author: Lucinda
rating: pg13
main character: Tom Cassidy and Angel
minor appearances by Cain Marco, mentions of Faith (the Slayer)
Disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to Faith (creation of Joss Whedon for Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Tom and Cain - creations of Marvel Comics.
Distribution: Paula, Twisting the Hellmouth, Quickfics, Wic - anyone else ask. If I've said yes for a previous short BtVS/X-Men crossover, you can have this if you want.
note: for those unfamiliar with the character of Black Tom Cassidy, he is an Irish criminal (and mutant). His partner in crime is the Juggernaut (Cain Marko) and they have had a fairly long and colorful criminal career spanning much of Europe. Tom has a cousin named Sean Cassidy (Banshee of the X-Men) who worked for Interpol for a while.
set during season 4(BtVS), after Faith turned herself into the police in Los Angeles. After OZT, Before the High Evolutionary tried to muck things up.
* * *
Tom sighed as he returned from the prison, having just managed to sneak a glimpse at the visitors log for the prisoners. His daughter was only listed as having had a total of three other visitors ever: a detective K. Lockley of the L.A.P.D., someone named Wesley Wyndham-Price, and someone listed as Angel something undecipherable. He'd finally found a better sample of unreadable handwriting than his own carefully practiced scrawl. Naturally, that raised his suspicions. Why was this 'Angel' trying to not have a legible last name? What was 'Angel' hiding?
And just what sort of interest did this 'Angel' have in Faith anyhow? Was Angel a girl, or a man's name?
Just thinking about it made his stomach churn, and his grip on his shillelagh was white-knuckled. It was only years of practice avoiding attention that kept up the pretended limp that he'd been using as an excuse for the shillelagh anyhow. They wouldn't take a man's cane when he needed it to walk, would they?
Cain was waiting outside, leaning against a wall and glaring at the whole world, as if daring something, anything to make trouble. Unsurprisingly, the area around him was very quiet. The only times that normal humans ever tried to cause trouble with Cain was when there were large groups of heavily armed military men, preferably with a tank or two. They still lost, even with the tanks, but it generally made a huge mess and normally seemed to act as stress relief. Unless Cain was just in a bad mood and everything made him even angrier - then things could get a bit ugly.
"How'd it go in there?"
Tom sort of shrugged, not quite able to figure out why the visitors log had left him so angry. The suspicion was easy enough to understand - he didn't want any other criminals involved with his daughter. But it also inspired this sort of hurt feeling, like an emotional bruise, that left him puzzled. "She's only had three visitors, and one was one o' the detectives that locked her away."
"Huh." Cain moved away from the wall, and they started walking back towards the hotel. "Does this mean that we need a plan to get her out?"
"Not yet, my friend." His grip on the shillelagh had changed, so that it looked less like a cane and more like the proper cudgel. "She said that she needs a bit of time to think, and that's the only place that she feels safe enough to do it. I had the feeling that she got involved with some hefty trouble."
"What sort of trouble?" Cain's question held a second question - was this a trouble that they would meddle with?
"I don't rightly know what sort of trouble yet. But it might be that the other two visitors may hold a bit of a clue. One was signed in as 'Angel', the last name something too illegible to make out. The other one was a Wesley Wyndham-Price." Tom was already trying to figure out the most effective way to learn more about these people, and what possible connection they had with his daughter.
"Probably easier to start with the second one. The last name sounds upper crust, British ancestry, either from over seas, New England, or the South. Doesn't sound like he comes from Westhaven, I'm pretty sure I knew who all the have's were around there." Cain frowned, his hands moving as if crushing an unseen object, and his knuckles crackled like gunshots.
"Yes, that makes sense. If we find this Wesley, then he can explain just what his connection is with my daughter." Tom had all sorts of scenarios flitting through his mind, from a devoted boyfriend to just a friend, to some sort of legal student or state person feeling sorry for the criminal to one of the people who had dragged her into the whole mess to begin with. And if this Wesley was responsible fro Faith's troubles…
"Do you think that Wyndham-Price knows this Angel?" Cain's rumbled musings caught Tom's attention.
"Well, 'tis a possibility, I suppose, although it wouldn't be wise to count on it. They don't visit at the same time, an' that's the only thing that we can be certain of just now." Tom considered the chances, drifting away from the thoughts of the many ways they could ruin or end the life of whoever had dragged his girl into trouble. "If they do, it might explain why they both visit her."
"Good points. Where do we start looking for him? This is a big city, and I don't know it at all."
Tom smiled as he caught sight of a teenage girl in a little tiny shirt and pants that barely rose high enough on her hips to stay on, with a slender gold chain encircling her waist as she half screamed at some unfortunate on the other end of the connection. "Why not start with the extremely simple? We can see if he'd listed in the telephone book, and if he is, we can go pay him a bit of a visit."
Chuckling, Cain looked at the phone booth. "So, there was a phone book back at the hotel, might cause less of a scene that way."
