Shadowed Souls Part 1 Chapter 5, an angel fanfic

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1...

SHADOWED SOULS

Chapter 5

"Now you can explain exactly what happened." Raging arctic storms had more warmth in them than the temperature of Buffy's voice.

Standing proud on the hill that had enabled it to escape the crater that now existed where Sunnydale had been, the description 'old mansion' was a now a misnomer. Massive renovation, refurbishment and hard scrubbing done by Xander's construction crew and teams of Slayers under the watchful eye of Drill Sergeant Faith had restored it to its original glory. Oak, mahogany, cherry wood, ash, beech, pine, teak and walnut gleamed a dozen shades from pale honey topaz to dark chocolate from layers of varnish and wax; walls stood bright with vibrant or soothing hues, or clean white stucco; tiles were re-grouted and replaced, spotless clean windows let in maximum light, some of them beautifully stained with decorative pictures.

Now as the Slayers, along with family, friends, Watchers and others gathered in the walled fountain garden, crystal clear water tinkled from the fountain repaired by Xander, benches and seats of wood and stone had been artfully placed amidst the profusion of honeysuckle, climbing roses, ivy, sweet pea, jasmine, magnolias, and a dozen other gloriously coloured flowers and shrubs. Fat bumblebees and butterflies weaved in and out of the gathered humans, incongruously dressed in blacks, greys, and dark blues.

Willow Rosenberg sat with her hands clasped on her lap as her partner Kennedy the Slayer faced off against her best friend, but the world's pre-eminent witch made no move to interfere. Kennedy had done nothing wrong, and was more than capable of holding her own, but still…Willow's eyes moved and unerringly met the gaze of Xander Harris, her oldest friend, her brother in every way that really mattered. Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris had stopped needing words to communicate with each other years before a little blonde cheerleader arrived from LA and picked the pair of them to be the founders of the Scooby Gang…This is why Buffy is the Queen of All Slayers, Willow and Xander acknowledged to each other.

"I-It's alright, ma'am. We don't want to 'cause Fallon's friends any more hurtin'."

The words were uttered by the man sat on one of the stone benches, his arms around a slender, strawberry-blonde woman who, like him was in her early fifties. Nearly six feet and five inches tall, bulky and solid without being fat, with greying brown hair and eyes the blue of faded denim, the speaker was dressed like J. R. Ewing in Dallas circa 1985, his attire and his Southern drawl proclaiming him an almost stereotypical Texas oilman, and a wealthy one. However, the embrace that held his wife was tender, and his eyes were red-rimmed. To the left of the couple were four younger people – two women and two men, their faces equally etched with grief.

"It isn't all right. Fallon was already well on her way to becoming a great Slayer before she reached us," Buffy said with a quiet sincerity that made several people bite their lips in remembered sorrow, "and look what she did with Dana…"

Automatically most people cast their eyes towards the long-haired brunette, clad in a simple black sheath, who was huddled in a chair in the shade of a fruit tree, her fingers restlessly twisting around each other. Andrew Wells' quietly delivered conclusion that, "'Spike was right, Dana is too damaged to be anything other than a monster…like him and Angel'" had depressingly turned out to be more true than not, or it had been until Fallon Mady arrived. So severely mentally disturbed she could only function with medication that left her lethargic and 'zombified', Dana had nevertheless made some connection with the new Texan Slayer that gave the first glimmers of hope that she might one day be close to rational. Certainly it was due to Fallon's influence that Dana had been able to approach Spike in LA when they went to fetch back Dawn.

Now that hard-won progress had been lost, the mentally ill Slayer slipping back into her twilight world, and Buffy Summers wanted answers. The Mother of All Slayers had lost a daughter, and someone was going to pay.

Kennedy knew she was in no danger from Buffy; after Faith, the second most famed Slayer, she herself was third in the hierarchy, mainly through her relationship with Buffy's best friend, Willow, but still a shiver went down her spine. This woman had been preventing Apocalypses for a nearly a decade, and had defeated the First Evil: in short, Buffy Summers was not someone you wished to annoy. The Slayer cast a glance at the tableau behind Buffy - Fallon Mady's parents, two brothers and two sisters. They had arrived en masse with the Texan girl when she descended on Sunnydale like a whirlwind, the vivacious Texan girl from whose funeral they had all just returned, for Fallon Mady lay forever in the cold Californian earth, never to grow any older than eighteen.

Kennedy marshalled her thoughts as everyone waited. Fallon Mady had been one of the many Undiscovered Potentials scattered around the globe, those not brought to Sunnydale, who had been 'born' full-grown like Aphrodite in the instant when Willow Rosenberg used the power of the Scythe to turn Potentials into Slayers according to Buffy Summers' decree: "'From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer, every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers. Every one of us.'" Kennedy herself knew that even Buffy had not truly understood the scale of the global shockwave that had surged like a mystical tsunami around the planet as Buffy, unknowingly at the time, fulfilled True Prophecy and became the slayer-Queen, Mother of All Slayers.

