When she had started the attack, Pat had been sure that, fuelled by her anger and her fear for Willow, it'd be over quickly; to her shock though, the man was faster than she had expected, easily ducking her first punch and blocking her second one – before grabbing the front of her shirt and, with surprising strength, threw her away from himself, a low grunt escaping her when she hit the table in the middle of the room and it broke beneath her.
"You owe me a new table", the man smirked, already moving forward again; he didn't even gave her the chance to get up again, throwing her flat on her back again by kicking her right in the face, his smile widening when he heard a bone break.
"That must have hurt", he commented, taking a step back and watching how Pat came to her feet, chuckling when in response to his words, she growled and let her fists flame up.
"I would have thought you're smarter than that", he then commented, flames beginning to flicker on his hands as well, "you of all people should know that you can't fight fire with fire."
"I'm aware of that", the demon snarled, ignoring the taste of blood in her mouth, "but I can fight you with my fists."
"What are you waiting for then?" he wanted to know, smiling as his flames spread; unlike Pat usually did when she let her fire spread over her whole body though, he didn't bother to control it, the carpet he was standing on quickly catching fire as well.
"I would have thought you're smarter than that", Pat mocked him, now smirking as well, "you don't think that your pyromaniac tendencies will scare me, right?"
"Oh, they won't scare you", the guy gave back, "I'm disappointed you're not thinking any farther. You know, whenever I find a lair in my town of choice, I make sure it's very flammable… in case people like you come here to bother me. Or people like your little girlfriend… Oooh, I forgot, she's not as immune to fire as you are, right? And neither is the pretty blonde in that little room over there…"
At hearing this, Pat had to bite her tongue to keep down the curse that wanted to escape her; laughing again, the man raised his hands and made a quick gesture, the demon's good eye going wide again when the flames grew higher and spread much faster than they should, her heartbeat speeding up when she realized that unlike her, he could not only set himself on fire at will, but also had the ability to control the flames all around him.
"You'll understand that I'm not willing to get killed", he casually told her, twirling his fingers and causing the fire to spread even further, making her wonder how much of the house was on fire by now, "so I'll have to distract you with making you save your friend and your girlfriend while I take my leave. Maybe we'll meet again."
With those words, he performed a short bow, then gave the black haired woman another smile while he got out his cigarettes and lit one of them up on the flames dancing all around him; and then, he turned and vanished through the door while Pat, realizing that she couldn't risk it to follow him and maybe let Buffy or Willow get hurt, only could snarl to herself, anger filling her once more as she realized how he had outwitted her.
Forcing herself to push those thoughts aside, she told herself that she could find and kill that guy later on, after she had successfully gotten Buffy and Willow outside, into safety; quickly, she hurried over to the room where the Slayer had been put, the blonde to her relief groaning and stirring weakly when she started to work on the bonds that held her on the chair.
"Wake up", Pat tried to hurry the process along, "come on Buffy, no time to nap now, unless you wanna get really crispy."
"What's going on…?" Buffy brought out in reply, forcing her eyes open, even though it clearly cost her a lot of strength; moments later, a coughing fit shook her, the room filled with smoke by now, her eyes tearing up as she stared at the demon. "What…"
"You have to get out of here", Pat gave back, grabbing her around the waist and helping her up from the chair, "I'll explain later. Do you know where he took Willow?"
"The red-haired guy…?" Buffy half asked, half realized as an answer, grabbing the taller woman's arm to steady herself while she was almost dragged to the nearest window, giving her best to ignore the way the world was blurring around her as she tried to remember what had happened after she had come here with the witch.
"He knocked me out", she mumbled, her free hand coming up to feel the back of her head, a bolt of pain shooting through her brain from the bump there, "I don't know what he did to Willow…"
"How big is this house?" Pat demanded to know, trying to hide how much hearing those words was upsetting her; in response, Buffy briefly squeezed her eyes shut, then mumbled
"Two floors", forcing the demon to hold back another curse as she realized that this would double or maybe even triple the time it'd take her to find her girlfriend.
"Get outside", she almost ordered as soon as she could be sure that she wouldn't let out a string of curses the moment she'd open her mouth, "and wait there, but not right in front of the building, move to the other side of the street or something okay? I'll find Willow and get her out."
"Alright", Buffy agreed at once, to the demon's relief; normally, the Slayer would have started a discussion now, and explain that she wanted to help, but obviously, she was in no shape to do so, and clearly was aware of that as well.
Quickly, Pat opened the window, then grasped the smaller woman at the waist and lifted her up until she could place one foot on the windowsill; steadying her to make sure she wouldn't fall, the taller woman only let go of her once she had moved one leg over the windowsill and had planted it firmly on the ground, once more telling her to put some distance between the burning house and herself before she turned away from the window, her heart and mind racing as she tried to figure out how much time she still had before the building would come down – and if it would be enough to find her girlfriend and get her to safety, the demon knowing she'd never be able to forgive herself if she'd fail and Willow would end up getting hurt or something much, much worse.
To Pat's dismay, the house was even bigger than she had feared, and by now, the flames apparently had spread all over it; this briefly made her wonder how powerful exactly that man was, and where he had learned to control all kinds of flames like that – before she told herself that she had other things to worry about now, giving her best to overtone the roaring of the flames as she shouted her girlfriend's name.
