that. It was in a good cause, right? Like if the government didn't take taxes, who'd run things? Taxes were theft; so what?
The Buffybot slid off her cycle easily. Maybe it was just that they were both machines, but she'd adapted fast. Harmony, on the other hand, had had to pair up with Faith. Shoat wasn't big enough for her own, but she was comfortable with B-bot.
Too bad about their lack of a witch. Amy could've been a help here. "Harm, you're up first. See that corner? You're going up it. Try for the fifth story window, but go higher if you hafta."
Harmony fidgeted. "How come Slayers can't climb walls anyway? It's easy."
"Because we're not vamp..." Faith trailed off.Could she scale a wall? She'd never tried. "Okay. I'll be behind you. No big. B-bot, Shoat, we'll be down to get you. If we're not back in fifteen minutes, crash the doors."
Shoat gave her a thumbs-up, which B-bot copied inexpertly. Somewhere she'd found a biker jacket and gloves, which made her look like a refugee from the eighties. Or a Terminator, though she needed sunglasses for that.
"You're still first, Harm." Harmony, by contrast, looked ridiculous in a black jumpsuit, but there was no help for it. She couldn't scale walls and break windows in a bright pink minidress. She slunk across the dark courtyard silently, though, so she wasn't as incompetent as she sometimes seemed. Faith could hear her from a foot behind, but no one else should.
Harmony scurried up the wall like a squirrel. It wasn't claws or adhesive or she'd have to take her shoes off. She just seemed to be finding tiny foot and toe-holds. Well, Faith should be able to do that. Speed mattered. The crevices between bricks were tiny...
Faith stopped thinking about it-she had the general idea-and jumped. Her toes and fingers caught, and she scrambled upward. For a moment or two it felt awkward, and then she had the hang of it. Harmony had two stories worth of head start, but by the time she reached the fifth floor window Faith was right behind her.
"So far so good." No alarms, no lights. Not that she could see or hear anyway. "Now for the hard part." Faith felt along the window. If she was lucky there would be a catch she could pop, but at worst she'd just smash the window and deal with whatever the alarms brought. "Not here...not here...here." She slipped the broken sliver of an old gift card in and twisted. Pop. "Five by five." The window slid up, and she pulled herself up to slip through feet first. "C'mon."
Odds were there was an alarm somewhere in here too. Maybe not, but no sense hoping. "Follow me. Stay close."
Some of these bottom floors were rented office space, but Faith suspected most or all of the renters were run by the big W&H. Hartram Research sounded especially transparent, but there were others-Weyland-Yutani, Omni Consumer...Cyberdyne? That had to be a joke, right?
Cameras. She was on camera. It was probably too late, but she nudged Harmony closer to the wall and into the shadows. "Hurry. We gotta get the others inside before security shows up."
"Is breaking and entering really a good guy thing? I mean it's not like I really care, right, but-"
"Zip it! We can talk about right and wrong later." Stairwell! "Get ready to drop down fast."
Harmony started to crouch, and Faith had to take her by the scruff of the neck and pull her through the door. "This way. Your turn to do what I do." She hopped up onto the stairwell railing and let herself slide down a couple of feet before jumping down to the next rail. "Harm! Move your butt!" Some sort of noises were coming from beyond the door, but from this distance Faith couldn't tell what. "Get down here!"
With a little bit of a squeak, Harmony followed. She looked a little wobbly by comparison, but it was working for her. Within moments Faith had reached the first floor. Harmony jumped down a second before the fourth floor door burst open. For a moment Faith thought the people coming through were human before they sprouted fangs. Vampires.
Vampires weren't the most reliable minions. They were as variable as humans, with an added tendency toward backstabbing. A vamp who thought they could take you would usually try. Why employ vampires as security?
Then she spotted the badges they were wearing as they started leaping down after her. Some of them were greying, with badges that matched. Others were pudgy. W&H had started with loyal guards and "enhanced" them. Then they could weed out any bad apples whose personality changed in the wrong ways. Made sense at least.
