Imhotep's Key Chapter 11
By Joseph Black
Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and Characters. Joss Whedon owns Buffy and Characters. If you recognize any other character they belong to their respective owners. Original characters belong to me. I make no profit off the following except to have a little fun.
Spoilers: Buffy to present. Rainbow to Bear and the Dragon.
Authors note 1: I am adjusting the Buffy time line slightly, this fic starts just after "Never Leave Me", moving things back about a month.
Authors note 2: I can't seem to get Fanfic to except my special formatting. So anytime you see this ' anything inside is in a foreign language. And if you see this it's some ones thoughts.
Authors note 3: This is a continuation of the story started in 'Rainbow Over Sunnydale'. It would be helpful to read that fic first.
Thanks to all that reviewed. Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully ignored.
Notes to Reviewers:
nascar girl: Welcome aboard, and thanks for the reviews. Sorry for the length between updates. Work has been busy. As far as which Jack I'm using he would probably be closer to the Alec Baldwin than Harrison Ford.
Harry: You're at the top of the first hill of a roller coaster and the ride is about to start.
Jo: Thanks, you do have a good idea with the Turak hans, plus there are some demons out there that guns just don't work on. Some of those will be raising their ugly heads too.
JA Baker: Thanks for the warning, all I can do is ask you to trust me when I say that anyone I introduced I've worked out why they are there. There will only be one story with gratuitous and it will mostly be for fun.
JohnH: I don't know if Whedon vamps have a problem with garlic, or if they do it would prob have to do with the smell rather than any type of a reaction to it. Still good idea.
Paladin Steelbreaker: Thanks for your review. I have taken your suggestion and will put the abbreviations from that chapter at the start of it. Sorry to all who were confused. I wish I could claim credit for the documents that hide themselves but I read that somewhere, can't remember the source but it wasn't me. And yes I am planning some fun as Hank finds out about the goings on in Sunnydale.
rickW22: Thank you for the review. As I am able.
Dorothy: Hmm you're right; I will have to do a Giles/Hank moment. Have to start thinking on it.
raven: For Deputy Mayor Fisk yes. She also killed a vulcanologist on the Mayor's order so she's still on the hook for that.
Allen Pitt: I always wondered if the actor wasn't available for some reason when they were filming those scenes, or if Whedon was planning ahead for Buffy's death to give him an excuse for Dawn to stay in Sunnydale. After all if Hank was in the picture Dawn would have went with him after Joyce's death. As far as Angel goes there will be some changes, I'm still working on which ones.
Antonio Cabaas: How Eddington knows will be explained this chapter.
Antonio: Yes he will find out about that stuff, but given the circumstances I think he won't give much credence to it. It will be a while, but with the catch line, "From beneath you it devours," how could I resist?
John: IVIS is "Individual Vehicle Information System," It's something that Clancy has the US Army equipped with that allows all vehicles in a battle share information. So that means that everyone knows what's going on and allows them to anticipate what's about to happen. General Billingsly will be putting in an appearance this chapter.
HecatonchiresLM: It starts in earnest this chapter.
thecynic: oops, I was just going by the UNC website and saw that they had a campus in Raleigh so jumped to unfortunate conclusion. Glad you are enjoying it.
ED: As often as I am able.
HolyKnight: Don't you mean, 'Yippee Ki Yay……?'
Shadow Master: Thanks for the reviews. Hadn't really considered the McClanes offspring as potentials, could add a interesting twist. Yeah I think Buffy and John would get along pretty good. Though McClane could use a little of Buffy's healing abilities though.
warren: Most will be explained!
Abbreviations:
NTC: National Training Center. This is Fort Irwin, which is located about 50 miles north east of Sunnydale. This is the Army's version of Top Gun. Units are sent here to operate against the in house unit called the OpFor, or Opposition Force. This unit uses equipment designed to look like old Soviet equipment and to use their tactics. It is the toughest training school the Army has. Soldiers that went through NTC and then were deployed to Desert Storm said that except for the live ammo NTC was much harder than actual combat.
MAW: Medium Anti-tank Weapon. The replacement for the LAW, or Light Anti-tank Weapon, it is much larger and not collapsible. The tube is about three feet long and has hex shaped flaring at the ends of the muzzle. It is much more powerful than it's predecessor also.
