A/N: I'm back! I'm so sorry for the delay. I started my freshman year of college this fall, and time has been an issue. But I promise that I have no plans to abandon this fic, or any of my other WIPs. You can expect updates to Destiny and The Serena Chronicles in the near future as well! I hope you guys are still reading. If you are, please take a second to review, it would be great encouragement as I try to get my muses going again!

Chapter 26: Rescue Mission

"Hey, in here," Faith said, beckoning to Connor before entering a small café with a sign advertising free internet access. He hurried in behind her, slightly confused by what they were doing, and his concern for Dawn growing exponentially with every minute that passed.

He watched Faith sit down at an unoccupied computer along a row against the wall. "Looking up magic shops," she explained a little louder than necessary. Connor noticed several heads turn and give them disapproving looks.

"Hurry up," he muttered as her fingers punched the keys deliberately. He fidgeted as he waited, Faith slowly scrolling through a page of results.

"Looks like there's only one place in town that might have what we need." She hit a few more keys and soon a printer in the corner started whirring. She grabbed the sheet of paper as it came out and they hurried back outside to the street. "We just have one little problem."

"What?" Connor asked, agitated.

"This place is on the complete other side of town. Unless Dawn can wait until Christmas, we can't walk."

Connor groaned. "Do any buses run this time of night?"

She gave him a look. "I'm not exactly an expert on Roman public transportation. I have no idea, and aren't we in a little bit of a hurry to be waiting for a bus? What we really need is a car, but we don't exactly have one of those lying around."

Suddenly Connor had an idea. It was wrong on so many levels, but it was the only solution he could think of. "I know where we can get a car," he said quickly, heading off down the street with newfound purpose. Bewildered, Faith hurried after him.

"Is it illegal?" she asked with a tone of excitement that made Connor a little wary.

He considered that. "Extremely." She grinned wickedly as they sped down the street as fast as their legs would carry them.

Ten minutes later, Connor shielded his eyes and peered in the dark window of the garage at Rome Movers and Co.. "This is so wrong," he muttered to himself, visions of pink slips and a murderous Steve Goldberg dancing through his conscience.

"Hey, I'm proud of you. You're more of a rebel than I thought, never would have plugged you for the type to steal from your own employers," Faith said with new admiration. She stood back, examining the garage doors. "Piece of cake."

"Um, is it possible to do this, you know, without causing too much…destruction?" Connor said nervously. "Because once we…once we rescue Dawn, I plan to bring it back."

She nodded absently, eyeing the unmoving, heavy doors. Stepping back, she surveyed the rest of the building, before spotting something that made her eyes light up. "Bingo." She jerked her head towards the windows that surrounded the garage just below the roof. "Alarm system?" she asked.

"I think only in the offices, not the garage," Connor said, praying that he was right.

"Well then come on." Faith led him around the side of the building where they were less conspicuous, dragging a dumpster to a strategic location. "Follow me." She hopped up on top of the dumpster effortlessly. Squatting down, she sprung up high enough to grab hold of a large pipe that ran horizontally across the wall. Hoisting herself up with an impressive display of upper body strength, she raised herself so she was standing on the pipe, eye level with the window.

Connor copied her movements, pulling himself up next to her. Faith reached out to test one of the windows experimentally, and they both grinned when it swung inward. "Like they were waiting for us," she said slyly. As they swung themselves up and through the window, Connor thought to himself that for someone who was supposedly reformed, she seemed to enjoy this crime stuff an awful lot.

Once through the window, it was about a 30 foot drop to the top of the row of lockers beneath them. With only slight hesitation they both jumped, landing agilely as a deafening clang echoed through the garage from the impact of their weight on the metal. Connor winced, bracing himself for a second, but there wasn't a sound. The place was deserted for the night.

Hopping down from the lockers, he turned his eyes to what they had come for. Hurrying to the bulletin board where the keys hang he pulled a set off, heading for the nearest of the two moving vans. "Can you open the doors from the inside?" Faith asked, still glowing with excitement from their breaking-and-entering adventure.