"Faith!" Shit! Bad time to get distracted. She bolted for the door. Harm was already wrestling with the locked front door.
"Don't waste time! Break it! We've been made already!" Faith barreled toward the door, but Harmony shattered it with a solid kick before she could get there. "Good job! Shoat! B-bot! Let's move!"
She was expecting them to come charging in on foot. Instead, she heard an engine rev, and the two shot past her on the bike. That was one way to do it! For a second she thought about running out to grab hers too, but security was already boiling out of the stairwell. She turned on a dime and shot down the hall.
BLAM! Shoat was firing a shotgun from the back of the cycle. Recoil should have destabilized the bike, and Shoat should have had to reload over and over. Neither of those were happening, though, and a large chunk of security turned to dust as Shoat methodically blew their heads off. Faith dodged around the hog and ran for the next stairwell. So much for guns being useless for Slaying.
Would've been nice to use the elevator, but even an ordinary one would be dangerous in a situation like this, and Kate's intel suggested some kind of mystical transit system was hooked into these. Faith took the stairs three at a time, but it was a long way up. Harmony was still with her; vampires didn't get tired the same way humans did. They just got hungrier.
Lilah's old office was near the top; her new office as chief executive was at it. Faith was halfway up the tower when a gigantic thing like a gorilla with spikes sticking out of its shoulders came crashing through the doorway and slammed her into the wall. Her first impulse was to kick it in the balls, but it didn't seem to have any. It roared, but more in anger than pain, and bit into her shoulder, great fangs ripping free a chunk of flesh. Roaring a little herself, she pounded her fists into its face before grabbing out her knife and stabbing it through the things eye into its brains.
Harmony, as they'd discussed, had kept running. It was more important to get the job done than to save any one of them. Unfortunately, Harm was now facing off against a pair of vampires twice her size. Faith tossed her a stake, they went through a quick couple of katas, and together they stabbed the bloodsuckers through the heart. Um. The other bloodsuckers.
"Another...twenty...floors!" Damn, she was getting winded. Worse luck, the tower narrowed at the next landing. They barged out of the stairwell together into some kind of glassed-in vestibule. "Over there," Faith yelled, and ran for the next nearest set of stairs up.
She almost made it. The sound of shattered glass echoed, something hit her even harder than the demon monkey, and suddenly Faith was outside the building, fifty stories up. And still rising.
She was tangled up with a leathery-winged thing that had scales and stank of raw meat. Not a vampire bat, thank you very much; the wings were large and smooth, not ribbed. Its hands were free and separate from the wings, the better to claw her with. Faith tried putting the demon in a wrestling hold, but if it needed to breathe it sure didn't let on. Still going up. Finally she just hung on. After all, what else could it mean to do this high up but drop her?
"Downloading," B-bot said excitedly. "Grab the hard copy, Shoat! We've got what we came for!" Shoat was currently wrestling with a human-sized scaly green demon, a M'Fashnik probably, and winning. She didn't get the hard copy. Harmony raced through the door. "Grab those papers, you fiend," B-bot shouted, and Harmony grabbed.
"Where's Faith?" Shoat yelled. That did sound like a good question. B-bot didn't have any answers.
"A flying demon grabbed her!" Harmony sounded a little panicky. "It took her out the window!"
Shoat kicked the M'Fashnik in the throat. It stumbled backward, gasping for breath, and Shoat slammed the desk into its legs, sending the demon crashing through the glass to fall forty stories or so. She poked her head out the window. "Shit," the girl said, and pointed up. "There she goes. We can't save her. We've got to get out of here with the papers, and anyway we don't have a plane."
"But-" Harmony sputtered.
"There's nothing we can do!" Shoat seized Harmony by the arm and all but dragged her to the window. "You want to jump? Be my guest." Harmony shook her head. She would survive the fall, in the dark like this. She might even walk away. But she'd be no closer to helping the Slayer.
