Chapter 14.
A/N: We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
"A Gingerbread house?" DD said as she came in carrying a couple bags of groceries.
"Mrs. S. dropped it off. A thank you for coming to her Christmas party, I guess." Faith shrugged.
"Well, you can eat it later." Diana said as she took her bags to the kitchen. "Help me unload the groceries." Having a teenage boy and a Slayer was like being eaten out of house and home every day. Especially with all the (ahem) exercise they were getting.
The teens complied with her request and Diana snagged a mint off the diorama as she walked by for a second load.
Christmas truly was the time of forgiveness. Willow was finally speaking to Faith and Xander again. Which made patrolling with her much, much easier. Still, Faith had been impressed that even not speaking to each them, Willow had mostly kept up patrolling with them even when Oz was not. And she hadn't cast any magic on them Faith was aware of. Which spoke of a maturity that the Willow that had gone Darth Willow on everyone hadn't had.
Even though she was mature, she still wasn't case-hardened like Faith and broke down into tears when the group came across two dead children in a playground. As Oz held a crying Willow off to the side, Faith and Xander approached the bodies. Faith stiffened as she recognized their faces from pictures left over from the MOO campaign of Joyce Summers – when Buffy's mom had almost burned her own daughter at the stake and Amy had turned herself into a rat.
Amy had turned herself into a rat. Faith thought to herself. She had completely forgotten how much trouble the de-ratted Amy had caused years later. Faith was tempted to let this run its course just to get Amy out of the picture so that Willow wouldn't look up to someone like that. But decided against it. There was no guarantee that things would play the same way again. Too much had changed already, so in for a penny, in for a pound.
"Red. Need you to look at this." she waved her forward.
Willow gingerly came forward and looked where Faith was pointing. Her brow creased and she mostly stopped crying. "It's- it's (hic) a protection symbol. (hic) We use them in my coven."
"Wait. Are you telling me humans did this!?" Xander asked, suddenly outraged.
"Demons don't have a copyright on Evil, Xan." Faith said. "Take Willow to the table, will you? I need Oz a second more."
Oz didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow as Xander led his girlfriend away.
"Take a good whiff. Human?"
Oz did as she asked. He closed his eyes and took a big, long breath in through his nose. His eyes popped open and he jumped back. "No. Not dead either." He readied his spear.
Faith was ready for that and jabbed a knife into the boy and a stake into the girl. Then she too jumped back as the demon pretending to be children melded back into one, butt-ugly, demon. A knife stuck out of its left hip and a stake jutted from its right shoulder. It let out an angry roar before four spears jammed through it at four different angles. All four spears were pulled free and the demon fell to the ground bonelessly.
"Is it dead?" Willow wondered.
Faith marched up and kicked the stake still in its shoulder. It didn't twitch. She pulled the stake out then the knife. She used the knife to decapitate the body. "Never trust that anything is dead until you cut off its head. And even then you should be careful." she instructed before she tossed the head to the side. "Somebody take that. I'll drag the body behind those bushes so some kid doesn't have to discover it in the morning."
Oz volunteered to help with the head, leaving Willow and Xander alone for an uncomfortable minute.
Once they were alone, Oz had to ask, "How did you know they weren't human?"
"Slayer dream." Faith repeated her cover for knowing the future. "But I wanted to make sure. And it's harder to fool the nose, innit?"
Oz just gave her an inscrutable look and an equally cryptic grunt before they rejoined the group.
"So let me get this straight – in a week – the watchers council is going to bring a vampire to the Hellmouth, then strip Buffy of her powers, before locking her in a house with said vampire. Is that about it?" Xander asked.
"Almost." Diana said. "The council representatives are already here. Rupert and I already met with them. We both objected to the test but Travers insisted. Rupert actually had a very impassioned speech and he doesn't know that Faith already knows. If his entire career weren't on the line and the fact that they would just do the test without him anyway, I doubt he would acquiesce."
"What about what we talked about?" Faith asked.
DD just shook her head slowly. "It was a good argument. Buffy is no longer the Slayer since she died and you were called. But Travers was having none of it."
Faith bowed her head in resignation.
"Tell me what happened the first time around." Xander requested.
"One way or another Giles gave Buffy the drugs to make her human again. The vampire they brought in escaped and Giles confessed. But the vamp lured Joyce outside and kidnapped her. Buffy went after him and killed him even while human. Giles was fired for interfering." Faith summarized. "That's what I was told slash figured out, anyway."
"When did the drugs start?" Xander asked. He looked at Faith who just shrugged and they both looked at Diana.
"Not for a couple more days." Diana assured them.
"These drugs take away her power?" Xander clarified.
"Then they lock her in a house with a vampire." Faith added.
"That could kill her." Xander protested.
Faith and DD just nodded.
Xander shot to his feet, fists clenched. "They can't do that to her!" he growled.
Faith got to her feet with a slight smile playing on her face. "What did you have in mind?"
"I think turn about is fair play." Xander's smile looked positively evil.
Faith's smile became full blown. "Grab your spear."
"Wait! Where are you going?" DD asked.
"Better you don't know." Faith was glad that Xander had said it.
"Plausible deniability." Faith added as she followed Xander out the door.
Diana went straight to the phone and picked it up. She held it to her ear with her finger poised over the number pad until the annoying tone change made her hang back up. Travers had made his bed. Now he was about to lie in it.