Their searches to find the Slayers was still ongoing – some of the slayers were minor children with initially uncooperative families; also they couldn't physically accommodate every Slayer in the world here, and new situations were always cropping up, because the "one slayer dies, the next is called" rule now held for every Slayer. But sometimes, the Slayer had found the Scooby Gang…

Temple Mady and his wife Ardith were rich but sensible people whose families went back in Texas to its War of Independence from Mexico during the 1830s. Their eldest child, Charlotte, now sat next to her mother and gripping her hand tightly, was a veterinarian, while their second, son Colby, standing behind his father, his face white, was a medical doctor in Dallas. Ryan, trying to be grown up at fourteen, intended to be a marine biologist and ten year old Arabella wanted to be either a ballerina or a Navy Top Gun pilot. What they had in common was that they were a close-knit loving family, who had never understood their third child, but had never cared as long as she was happy.

Fallon Mady had never been able to explain her lifelong bizarre nightmares, fighting fairytale monsters and looking into dream-mirrors that reflected ever-changing images of girls she'd never met, of how she was able to speak languages she'd never heard of, but she had controlled them, not the other way round. She was bright and witty and kind and generous to all. She had fainted in the family's San Antonio kitchen, after feeling "very peculiar". Less than twenty-four hours later, riding the Mady's ranch on her favourite Appaloosa gelding, Fallon Mady had utilised impossible, super-human strength to save her father, uncle, cousin and two ranch-hands whose pick-up truck had been flipped upside down. It had been impossible for her to right the truck, yet she had done so. Nobody, least of all Fallon, understood her compulsion to come to California, but like a spawning salmon she had come, carrying her parents and siblings, baffled but protective, in her wake. She had homed in on the mansion like an ICBM, bursting in like a hurricane of noise and colour.

And now she was dead, less than three months later.

"We were drained of our power." Kennedy said finally, flatly. "We were fighting a couple of Polgara demons – there were six of us, including Fallon." Kennedy shook her head from side to side, allowing her frustration to show, "It was as if all our batteries had been drained at once. I was in the zone, you know? Then I felt violently sick, the world spun around me and I fell down, I felt as weak as a newborn kitten, I could barely move…"

Shannon the Slayer stood up, meeting Buffy's gaze squarely. "The only reason you're not burying six Slayers instead of one," she broke off and nodded respectfully to the Madys, "is because the Polgaras were as nonplussed as we were. They seemed to take it as some sort of attack plan."

"Fallon died saving my life." Kennedy ignored Buffy and directly addressed Temple and Ardith Mady. "One of the Polgaras was about to fillet me like a mackerel, when Fallon kicked its ass – it threw her into one of the tree trunks before we killed them both. We didn't realise how badly injured…"

Temple Mady nodded – Fallon had suffered multiple fractures and a sub-dermal haematoma, but had died unexpectedly of kidney failure in hospital a few hours after her family, dashing up from Texas, had visited her. Then the big Texan looked at Buffy, but spoke to them all, "Ah don't claim t'understand this Slayer business. But what ah do know is this – my little gal was a heroine, and she died fighting for something good. This family will always be proud of our Slayer."

"Fallon was a credit to you all." Buffy told them, "She was a wonderful person. I promise you I'll do everything in my power to find out what went wrong."

Ardith Mady straightened up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Ah don't claim to understand being a Slayer either, but it seems to me, an ah apologise if ahm bein' foolish, that a Slayer's power being drained like a battery sounds like something too big for it's boots tryin' somethin' nefarious against yawl."

"On the contrary, Mrs Mady," Rupert Giles was polishing his spectacles with his tie in an absent minded manner that many of those gathered had come to recognise, "you have hit the nail on the head. The Scooby Gang has many mottoes, one of which is: There are no accidents, and not for a second do I believe that six Slayers losing their powers – albeit momentarily – at the same time is a coincidence."

"Reckon it's time for one o' them Research parties yawl have?" Colby Mady put in.

"Yes." Buffy put in. "I want everyone hitting the books, the scrolls, the 'Net. Nothing, no matter how insignificant it seems, is to be missed. Giles, you and Willow co-ordinate the book-fest."

Ardith Mady cleared her throat. "Ah know we won't be of much use to yawl on account of bein' new t'all this, but ah cahn speak four languages – if yawl'd teach us some of these fancy-fangled other-dimension tongues, we'd be glad to help with the research."

Her family nodded grimly, while Buffy blinked in startled surprise, not sure how to respond. The Mady family were grieving for their beloved Fallon, and anger was a natural part of the grieving process – rage both against the one that died, for leaving them, and those around her who lived while the loved one did not. Buffy had expected to experience the brunt of the Madys' irrational fury over Fallon's death, not understanding, gratitude and acceptance of the harsh reality.

"It's a most generous offer," Rupert Giles stepped in as he saw how taken aback Buffy was by the Madys' dignity and poise, "but I'm not sure it would be good for you. Many of the texts we have are certainly not suitable for minors – " he glanced pointedly at Ryan and Arabella, " – and most have, er, rather graphic illustrations on most of the pages. You would be very disturbed…"

Ardith Mady's eyes flashed with the fire that had lit the eyes of her dead daughter. "Mr Giles, some bastard tried to make six Slayers intah demon food, an' got mah baby killed. You haven't seen anything yet. When we find the son-of-a-bitch who killed mah Fallon, then Mr Giles, you'll see disturbed!"

Concluded in Part 1 – Chapter 6…