Fic Starts HereRD 4
Outside of Sunnydale CA
29Oct2002
1455 hrs
Andre De Vries smoothed out his robes as Peter Lanford, his apprentice, stood beside the door looking out through the drapes. De Vries was a tall man with a Van Dyke style salt and pepper beard. His hair was pure black; something his hair stylist knew had more to do with dye than nature. He had piercing blue eyes and a penetrating stare, which he practiced daily in front of a mirror.
"One car, Master," Lanford told him.
"See Peter, I told you it would work, and with only four hounds no one will suspect that Andre' De Vries had anything to do with it."
"How do you know he has the ring?" Peter asked, eyes narrowing as he recognized the blonde head that got out of the other side of the car.
"Simple, if he didn't have it he would have brought his whole squad, plus the SWAT team to this meeting. If he thought I had anything to do with the hounds he would have representatives of the Wizards Council with him. They wouldn't be caught dead traveling by car, so he has the ring."
Peter turned to his Master, "O'Connell might be a little braver if he brought the Slayer with him."
De Vries waved off the comment, "He's spent the last four years avoiding Buffy Summers, why would he go to her for this?"
"You can ask them yourself, she's here with him."
"WHAT?!?!?!" De Vries roared!
Unknown
29Oct2002
Unknown
"Zeus," The tenor voice said into the phone.
"This is.." the person on the other side of the phone began.
"Code name," Zeus said sharply into the phone.
"What? Oh…, this is Paris," the slightly flustered voice on the other end of the line said.
"What can I do for you? This is not your normal check in time."
"You're damn right it's not, but if I wait there won't be time to stop that bastard Ryan."
"From doing?"
"Doing? That son-of-a-bitch is going to cost me my Senate seat. I've slipped four points in the polls since he's started his non-campaign for Burton and my internal analysts are telling me that it's not going to get any better. If you don't help I'm going to be out of the Senate and I won't be able to help you to stop him anymore."
"Paris, you need to relax. You can't go by polling data, come Election Day I'm sure that your constituents will remember the many years of loyal service you have given and will return you to office. Tipping our hand now by overtly aiding you is probably exactly what Ryan wants. You need to relax, things will work out. I'll look and see if there is anything we can do subtly."
"I don't need subtle at this point," The man code named Paris snarled. I've done everything you've asked me, you owe me. I'm calling in the marker."
"Very well, we'll be in touch," Zeus agreed.
Major General Thomas Billingsly glanced up at his aide as he replaced the receiver, "Senator Kincaid is nervous about his race."
Captain
Carl Iverson, General Billingsly aide de camp nodded, "He should be. I've talked to some of political annalists
that we use. They say come next
Wednesday Senator Kincaid will be checking the want ads."
"I think it would be better if I read of the Senator in the obituaries
instead," Billingsly said calmly starting to go through papers on his desk.
"I'll arrange it sir," Iverson confirmed.
Professor Nicholas Eddington's house
1234 Mangrove Drive
Raleigh NC
29Oct2002
1320 hrs
Diggs looked at Eddington with hooded eyes, "Exactly how and what do you know about that?"
Eddington winced having his question confirmed, "When we were going to go through NTC the first time I found my Mother's Mother on my front porch one morning about a week before we left. She was going on eighty and had never been more than ten miles from where she had been born, but there she was rocking in my chair calmly smoking her pipe.
"Nicholas," she said, "You are going out into a dangerous area, you need to know what is out there. She then went on and explained about the Hellmouth and what lives on it."
"And you took this seriously because?" Diggs asked.
"My mom's family, to put it politely, are hillbillies. She got out of there as quickly as she could and mostly never looked back. My gram was the one exception, mom always stayed in touch and did what she could, so I grew up spending my summers up at Gramma's place."
"Okay, not seeing the relation between her and you taking her warning seriously," Diggs said, trying to be polite.
"Just letting you know that I knew her, because otherwise you'd just snort at the next part. She had the sight, she was also a witch."
Two days ago Marion Diggs would have dismissed that statement out of hand, now he found himself considering it. "So she saw you getting into trouble?"