"Willow!" she tried again when no answer came, cold sweat breaking out all over her body when the only thing she could hear was the crackling of the fire; telling herself not to freak out, she opened the next door and found herself in the kitchen, once more yelling for the witch while she made her way through it, to the door at the other end of the surprisingly large room.
"Goddammit", she mumbled to herself when once more, all she could hear was the crackling of the spreading fire; moments later, she jumped as a big portion of the ceiling came down behind her, her heart beating up to her throat as she realized that this was only the beginning and that soon, the rest of the house would follow.
Now not bothering anymore to hold back her curses, she let out a whole collection of them as she hurried through the door and to the stairway; there, she called out for Willow again, clenching her fists when once more, no response could be heard.
"Come on, don't do this to me", she then muttered, almost running up the stairs, hoping that they wouldn't go down beneath her – she wasn't in any danger of getting hurt by the flames, but falling on a pile of wood and metal was just as dangerous for her as it was for anyone else, and she couldn't afford it to lose time by getting hurt.
"Willow!" she tried again the moment she reached the top of the stairs, looking left and right, not sure where to go; before she could make up her mind though, a low thumping noise reached her ears, her breath momentarily getting caught in her throat – before she shouted for her girlfriend again, relief practically exploding within her when the noise came again, weaker, but audible.
Turning to the right, from where the noise had came from, Pat sped down the hallway, trying to figure out how far away the sound had been when she had heard it the first time; then, she realized that there was a much easier way to find out, calling the redhead's name once more, her relief growing even bigger when the noise came again from the end of the hallway, everything else forgotten as she rushed to the door there, hoping and praying that they still would have enough time to get out of the house before it would succumb to the flames and come down.
Willow already had realized that it had been a mistake to come to this place when the strangely jolly redheaded man had knocked Buffy out so easily, a realization that only had been confirmed when right afterwards, he had somehow warded off the spell she had thrown at him and had moved up to her with shocking speed, knocking her out just as effortlessly as he had done it with Buffy.
Then, when she had woken up in this tiny, dark room, after being unconscious for God knew how long, she at first had been relieved that at least, she hadn't been killed; on the other hand, she'd had no idea what this strange man planned on doing to her, and when the smoke had started to pour in through the thin slit between the locked door of the room and the wooden floor, she had realized that maybe, she'd never find out.
Gradually, the room had become hotter and hotter as the fire outside had been spreading all over the house; at first, she had tried to open the door, with magic and then, when that didn't work, with violence, but nothing had succeeded, the only effect being that her hands hurt from banging against the wood.
The fact that the small room had filled up with smoke quite fast hadn't made thinking clearly for her easier, either; she had tried to avoid getting too much smoke into her lungs by pulling her sweater up to cover her mouth and nose, but that had just taken away a minimum of the smoke she had been inhaling, her head swimming and coughing fits shaking her shortly after the fire had started.
This had been the moment when she had realized that maybe, she'd die in this tiny room, either from the smoke or due to the fire; it hadn't burned through the door at this point, but the wood was uncomfortably hot, making the already heated room even hotter as well, all of this pushing her close to panic, her mind racing as she tried to figure out a way to get out of there, her fear and terror keeping her from forming a single proper thought. Even though she had been close to death several times before, this had been the first time that she'd been so helpless in such a situation; she'd kept telling herself that she had to calm down and figure something out, her own coughing disrupting her thoughts again and again though, once more forcing to realize that maybe, this was the end for her and that she'd not get out of this, that this time, there would be no Buffy arriving with blazing guns – figuratively – to rescue her from harm.
And then, she'd heard Pat call out for her, barely able to believe her ears; by then, she'd been too weak and hoarse to shout back, and thus just had kicked the door, repeating it when she heard her partner shout her name again, her voice much closer this time, convincing her that she really had heard it and that it hadn't been some kind of hallucination, brought by her fear of dying in this tiny, hot, smoke-filled room.
"Get back from the door!" the demon's voice now came through the wood, the witch closing her eyes in relief as she did what she had been told to; moments later, the door was kicked open and banged against the wall, and then, Pat was there, kneeling down next to her and gathering her into her arms, mumbling soothing and reassuring words. Clutching the taller woman's shirt with the little bit of strength she had left, Willow tried to tell her how sorry she was that she had suspected her of being the one responsible for the killings, how glad she was that she had come and how much she loved her; all that left her throat were a few weak coughs though, prompting the demon to tell her that she shouldn't try to talk before she went back to reassuring her that everything would be fine and that she'd get her outside and into the fresh air.
Coughing again, all Willow could do was nod weakly, then let her head come to a rest on her girlfriend's shoulder; while she was carried over to the stairs, she fought hard to keep her eyes open, telling herself that she had to stay conscious, that it was dangerous to fall unconscious after breathing in so much smoke, her head swimming as she looked at the inferno all around her and Pat, the last ounces of strength leaving her as her arms slumped down, fear once more filling her at how far away the front door seemed to be, making her wonder if the demon hadn't been too late after all and if she'd die in there anyway, no matter if her girlfriend was with her now or not.