When they got to the Sunnydale Arms motel, Faith led the way in. She handed off her spear to Xander.
Travers was surprised at the interruption. Even more surprised that it was one of the Slayers. But Faith and not Buffy. He had rather hoped Rupert would warn his Slayer. That would finally give him the excuse he needed to fire him. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Without preamble, Faith cold-cocked him then dragged him into the next room. Xander stood guard at the door. Faith dropped Traver's limp body in the room with the screaming vampire. The two men trying to administer pills to the vamp immediately dropped what they were doing. Literally. The pole-spoon with the pills and the glass of water dropped to the floor. Faith ignored the men and addressed the vampire. "Hi. I'm Faith."
"Slayer?" the vampire seemed to sense that she was different. He didn't give any outward signs of being afraid, even trapped in a box like he was, but he did stop screaming.
"Yeah. Listen. These guys are running some sort of test for me. I'm supposed to dust you in a 1-on-1 battle. But they probably haven't fed you recently, have they?"
"No." the vampire said.
"Exactly. There's no challenge in beating up a half starved vamp. So, I'm gonna let you out so you can munch on these assholes. Once you've had your fill, then we can fight. Deal?" Faith offered.
The vampire eagerly agreed.
"One thing I should mention. My boyfriend is guarding the front door. He's got over 1,000 combined vampire, demon, and human kills. He'll kill anyone," she looked at the conscious humans for the first time. "who tries to escape. Capiche?" The kills total was sorta true, quite understated for her Xander, but a little overstated for this Xander yet.
The vampire nodded at that rule. The humans just stared dumbfounded. "Run, numb-nuts." Faith told them. They scurried to comply. Faith walked over and tore one of the vampire's bonds loose. "I assume you can get free from there. But do me a favor. Wake this guy up before you drain him. I want him to know why he's going to die."
The vampire started tearing himself loose while Faith walked towards the front door where the other two had scurried off to. She found Xander standing over one of the men who was unconscious at his feet. "He tried to escape. I smacked him in the head with the blunt end." he explained about the unconscious body.
Faith took the guy's legs and pulled him far enough away that the vampire could feed if he wanted without being a threat to Xander. "That's fine. He's not the big fish I'm after." The sound of water splashing and a man sputtering pulled Faith back to the far room.
"What- what happened?" Quentin asked. His hair was wet and slicked back from the pitcher of water the vampire had dumped on him. Then he caught sight of Faith. "What is the meaning of this? Kill him!"
The vampire looked at her. She liked to think that he looked wary, but it was hard to say – too hard to read in game face. She and the vampire were both keeping their distance from each other, for comfort's sake if nothing else.
"No. We'll have our big battle later, after he's nice and full. After all, you wanted this to be a fair fight, didn't you?" Faith couldn't actually bring herself to smirk this time.
"This is murder!" Travers cried as the vampire advanced.
"And the Test is attempted murder in my book." Faith countered. "Fortunately for me, I'm a whole lot better at what I do than you are." She forced herself to watch as the light went out of Travers eyes. "There's an unconscious one in the hall and the third one is upstairs." Faith said as the vampire dropped the limp body on the ground.
"I can hear him." the vamp said. He calmly walked over to a table and took a bottle of pills. Taking a couple, he popped them into his mouth and swallowed them dry. "Supposed to take these with food." he gave a wry smile.
Faith just frowned. "I shoulda brought Buffy over. You two would have gotten along well. She's always making with the jokes when she Slays."
"But not you?"
"They came, they saw, I conquered. It's plenty fun for me without the jokes."
The vamp just shrugged and went out to the hall where the other guy was waking up. The vampire picked him up but didn't bite. Instead he just broke the guy's neck.
"Ahem." Faith cleared her throat.
"I'm pretty full and there's another guy upstairs." the vamp explained.
"I don't care if you drain him, but couldn't you take just a nibble? I need this to look good." Faith said.
The vamp didn't say anything but did bite the corpse briefly before dropping him unceremoniously on the floor. He then started climbing the stairs. A man screaming before falling silent was all they heard downstairs. A minute later the vampire came down wiping the blood from his lips.
"Cool. Do you need a minute to let your stomach settle?" Faith offered.
"Thank you, but no. Where do you want to do this?" the vampire asked.
"Basement?" Faith offered.
"I was thinking there would be more room outside." the vampire said.
"Maybe. But it's daylight out."
The vampire nodded. "Basement it is. After you."
"No, I insist. After you." Faith replied and went to hold the basement door open.
Instead of following Faith, the vampire suddenly turned and tried to run past Xander. But Xander was ready. A quick thrust and he was dust, taking the spear still stuck in his chest with him.
Xander waved the dust out of his face. "A bit anti-climactic, wasn't it?"
"I like anti-climactic. If you're worried how you're going to come out of an engagement alive, you've already seriously fucked up." Faith joked. "Besides. Killing that guy without Slayer powers means that you've just passed your Test-thingamajig. We should get back and tell DD."
"Sure. But first go up and make sure your buddy didn't turn the guy upstairs." Xander insisted.
"Good point." Faith ran upstairs. He knew just from how long she was gone that she'd found blood in the guy's mouth. Xander raised an eyebrow when she returned. "Shaved a sliver off a stake. Shoved it in his heart. That'll dust him when he changes." she explained.
"Good to know."