"I think so," he said. He wasn't used to getting through the locks that his boss employed when closing up for the night, but he hoped they wouldn't be too much of a problem. Sure enough they were dead-bolted from the inside, but that could be dealt with easily enough. For some reason he found himself holding his breath as he pushed a button, the garage creaking loudly to life as the doors raised. "I'll leave the dead bolt off so we can bring it back," he called to Faith, hoping that no one took notice of the defenseless building and used the opportunity to rob the company blind. When the doors were open wide enough to let them through, the pair headed back to the van. "Do you drive?" he asked hesitantly.

"First time for everything," Faith said enthusiastically.

He sighed. "Forget I asked." He climbed in the driver's seat and started the van. Even though he had been behind the wheel a couple of times before, it had been a while. It was usually James that drove. Hoping that he remembered how to do everything correctly, he started the engine as Faith hopped in the passenger seat. Silently apologizing to his boss, he hit the gas and with a jerk the huge van roared to life and they sailed through the open doors. He stopped for a moment for Faith to get out and close the garage.

"Dude, you are so fired," she said with a laugh as she sat back down.

Connor gave her a stern look. "You're enjoying this way too much."

"It's been a while since I had a good break-and-enter. Even though that was a little lame, too easy," she complained.

He drove down the street just under the speed limit, his heart, which had already been beating a little faster than normal ever since Dawn had failed to show up for their date, now threatening to leap out of his chest. "Give it some gas, Grandma," Faith muttered.

"Sorry, but I don't really have time to get pulled over right now. Let's think about how that would look. I don't have a license. And we just stole a moving van from the place where I work. We won't do Dawn any good in jail," he shot at her.

Faith held up her hands. "Fine, do it your way." She handed him the sheet of paper she'd printed out earlier. Looking at it, he was relieved to see that it was from one of those directions websites that printed a map on the bottom. "I'm going to call Willow, so we know what to look for once we actually find this joint," she continued, pulling out Buffy's cell phone. Connor nodded, gripping the steering wheel and slowly accelerating, encouraged by the lack of traffic.

"Hey Willow? It's Faith…no, wait. It's about Dawn. Buffy asked me to call you." She quickly explained their situation. With his unnatural hearing Connor listened as Willow freaked out and asked a million questions, finally choosing to tune her out. His own worries were already nearly more than he could deal with. He distantly heard Faith muttering a list of ingredients to herself as Willow dictated instructions to her. She rummaged in the glove box until she found a pen, grabbing the directions back from Connor to scrawl some notes on the back.

Hang on, Dawn, Connor pleaded silently. He hated every bit of this plan. He had always detested magic. But unless Buffy and Gina were successful in the cemetery, it could be their only option. That was if the spell even worked. Neither he nor Faith knew much of anything about magic. Would sheer desperation be enough?

Faith continued to talk to Willow, jotting things down furiously and occasionally asking questions. Connor just continued to drive, the speedometer now hovering slightly above the legal limit.

"Okay, okay. You think we'll be able to do this?" Faith asked into the phone. Connor could not hear Willow's response, but he noticed Faith's grim expression out of the corner of his eye. "Well, just stay by the phone. We might need you. Hey, there it is!" Faith said suddenly, pointing to a small storefront they were about to pass. Connor slammed on the brakes, jerking the van into reverse to pull up to the curb in front of the shop. As he jumped out he realized with dread that the shop might be closed. Honestly, at this point he wasn't beyond breaking in to get what they needed. He had already stolen a van from his own employer, how much worse could it get?

"It's open!" Faith called triumphantly, throwing open the door and storming inside, Connor right on her heels. She glanced down at the hastily scribbled list she'd transcribed from Willow's instructions, then headed straight for the counter, where a small, mousy woman with purple hair and some kind of large pendant that looked vaguely occult-ish was reading a book. "We need this stuff," Faith said, zooming right past pleasantries as she shoved the list at the woman.

The woman blinked at Faith and Connor as if she'd never seen anything quite like them before examining the list. "I-I think we have everything." She moved with surprising speed from behind the counter, disappearing down an aisle. Connor stepped closer to a display, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the various magic paraphernalia that graced the shop. He felt so helpless relying on this garbage to save Dawn's life. I'd much rather be pummeling it out of something like Buffy and Gina, he thought enviously.