Eddington shook his head and reached for an orange, "She just saw were I was headed. I had no plans on going off of base anyway, so it wasn't much of an inconvenience. I did talk to my battalion commanders and suggested that they should pass down the chain that on our weekend off if anyone wanted to go into town that San Bernardino was as far as they should go. I didn't make it an order, just a strong suggestion. Unfortunately we had three NCOs that didn't take the hint and decided that if Sunnydale was off limits then it must be a lively town."
"Old enough to know better, but too young to care?" Diggs said as he reached for his own orange. "What happened to them?"
"They disappeared, their rental was found in a club parking lot, but no trace of them turned up, for four months," Eddington finished quietly.
"Did you ever find out what happened?" Diggs asked as he peeled his orange.
Eddington nodded, "A cousin's family was wiped out when their farm house burned down one night. It was quite a blow because the guy's family had just had a memorial service for the missing man a week before. I didn't think much of it till a close family friend of one of the other guys house burned three days later, that family was wiped out too. The first victims place was about as far west in the county that you could go, and the next victims were just east of that. I talked to Gram and she confirmed that it was likely that our missing soldiers had been turned into vampires and was working their way through relations."
The orange forgotten Diggs was giving Eddington his full attention, "What did you do?"
"I got the company the NCOs belonged to together and explained about vampires and what I thought was going on. From what I could tell on the map there were three potential families that they could strike at next so we split up into three groups and staked each of the potentials out. My group got lucky.
"I'd managed to convince the owners to let me answer the door. When I opened it there stood Sgt. John Tollings, one of my missing noncoms; when I invited him in and he couldn't cross the threshold I really believed." Eddington gave Diggs a wry smile, "I know, I dragged a National Guard Company out for something I really didn't believe in. All I can say is faith is a funny thing.
"I had a platoon backing me up and we had jury rigged a flame thrower so we just toasted them then and there. Those of us involved had a memorial service for them; Granny let us put a marker up on her land. As far as I know members of their unit still go up and tend the graves."
Diggs started separating the orange into segments thinking. "I don't suppose your Grandmother is still alive is she? We could use someone with magical knowledge for this."
Eddington shook his head, "No, she passed on three years ago. No one else in the family is a witch right now, but I have a niece who is a sensitive and is fairly knowledgeable on occult matters."
"Think she might be interested in a job?"
RD 4
Outside of Sunnydale CA
29Oct2002
1505 hrs
Buffy found it a little surreal, Andre' De Vries had met them in the front hall of his home, a rather impressive affair that sat about a half mile off of State Road 46, about three miles from where they had rescued Sandra and her kids. The house had three floors; an eight-foot high wall topped with spikes surrounded it. The front yard was about four times the size of Buffy's whole lot and was meticulously landscaped. Buffy thought it was a bit vain, after all who would see? The inside of the house was as impressive as the outside, but there was something about the aura of the place that just grated on Buffy at a low level. While Buffy could see that De Vries had dressed to impress with his black robes, upon seeing him she thought he should have taken some lessons from the Mayor in dealing with people. After he had fawned over her hand explaining that he was happy to finally meet her she had to resist the urge to get her hand de-greased.
He led them into his study and sent his assistant for tea. De Vries continued in the vein of the conversation in the vestibule with Buffy making uh-huh, and vague affirmatives at the appropriate places while she studied the room she was in. It was on two floors with a spiral staircase in one corner that lead to a balcony that went around the whole room. The walls of both floors of the room were lined with bookshelves, except for one wall that had a huge flat panel tv. To a limited extent it reminded Buffy of the old high school library with the large number of old books. But there was something off about this room too, like just breathing the air was leaving a chalky feeling in her throat. Glad Willow didn't get loose in here last May, Buffy thought to herself.
Peter showed up and poured the tea and they all sat and sipped for about five minutes when finally De Vries put his cup down and asked, "Lieutenant, since you haven't offered it I assume you have not located my ring?"
"No sir," O'Connell said tensing slightly. "I've put the word out in both worlds so if someone tries to hock it locally I'll know. I assumed that you've contacted the AFW to put the word out nationally. I'm afraid though that whoever took it might already have a buyer for it."
"I doubt that seriously Lieutenant, the ring only had sentimental value to me, I find it hard to believe someone would want it bad enough to send a thief in after it." De Vries remarked.
"AFW?" Buffy asked trying to keep up with the conversation.