"Let's get out of here," she whispered.
Wasn't there supposed to be a limit on how high you could fly with wings, and didn't it have to do with air? Faith was pretty sure somebody was cheating when it came to natural law. She was gasping, her vision was grey around the edges, and her skin felt tight. She pulled away from the demon's stinking, slavering mouth, and saw the horizon curving like a ball.
The demon still showed no interest in the idea that its wings had nothing to push against, and anyway, Faith realized, it no longer mattered. The Hulk might survive a fall from this distance, but she wouldn't. She was going to die now. No more ifs, ands, or buts.
Energy surged through her. One last kill. She pulled her fist back and slammed it through the demon's gaping mouth, shattering its skull to pieces. The great wings stopped beating, and limply, the demon began to drop.
So did she. Well, there were worse ways to go out. Over the edge of the world she got a faraway glimpse of light. The sun was gonna rise, and there'd be a new Slayer for it to shine on. Faith had gone out fighting, and that was all she could ask.
She stretched out her arms and gave herself over to the long fall.
Kate stared up into the deep black of the sky, wishing she could see more of it. She'd seen the demon go through the building and come out carrying someone. It took a few more minutes for Shoat, B-bot, and Harmony to get back, bearing important papers and miserable news.
They ought to be going. Cops would be swarming the area soon. Or demons. Or demon cops. Kate sat and watched the slowly lightening sky.
Somewhere high above the Wolfram & Hart Tower, a point of light flickered into being, then became a dull orange streak. Re-entry. The best she could hope for was that Faith had blacked out from lack of oxygen.
Kate had little belief left in her, but she found her hand clutching the old rosary in her pocket. "...pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death..." For good measure, she added a prayer to Saint Jude. Patron of Lost Causes.
She sat. She watched. Buffybot tried to press Shoat's face against her chest, and Shoat finally let her, leaving Kate and Harmony to bear final witness as the Slayer plummeted inexorably, trailing a streak of burning light, toward the earth.
And missed.
Faith had time to watch. Not much time, but enough. She had time to go over her regrets. Plenty of those. Nothing to be done about them now, if there ever had been.
She could breathe again, at least, even if the air was hot enough to burn her throat. Her clothes caught fire as she dropped lower and seared away in an instant. Why she hadn't done the same she didn't know, but as they said, it was the sudden stop at the end that killed you. Her skin was reddening, even burnt in places, but she wasn't catching alight.
She fell through a thin layer of high clouds, ice crystals pelting her raw skin. There was no point in putting her arms out like a diver's. Even if she'd gotten out over the ocean, the water would shatter her like stone, and anyway she could see the city lights gleaming below her. She extended them anyway. It just felt right. What was it they said? It was a good day to die.
Towers began to rise away from the flat expanse as she began the last few moments of her fall. Instinctively she flinched away from the skyscrapers, and for no obvious reason her path bent away from them. It didn't matter. She began a slow spiral around the nearest. Somehow, some way, her fall was flattening out. The spiral grew tighter.
Thirty stories up. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten stories above the ground, and she was leveling off. Following the streets as they wove between buildings. Maybe the demon had drugged her. You didn't fall sideways.
...she wasn't falling anymore, was she?
Faith zoomed along above the streets. It wasn't far. The buildings grew farther apart, somehow dropping her lower. The Wolfram & Hart tower swam into sight. If this was a trip it was one hell of one. Kate's car was still parked several yards away. Didn't she know how to follow orders? Faith didn't, but she'd never been a cop.
Faith kicked her feet forward underneath her and dropped to the ground. She was gonna tear Kate a new one, and then she was gonna chew out Harm, and the bot, and...
"Holy shit guys, why did nobody ever tell me the Slayer could fly?"
They stood. They stared. Finally the distant sound of sirens broke the trance. "How many neighborhoods did you flash?" Kate blurted out, and dragged her into the car. Faith didn't fight her.
Lilah Morgan or not...it was a good day to live.