"Here," the woman said, emerging a few moments later with a small basket full of supplies. She placed it on the counter and began ringing the items up, one by one. "A locator spell, I see."

Faith and Connor looked at each other in surprise. "Maybe," Faith said suspiciously.

The purple-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Please. Tumbleweed, snakeskin, chrysalis? That will be twenty-six fifty nine," she said dryly. Connor froze for a second, wondering if he had remembered to bring his wallet in his haste, but thankfully it was right there in his pocket. He pulled out some of the money he had been intending to spend on his dinner with Dawn, handing it to the woman.

"Do y'all know what you're doing? Locator spells are fairly advanced magic," she said ominously.

"We have good instructions," Faith said quickly, taking the bag of ingredients off the counter.

"The spell is very sensitive. I've found that it helps if the casters are entirely focused on what is lost. The stronger the will, the easier it will be to harness the magic." She stared straight at Connor as she said this, and he had the odd sensation that she was looking right through him.

"Um, okay. Thanks," he said, unable to leave the store fast enough. He could still feel the clerk's eyes watching him through the window as they exited the store and climbed back into the van. "I don't like this," he said for the twentieth time as he started the engine.

"Just drive somewhere quiet where we can do the spell," Faith demanded. "Look, I'd much rather be kicking the crap out of something right now too, but for now this is what we've got. Deal with it." He opened his mouth to retaliate, but nothing came out, so he just clamped it shut and pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence for about a minute before Faith pointed out the window. "Turn here." He obeyed, maneuvering the van into an abandoned alleyway. He slowly braked until the vehicle came to a stop. Opening the door, he got out and looked around. No signs of life.

"We're going to do it right here," Faith called to him, climbing over the seat into the back of the van that was usually used for transporting furniture. After taking one last look around he opened the back door and joined her, pulling it closed behind him. Faith was crouching on the floor of the van, laying out the spell ingredients in front of her, the crumpled sheet with Willow's instructions in the center.

Connor sat down across from her. "What can I do?"

"That piece of Dawn's sweater. Do you still have it?" Faith asked.

"Yeah, it's right here," Connor said, gingerly removing the black swatch of fabric from his pocket.

Faith unrolled the map of the city that the magic shop had inexplicably had in stock, spreading it out between them. "These spells must be popular if they sell maps in a magic shop," she muttered.

"Okay, now what?" Connor said impatiently.

Faith examined her instructions. "I think we have to mix this stuff up," she said, gesturing to the array of ingredients.

"You think?" Connor exclaimed.

"Just mix!" she said, shoving a few bags of unidentifiable substances towards him. He glared at her before opening the largest bag and pouring the contents of the others inside. He assumed that this type of thing would generally be done in a bowl, but they would just have to be resourceful. He tried to stir the ingredients as best he could.

"Okay, now Willow said we have to say this incantation and pour this…stuff over the map, and it should show us where Dawn is."

"What do we do with this?" He gestured to the piece of sweater.

"She said that we should both touch it before we start to…focus our energy, or something like that," Faith said, the skepticism evident in her voice. She sat back, examining their set-up. "Are you ready?"

"Here goes nothing," he muttered. He fingered the piece of sweater before passing it to Faith, who did the same. Then she set the piece of fabric off to the side.

"Do you want to read it or should I?" she asked.

Connor blinked. "Um…you should do it."

"I feel like we should hold hands or something," Faith commented. Connor raised an eyebrow. "To, you know, combine our energy, dumbass. You really think I'd come onto you at a time like this?" Glaring at her, Connor reached across the map and took her hands in his awkwardly.

"So you read the thing, and then we pour this stuff on the map?" he asked, feeling completely ridiculous.

"Yeah, I guess so. Okay, try to focus." She paused. "To light the aura of the lost, help us find she that we seek. Skin of snake and chrysalis too, take these offerings and light the way. Take this, oh spirit, and my spell is done." Glancing at Connor, they separated their hands and picked up the bag together, gently pouring the sandy mixture over the map. Neither one spoke or even breathed as they waited for something to happen.