De Vries actually looked shocked, "The American Federation of Wizards? I would think that would have been covered in your training."
"Weelll," Buffy began, "You might say I'm a free range Slayer."
"You haven't been trained?" De Vries managed to strangle out, "All you've accomplished and you, you, you…., weren't?"
Buffy managed to look bashful when she shrugged.
De Vries slumped back in his chair. O'Connell leaned forward in his chair not giving the head of the School Board a chance to recover stated, "I brought Ms. Summers along because she had an encounter with a pack of shadow hounds on Saturday. Since you are the AFW's chief representative in the area you need to start an investigation."
"Shadow Hounds? Here?" De Vries asked, looking back and forth between his visitors. How many?"
"Four," Buffy replied.
Peter Lanford snorted.
Both O'Connell and Buffy turned to look at the assistant were he sat beside the door in case his master needed anything. "You're dealing with a dabbler, I'm not all that powerful, but I'd get six at least if I cast it. Probably someone in the park was the target."
De Vries nodded agreeing with his apprentice, "This would be the wild dog episode that I read about?"
Buffy nodded, "They were over in the national park. The hounds jumped two hunters. One was killed; the other managed to get away initially. He ran through a camp and helped the family into trees. Thanks to him they made it, but he was killed before he could save himself."
"Shocking," De Vries said as he shook his head, "Perhaps one of the anti-hunting groups over at the University were responsible. They could have given the hounds an order to go to the mountains and kill hunters."
"Doubt it," O'Connell stated flatly, "If the hounds had been set on hunters then after they killed the second hunter they would have gone back to where ever they come from. That they stuck around could be an indication that they had lost whatever they had been sent after and had gone feral."
De 'Vries thought on it awhile, "You could be right. Or it might be that the family had enemies and the hunters got in the way. Peter? Please contact the Council and report this. Inform them we have started an investigation and will keep them updated." Lanford just nodded and made a note in a small book that he produced from a pocket. "While have enjoyed this meeting, I'm afraid that I have some prior commitments so I must wish you a good day. Peter will show you out," De Vries said dismissing O'Connell and Buffy.
They rode in silence till they hit the main road back to town, then Buffy said, "How many wizards are living around here?"
O'Connell shrugged, "Counting those two? About a dozen, four are on the school board, the rest are either here for the ambiance, or because they are doing research on the Hellmouth."
"I don't understand how we could have missed all of this," Buffy said in exasperation.
O'Connell chuckled, "That's not a hard one."
O'Connell became uncomfortably aware of a pair of hazel eyes glaring at him intensely from the seat next to him all but ordering him to continue.
"It's just that when it comes to things supernatural Buffy your approach is like a whack-a-mole game." The glare intensified.
He shrugged, "That's what your approach reminds me of. You are a world champion player though Buffy."
"It works," Buffy said defensively.
"Never said it didn't. I've assumed that it must have something to do with the way Giles was trained. Meredith, my sister theorized that they council must have had access to some pretty good seers that could point to were the Slayer would be needed. They came to rely on that and never developed modern intelligence practices. I guess it makes sense, if you have a system that works, don't fix it. Which about sums up how you do things."
Buff became quiet again as she considered what O'Connell had just told her. After another couple of minutes of silence Buffy started asking questions about the AFW. O'Connell gave her a broad overview of it. O'Connell had an in with the New Orleans representative promised to contact him and find out what he could about the ritual that would summon the hounds. By the time they had that done they were back at the school parking lot and Buffy got out and went to her car. O'Connell drove home and found Mendi sitting on the front porch waiting for him. As he went up to the porch Mendi pulled a bottle of Corona out of the cooler at his feet and popped the top. He reached into the cooler again and came up with a wedge of lime, which he placed into the mouth of the bottle and handed it to his boss as he topped the stair.
"Figured you could use one after the meet. To much to hope that the Slayer took one look at De Vries and solved all our problems?"
O'Connell squeezed the lime into the bottle then took a healthy swig. Shaking his head, "I don't think she liked him much and that act of his didn't fool her for a second. But he was still in one piece when we left."
Mendi frowned, "Dang," taking a drink out of his own bottle. "He say anything about those hounds?"
"He'll investigate it," O'Connell said. Looking around he noticed a group of Mediterranean types walking down the street eyeing his house.
