Willow let her last stake fly, dusting the three remaining vampires in the process. The front of the offices would definitely need a good vacuuming later.
"Okay, now to take care of the Man With No Name." Kennedy wiped her forehead. She picked up her duffel bag with her left hand, while holding an axe with her right.
Willow grinned. "We have got to stop watching those old Clint Eastwood westerns."
They walked through the door to the back of the offices.
To their surprise, they found the Black Hat standing only several meters away; he was near a door that presumably led to the cubicle area of the offices. He appeared amused.
"Wow, didn't think you'd be able to take care of my subordinates so quickly." He sighed. "And to think that I was looking forward to a good time with a couple of good-lookin' call girls."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mister Hat," replied Willow.
"Yeah, it's a damn shame…I've never fucked a Slayer before. I'll bet it's quite the experience."
Can't argue with you there, thought Willow.
"Too bad you'll never live to find out!" Kennedy charged the Black Hat with her axe.
With incredible reflexes, the cowboy grabbed Kennedy's right wrist and twisted it enough to make her drop the axe. Kennedy punched him in the face with her free hand. He recovered quickly and jumped back, giving himself enough room to raise his left leg up and kick her in the chest, sending her flying into the wall.
Willow rushed over to the duffel bag and reached in, pulling out a knife. She threw it, again using magic to guide it straight for his chest (although to the Black Hat, it appeared that she had great throwing skill).
The Black Hat stopped the knife by trapping the blade between his palms. Immediately, he took it into his right hand and threw it at Willow, who could not raise the magic in time to stop it; she closed her eyes, waiting for the knife to hit its target.
She didn't feel the knife land. Instead, she heard a loud yelp from Kennedy and then opened her eyes.
Kennedy had managed to get up in time to run over and save Willow. She had successfully stopped the knife less than an inch away from Willow's left eye, and Willow could immediately see how: the blade was sticking out the back of Kennedy's right hand. Willow's right eye saw the Black Hat exiting into the cubicles area.
"God, that son of a bitch!" Kennedy cursed, slowly pulling the knife out of her palm. Willow cringed as she watched the blood run from the hole.
"Let me have a look at that, honey." Willow cradled Kennedy's bleeding hand.
"I don't suppose there's anything you could do with your magic to take care of that, is there? Without the risk of, uh, 'going dark'?"
"I could heal it completely, but it would be a lengthy process. However, I can heal it just enough to stop the bleeding."
"That'll have to do for now. You can take care of it after we take care of this bastard."
Muttering a few incantations to herself, Willow placed her hand over Kennedy's wound. A light shone between the two hands, and when Willow removed hers, the wound was still there, but had indeed stopped bleeding. Taking off her jacket, Willow tore a strip of the bottom of her shirt off and tied it around Kennedy's hand, to lessen the pain when she used the hand.
"Thanks, Wills. Shit, Cowboy Bob's a tough one. Saying that he's good with range weapons was an understatement; Jesus, he's a master when it comes to blocking and deflecting them!"
"Given the condition of your hand, it's funny you should mention Jesus." They both giggled at that. "Kennedy, my own personal savior." They outright laughed at the sacrilege.
Kennedy decided to leave the bag behind; she took out an axe for herself, and handed two knives to Willow.
They entered the cubicles, and immediately knew they were in for a rough time. There were cubicles everywhere (Willow wondered if they even had any usefulness in a business that mainly just involved assassinations), and there were two main "hallways" that went right by the individual cubicle entrances: one leading to the left, and the other going straight.
"We're going to have to split up, Kenn. You go left, and I'll go straight. We'll check each cubicle as we pass it. If you find him, holler so I can come help." Kennedy nodded hesitantly in response. They both hated the idea of either of them having to fight the Black Hat alone, but if they did not split up, it would give him a chance to double back and escape.
"Right," Kennedy replied.
They kissed and went their separate ways.
--
"What is taking her so long?" asked Dawn.
"I don't know," Andrew replied. "Maybe her meeting's running a little longer than she intended." Dawn could sense the anxiety in his voice.
They had been sitting in the lobby for nearly twenty minutes now. Even though they had enjoyed discussing movies and comic books with each other while they had waited, they were starting to worry that the CEO had suspected something. And why shouldn't she? After all, a Watcher and the sister of a Slayer (a Slayer who at one time had been the Slayer) were both apparently interviewing for a summer internship, and at a late time of night. Normally the CEO would not have held an interview under such circumstances, but luckily for Dawn and Andrew, she had met them before and seemed to like them. Andrew and Dawn insisted that they wished to do the interview at night because that way, it would not interfere with either Dawn's school schedule or the CEO's sleeping schedule. Perhaps the CEO was also hoping that it would help her store up favor with the Senior Partners if she successfully corrupted two such young minds.
Finally, a man with wavy hair and thick glasses came down and spoke to them, sporting a heavily Italian accent.
"We apologize for making you wait so long. Please follow me." He turned and started walking away.
He thought he heard them whisper something. He turned and looked at them.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" They shook their heads no. The man nodded and turned back around. Dawn picked up her purse, and she and Andrew followed him.
They came to the bottom of the stairs, where they found two pink demons with red eyes waiting for them. Andrew recognized them as mind readers. He and Dawn both stiffened.
The two demons stared at them for what seemed an eternity. Finally, they turned to the wavy-haired man and nodded. He proceeded up the stairs, and Andrew and Dawn breathed with relief as they followed.
The man talked as they walked up the steps. "I hope you will forgive us for employing the telepathic demons, but we had to make sure that you were not here for other purposes besides the interview. Security has become tough lately, and we cannot afford to take chances with anyone."
"I understand," Andrew replied. He and Dawn looked at each other and smiled.
When they reached the top of the stairs, the double doors opened, and out stepped Ilona Costa Bianchi, CEO of the Rome branch of Wolfram and Hart. She wore a tight black dress that came down to mid-thigh and that was (to no one's surprise) very low-cut.
"Welcome, welcome, Andrew, Dawn, how have you been?" Dawn found Ilona's large accent to be rather grating on her ears. If the CEO's smile had been any wider, it would have cut her face in half.
"Buona sera, Signora Bianchi. It's good to see you again."
"Grazie, grazie, Andrew, it's good to see you also! Per favore, call me Ilona!" She hugged Andrew really tight, nearly strangling him. He tried his hardest to ignore the feeling of her chest area against his body.
Ilona released her hold on Andrew and, brushing her dark hair back, turned to Dawn. "And Dawn! How have you been?"
Andrew could tell that Dawn was trying her hardest to maintain a friendly face as she shook the CEO's hand.
Ilona turned to the wavy-haired man and told him in Italian to not let anyone disturb her during the interview, no matter what.
"Come, come! We must go now to my office!" She opened the double doors again, and Andrew and Dawn followed her.
--
Author's Note: I figure you're probably more interested in what's going with Faith and Buffy's fights right now, so I'll be going back to that in the next chapter.
I pretty much have the ending planned out now (and I certainly hope you like it), though I'm still not quite certain whether I should kill off Dawn and/or Andrew; if you have any opinion about that particular subject, tell me in a private message, NOT in a review. I will be glad to hear what you think, but please note that your opinions will probably not affect my final judgment; in the end, I will go with whatever I personally feel works best for the story. I will not compromise just for the sake of pleasing either the haters or the fans of these characters.
Anyways, thanks for all the feedback (and I certainly am open to more), and keep reading!