"This isn't-" Connor started to protest, but Faith held up a hand to silence him, her eyes wide as they stared at something on the map. He followed her gaze and sure enough, there was a tiny light gleaming at one point on the map. It was small, but it was bright and strong.

"Holy crap, it actually worked," Faith said in disbelief.

Connor scrambled around to the other side to see where the light was pointing. "She's across town, in one of those old warehouses. Dammit, I wish this map was more detailed."

"Hey, it's more than we had before, we know where to go now," Faith reassured him. They continued to stare at the light until it flickered out, signaling that the spell had worn off. "Well, chalk one up for Red and her mojo."

Connor was already halfway to the front seat. "Call Buffy and Gina. If they're close we can pick them up on our way to the warehouse."

Faith quickly tossed the spell supplies into the bag and pulled out the cell phone, moving towards the front as Connor started the engine. He pulled away from the curb, adrenaline rushing through his veins. "Just hang on, Dawn. I'm coming. Just hang on," he said.

"Where's a freaking vampire when you need one," Buffy muttered, walking slowly through a cemetery with Gina by her side. This was the third graveyard they'd visited, and they had yet to see a single vampire or demon that could possibly know anything about Dawn.

Gina looked anxious. "Do you think Connor and Faith's spell worked?"

"If it did, they'll call. But in the meantime we have to assume it didn't." Honestly, Buffy didn't have a lot of confidence in the unlikely duo's magical abilities, despite the fact that they could call Willow for guidance. Although Connor was very open about how much he loathed magic, maybe his desperation would be enough to make the spell work. But she was not leaving her sister's survival up to a longshot spell performed by two nonbelievers with virtually no magic experience. No, pummeling information out of something was a tried and true method that had led her to very favorable results in the past. All she needed now was something to pummel.

"Buffy!" Gina hissed suddenly, gripping her arm and pulling her down behind the nearest mausoleum. She pointed to where a vampire was stalking between the graves, his head down. Buffy gestured with her hands so that Gina would know what she had in mind. The young slayer nodded, and they took off in opposite directions. As Buffy ran up behind the vampire, he whirled and lashed out at her. Buffy easily ducked to avoid the blow while Gina tackled the distracted vampire from behind, pinning him to the ground.

"Oww, what the 'ell? I wasn't botherin' no one!" the vampire said in a thick Irish accent. A wave of nostalgia swam over Buffy as she immediately thought of another Irish vampire she knew, but she fought it and quickly focused back on the task at hand.

"We need information. Tell us what you know and we'll let you go," she said. Gina gave her a startled look that Buffy responded to with a fierce gaze. "Do you know of any rituals or plots that might be going down tonight involving a girl?"

"A girl? What are ya talkin' about?" Buffy nodded and Gina jammed her knee into the vampire's neck, causing him to yell out in pain. "Alright, alright! Maybe I did hear o' somethin."

Buffy squatted on the ground. "What did you hear?"

"A few other vamps, they was talkin' about raising a demon. Don't know which one, just that it's real powerful. They mentioned a ritual, I swear I didn't hear nothin' about no girl, though!"

"Do you know where this ritual was going down?" Buffy demanded.

"No, no clue. I'm sorry, that's all I know!"

"Buffy, my phone's vibrating," Gina said suddenly, nodding her head towards her jacket pocket without loosening her grip on the vampire. Buffy reached into the other girl's pocket, removing the phone and flipping it open.

"The spell worked, we know where she is," Faith said immediately. "Where are you?"

"We're in the cemetery on Spinta Rosa," Buffy said, naming the street. She heard Faith say something to Connor, who said something back. "Okay, he says we'll be there in five minutes."

"Wait, are you in a car?" Buffy asked, hearing the faint sound of an engine in the background.

"Long story. Be ready." They hung up, and Buffy turned back to Gina, who was wrestling with the vampire as he tried to break loose.

"Get up," she said to Gina. The Italian girl hesitated before obeying, leaving the vampire to scramble to his feet excitedly. He didn't get very far in his escape, since Buffy grabbed his collar as he stood, jabbing a stake through his heart. He barely had a chance to look surprised before he turned to dust.