Mendi snorted, "Investigate? Hell, he probably summoned them."
"Doesn't work that way. When the spell is cast, the power level of the mage determines how big of a pack shows up. You can't fudge it. I'm going to have to confirm Lanford's rating. If he does rate six then both of them are off the hook and we got a problem. I had something similar happen down in New Orleans, this drug lord was using them to guard his stash and they got loose. Not fun."
The Mediterranean types reached the end of his walk and turned in, "Mendi? Go inside."
Mendi came off of his chair and said, "You sure boss?"
"Go."
Mendi went in, O'Connell knew him well enough to know that he was heading down stairs to the gun cabinet.
The five men that stopped at the bottom of the steps looked enough alike to be relatives, they were all around six feet tall, slim, but with good muscle tone. They all had black hair, though it was longer on some than others. The leader had a goatee, the others full beards. The one in the front looked up and smiled, there was something familiar about that smile.
"I am a stranger from the east, I seek what is lost," he said.
"I'm a stranger from the west, it is I that you seek," O'Connell replied.
"You only inside," O'Connell ordered the apparent leader as he turned and went in, not really paying attention if the man followed or not. When he reached his study he waited for the stranger to get there then waved him in and into a seat. O'Connell went around his desk and opening a drawer pulled a portable florescent light out of it. "Close your eyes," he suggested to the other. When he did O'Connell turned the black light on and ran the light over the man's face. The facial tattoos of a Medji warrior blazed to life. The man opened his eyes and smiling said, "You don't recognize me do you?"
O'Connell studied the man before him and then a smile of his own came to his lips, "Ahmed?"
"It is good to see you, old friend."
O'Connell gathered the man into a rib cracking hug and pounding him on the back said, "God! It's good to see you!"
A thought suddenly bloomed in O'Connell's mind, taking a step back he asked, "You're not here on vacation are you."
His smile turning somewhat sad Ahmed shook his head, "She has returned and has found a way to bring back the creature. We must stop this from happening. We need you help because what she seeks is in Sunnydale."
O'Connell waved his friend forward, "Come on, invite your friends in and then we'll join Mendi in the playroom."
After collecting his other men Ahmed followed O'Connell down into his basement. The other man from the porch was behind the bar that ran the length of one of the walls. The thing that caught his eyes though was a huge reptilian head that was mounted on the far wall. "Is that a dragon?" He asked surprised.
O'Connell had joined Mendi behind the bar and was pulling a variety of sodas out of a fridge said distractedly, "Yeah, bagged that two years ago."
"What did you use?" Ahmed asked as he moved to get a closer look at it.
"A MAW," Jonathan replied. It was raiding a local ranchers herd so he asked for help. I had some contacts that could get one, so we staked out the pasture it was feeding from and bagged it after about week. The taxidermist actually stuffed it for free. He didn't figure another would be coming through."
"How did you get it down here?" Ahmed asked as all of the entrances were clearly too small for it to fit.
"My brother the wizard. He popped over from England. One of their Hellmouths looked like it might be going active again so he wanted to check this one out to know what to look for. He still got a case of Samuel Adams out of me to stretch the doors so we could get that thing in. Even though it's dead it's still resistant to magic, we had to lug the thing in by hand."
Ahmed shook his head as he took a ginger ale that his chief lieutenant offered. Taking a seat he took a swig then began, "Anck-Su-Namun has discovered a ritual that can bring the creature back from the dead yet again. For this ritual she will need something called The Key. We must find this Key before she does and destroy it."
O'Connell shook his head, "You ain't going to destroy it."
"You know where it is? And why won't we be able to destroy it?"
"I'm not 100 sure, but if I'm right then it's in a sixteen year old girl."
Ahmed got a sad look on his face, "The death of an innocent is always to be regretted, but sometime the individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of all."
"My family and Medji haven't agreed with that since we first ran into each other. In this case however, I meant that I seriously doubt that you could kill her."
"Why?"
"Ever here of The Slayer?"
Ahmed was taken aback, "Are you saying that the Key is The Chosen One?"
O'Connell smirked, "Almost as good, if I'm right it's the Slayer's little sister."
Ahmed nodded, his lips forming a cold smile, "Perhaps Anck-Su-Namun has bitten off more than she can chew."