Gina looked relieved. "I didn't know what you were talking about when you said we'd let him go," she commented as she brushed off her pants.

"That was Faith, the spell worked and they know where Dawn is. They're going to pick us up in a couple of minutes."

Gina's eyes lit up. "Oh, thank goodness! Wait…what do you mean 'pick us up'?"

"Apparently they're in a car. I don't even want to know," Buffy muttered, starting to think that perhaps sending Faith and Connor off unsupervised was not the brightest idea. "Come on, if we go to the road we'll be able to see them when they get here." They hurried back across the cemetery, following the light from the streetlamps on the road.

"You think this ritual is where Dawn is?" Gina asked nervously.

"Yeah, I do," Buffy said grimly.

Just as they reached the street a large moving van came careening around the corner. As it screeched to a halt in front of them Buffy noted the Rome Movers and Co. logo on the side with dismay, but decided not to question it. At the moment, all that mattered was Dawn. The back door of the van creaked open and Faith yelled for them to get in. Buffy and Gina jumped up into the van, and Connor was accelerating before they could even shut the door.

"Tell me what you know," Buffy demanded as soon as they were safely inside. Faith turned sideways in the passenger seat so that she could face Buffy and Gina.

"We did the locator spell, and it showed that Dawn is in a warehouse across town. Did you find out anything?"

"The one vamp we found didn't know much, but he did mention a ritual going down tonight, a raising of some demon. Probably why they're in a warehouse. How far?" Buffy asked impatiently.

"Ten minutes," Connor said tightly. Looking at him, Buffy noted that he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. She was surprised it hadn't come off in his hands by now. Buffy closed her eyes for a second, praying that they wouldn't be too late.

"Where did you get this car?" Gina asked, breaking the tense silence.

"You saw the logo. Where do you think we got it?" Faith chuckled under her breath. "Hey, believe it or not it was all his idea."

They were on a main road now where there was actually a little bit of traffic, despite the late hour. Connor groaned angrily when he was forced to stop at a red light. As Buffy watched his eyes gleam with impatience and his hands clench the steering wheel, the resemblance to Angel at his most frustrated nearly made her shiver. Sometimes the similarities between father and son were downright eerie.

The light turned green and Buffy fell backwards as Connor pushed the gas pedal to the floor. She caught herself with a hand, using the other to steady Gina. The young slayer's eyes were wide, and Buffy knew she was scared. Gina had never seen Connor this angry, or been faced with a life-or-death situation involving one of her friends. Unfortunately, Buffy was no stranger to this.

Not that it made it any easier.

"We're almost there," Connor practically growled.

Buffy checked her pockets for weapons. "Okay, I don't know what we're going to find when we get there. But the most important thing is to get to Dawn. Kill anything that gets in your way…anything that's not human," she quickly added, glancing at Faith and remembering the time years ago when Faith's overzealousness had led them both down a very dark road.

"What if they already did this ritual? What could we be up against?" Faith asked.

"All the vamp in the cemetery said was that it's something really powerful. We're just going to have to figure this one out as we go along," Buffy responded grimly. They were in a much quieter part of town now, with narrower roads and fewer streetlights to guide their way. "Do you guys know which warehouse she's in? Isn't there a bunch of them?" Sure enough, Connor rounded a corner to reveal a road lined completely with warehouses on both sides.

"Shit, it was hard to tell specifics from that map," Faith muttered.

"There," Connor cried suddenly. He accelerated to a frightening speed, zooming towards a warehouse straight ahead at the far end of the street. Buffy opened her mouth to question what he was doing before she thought better of it. She had underestimated Connor's connection to her sister before. She knew that if she was the one being held captive, Angel would somehow know where to find her.

"Connor, slow down, what the hell," Faith yelled suddenly. Snapping out of her thoughts, Buffy noticed with a start that the huge wooden doors of the warehouse were looming closer and closer, and Connor's foot was nowhere near the brake. She realized what he was doing only a second before he drove straight into the building with a crash as the doors shattered around them. Someone screamed, and Buffy and Gina were both thrown backwards by the impact, sliding across the floor of the van until they hit the back doors. The ear-splitting squeal of brakes filled the air as they skidded to a stop.

Barely stopping to think, the four of them tumbled out of the van, getting the first look at the scene that awaited them.

About a dozen pissed off vampires, looking utterly shocked at what had just occurred, were staring at them and yelling. They were all gathered around a swirling column of light…and on the floor in the center of it was Dawn, sitting motionless with her arms above her head in shackles and her head slumped over.

"Dawn!" Connor shouted, breaking into a run. Immediately about half of the vampires moved to block his path, but he easily threw them to the side, with help from the three slayers. Buffy, Faith, and Gina successfully drew the vampires back away from the column of light, each taking on about four of them at once.

Connor reached Dawn and fell to his knees, his heart stopping when he realized that there was blood dripping from deep gashes on her raised arms. She was sitting on some sort of crudely drawn seal from which the column of light was rising and crackling. "Dawn, I'm here, please talk to me," he begged, raising her head and feeling her neck for a pulse. After a few agonizing seconds he located it. It was weak, but there. Barely allowing himself a sigh of relief, he turned his attention to undoing her bonds. The shackles that held her arms were made of heavy metal, and the only weapon he had on him, a stake, would be useless against them. He made a futile attempt to rip them apart with his bare hands, but failed.

"Connor!" He turned just in time to see Buffy throwing him an axe from the bag of weapons he had forgotten she had. He caught it swiftly with one hand and took a swing at the metal chains, which broke on the third try. Dawn crumpled to the floor; he tossed the axe aside and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her away from the swirling light before laying her down to assess the damage. She was unconscious, and her arms bore matching vertical slashes that were at least five inches long each. The blood blended into her red dress, but from the lack of color in her cheeks he knew that she had lost quite a lot of it. He peeled off his jacket and pressed it on the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Come on, Dawn. Please, I'm here now, wake up." He glanced around frantically. Buffy, Gina, and Faith were heavily engaged in combat with the vampires. His first thought was to take Dawn to the van and drive her straight to the hospital, but he was hesitant to abandon the others, even though he knew Buffy would tell him to go. Connor reached down and touched Dawn's cheek. "You're so pale. Please, can you hear me? Come back to me," he begged, wrapping her bleeding arms in his jacket as tightly as he could.

Her eyelids fluttered and he nearly sobbed with joy. "Dawn! Dawn," he said encouragingly.

"C-Connor?" she moaned weakly, struggling to open her eyes. "I…I knew you'd come…" her eyes began to close again.

"No! You have to stay awake Dawn, okay? Look, I'm going to get you out of here, we're going to get you to the hospital and you're going to be fine," Connor said firmly, not wanting her to pass out again.

"The d-demon…we need to g-get out of here…raised…" she muttered somewhat incoherently.

Connor glanced nervously at the crackling column of light. He didn't know the specifics of the ritual, but it was very possible that the seal had already received enough of Dawn's blood for the demon to rise. He looked up to see how the slayers were doing. The vampires' numbers seemed to have shrunk by a few, but the three women were still heavily engaged in battle. The van. I need to get her to the van. "Okay, I'm going to pick you up. Everything's going to be fine," he said soothingly. He scooped her up gingerly in his arms and she leaned into him. Connor ran swiftly around the battle to the back doors of the van, laying Dawn down on the floor inside.

"Connor! Go, take Dawn and go, we've got this," Buffy yelled to him as she ducked a punch from one of the vampires.

He looked into the van frantically, trying to determine the best way to transport Dawn. If he simply left her laying on the floor, she could slide around as he drove. I'm going to have to put her in the passenger seat, he decided.

But before he could take action, a sound of an explosion erupted from the center of the warehouse. Stepping to the side to look, Connor realized with dread that the column of light had disappeared, and in its place was a very large demon. It had dark red skin and two gleaming holes where its eyes should be, and it was roaring at the top of its lungs. Connor swore under his breath.

"Connor? What's wrong?" Dawn cried faintly, trying to open her eyes.

He dashed back to her side, grabbing one of her hands. "It's the demon. I need to go help Buffy and the others. Just stay here. I'm going to kill it and then I'll be right back, and we're going to get you some help." He leaned in and kissed her pale lips. "I love you." Before she could respond he was off and running towards the action.

Faith had picked up the axe Connor had used to free Dawn from her shackles, and she was running at the demon with it. All but five of the vampires had been dusted, and Buffy and Gina were rotating back to back in a circle trying to finish them off. Looking more carefully at the demon, Connor realized that it had long spikes where its fingers should be. The entire warehouse shook as it took giant steps towards Faith. Connor reached her side just in time, suddenly wishing he had a weapon other than a stake. As the demon bore down upon them, he thought fast and drove the stake straight through the creature's foot. The thing let out a horrible roar of pain as it swayed.

"Great job, now it's really pissed off!" Faith yelled at him. "What are you doing, get Dawn out of here. I've got this!"

"Faith, be careful!" he yelled as she ran forward wielding the axe. She screamed something to get the demon's attention, and as it swung around she threw the axe in a perfect, spinning arc through the air. The blade landed in the center of the demon's face and it fell backwards with a horrible shriek. Faith found Connor's eyes, smiling triumphantly. "See? I-"

"NO!" Connor screamed in horror as a vampire appeared from out of nowhere and snapped Faith's neck mid-sentence. He watched, frozen, as her lifeless body crumpled to the ground. He heard an anguished scream from somewhere behind him as Buffy and Gina realized what had happened.

"For Condannare!" the vampire who killed Faith bellowed.

When he could move again, Connor charged at the vampire, blinded by rage. "You son of a bitch!" he roared, pulling his back-up stake out of his jacket and driving it into the vampire's chest with more venom than ever before. As Faith's killer turned to dust, he stood there motionless, willing himself not to look at the fallen slayer at his feet.

"Connor! A little help!" Buffy called to him, her voice oddly strained. Forcing himself to snap out of it, he ran over to where Buffy and Gina had the group of vampires down to three. He quickly finished off two of them with barely a thought, and Buffy dusted the third. Then it was only the three of them left standing. Buffy's eyes met Connor's and he saw his own shock and grief reflected back at him.

"What happened," Buffy half-whispered, the vast warehouse now eerily silent.

"She killed the demon…and a vampire came up behind her. I didn't even see it until it was too late," Connor confessed.

"It was my fault. I was fighting him, I let him out of my sight," Gina said, tears streaming down her face.

Connor shook his head firmly. "No. It was not your fault. She just let her guard down for a second, and…" his voice trailed off. They stood there in a moment of silent mourning.

"Are you sure it's dead?" Buffy asked with watery eyes, gesturing to the demon.

Connor turned and walked toward it slowly. He pulled the bloody axe from its head and, just to be safe, cut off the demon's head with one swift blow. "Yeah." He held the axe in his hands, the last weapon Faith had ever used.

Dawn. In all of the chaos, he had almost forgotten that she was still in the van. He sprinted towards the stolen vehicle, still clutching the axe. His heart sank when he saw that Dawn's eyes were closed again. Once again feeling desperately for a pulse, he was relieved to detect the faint throbbing, still present. He darted back around the truck, calling for Buffy and Gina. "Dawn's weak, she lost a lot of blood. We need to get her to the hospital now."

Buffy was kneeling beside Faith, and Connor watched as she closed the eyes of her fellow slayer. Rising, Buffy turned to him. "Come help me. We can't leave her here. Gina, get in the van with Dawn." The tear-streaked Italian girl nodded feebly.

Together, Connor and Buffy carried Faith's body to the van. Gina let out a strangled sob as they loaded Faith in next to Dawn, with no other place to put her. "Gina, go sit in front, I'll stay with Dawn. Connor, drive to the hospital." They obeyed without argument, relieved to have someone else take charge. As Connor started the ignition, Buffy knelt beside her sister, examining her wounds and talking to her quietly. Connor turned the van around and drove out through the hole they had created earlier, no one saying a word as they drove through the dark streets of Rome to the hospital.

TBC! Please review!