"True enough. And if it takes us a while, then we aren't going to have to make people wait. It would put a kink in out plans if we had to worry about the police trying to capture us, and they would be a nuisance." Tom chuckled, for a moment wishing that he was as bullet proof as his partner.
Once they were back in the little hotel, it only took a few minutes to have in their possession both a current phone book and a Los Angeles city map. Then, Tom started searching through the W's while Cain flipped through the few channels on the hotel television, eventually settling on a wrestling entertainment program. "Found him, now to figure out where this address is and how we get there from here."
"That's the whole point of the map."
"The whole…. Of course that's the point of the map! Now, can you help me figure out where Azucar Street is?" Tom glared at Cain, frustrated by trying to find anything in this unfamiliar, chaotic city. "He's got an apartment at 437 Azucar, so all we have to do is figure out where it is and drop in."
A bus trip later, and they discovered that Azucar Street was safe enough, slightly shabby neighborhood that looked to have started the slow slide towards decay. They kept a wary eye out for either law enforcement or mutant related conflict as they walked up to the seven story brick building. People walked along, not paying attention to anyone else, too caught up in their own lives to care about their neighbors.
"I hope this place has solid floors." Cain muttered, looking at the building. "Otherwise I'm going to end up doing a surprise inspection of the furnace."
To their relief, the floors proved to be quite sound, although a few of the boards did creak as Cain stepped on them. They had only a little trouble finding the proper apartment, and then Tom had the lock on the door picked in scarcely longer than it would have taken someone with a key to unlock and open their door.
"Not a very good lock." Tom shook his head, half smiling. "I'd be ashamed to call something like that my own."
They walked inside, looking around with curiosity. There were several large shelves of leather bound books, many of which looked old and scuffed. On the coffee table was a volume with a raised carving of a hideous snarling face that resembled a medieval gargoyle. A rack of swords and axes was beside the window, as well as a loaded crossbow.
"This looks a bit odd." Cain muttered, looking at the weapons. "Nice blades though."
"Demon compendiums? Book of the Dead? Books about magic and curses? Is this one of those daft souls who is drowning in those role-play games?" Tom's question fell into the apartment.
Raising one of the swords, Cain peered at a few dark spots near the hilt. "I don't think he's playing. There's something crusted on here, and it's a sort of orange color."
"Orange?" Tom blinked moving closer to inspect the sword for himself. "What would leave something orange on a sword blade?"
"Another question to ask this guy. As soon as he gets here." Cain returned the sword to the third position on the rack, and went to lean against the wall, not entirely certain the somewhat battered gray couch would support his weight.
Eventually, Tom got bored waiting, and went to explore the kitchen, deciding to make some tea. Cain started flipping through the channels, grumbling at the discovery that this guy didn't even have cable. Or any interesting videos. And so the pair of them impatiently waited.
It was several hours later when there was the sound of rattling keys outside the door. Having never been relocked after Tom and Cain went inside, the door simply swung inwards when the key was put into the doorknob, revealing a lean man with dark circled eyes, dressed in a pair of wrinkled slacks and a dark button up shirt. He looked up, spotting the two of them and tensed, alarm clear in his eyes.
Suspecting that Wesley might bolt, Tom lunged forward, grabbing the man and dragging him inside. "Oh no you don't. You've got a few questions to answer."
As he dragged the younger man inside, he was rewarded by a sharp punch to his stomach as Wesley tried to escape the grip, and another to the jaw that left him seeing sparks.
"Enough!" Cain roared as he grabbed Wesley, dragging him out of Tom's grip and holding him in the air.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?" Wesley Wyndham-Price glared at the pair of them, the anger in his eyes almost concealing the fear.
"The gentleman dangling you above the floor is Cain Marko, and I'm Tom Cassidy." Tom rubbed at his jaw for a moment, trying to figure out where this man had learned to deliver such a strong punch. "We've got a couple questions for you."
This didn't seem to surprise Wesley, although it was actually a bit disappointing that he didn't seem to recognize either name. His next words made it even more clear that he didn't know who they were. "Who are you working for, and what makes you think that I'll tell you anything?"
"Who are we working for?" Tom repeated blankly. "We're not working for anyone. I'm here on a more personal matter. How do you know Faith?"
"Faith? This is about Faith?" The man seemed entirely surprised, and while the apparent levels of confusion didn't drop, he did seem slightly less angry and afraid. "What is your connection to her?"
"She's my daughter." Tom glared at Wesley. This was certainly easier when people were terrified of him and his partner.
"Your wha…?" For a moment, the dangling man had an expression of complete blank shock, before it turned into an angry glare. "Then where have you been all her life, you miserable wretch?"
"Where have I been? Her ma thought that I would be a bad influence, so she divorced me when Faith was just a little girl. Now, how do you know her, and why is my daughter sitting in prison?" Tom glared, one hand gripping his shillelagh.
"Faith is a Slayer, and I'm her Watcher, or supposed to be anyhow." The words were soft, barely audible. A series of emotions flickered through the man's eyes, but Tom couldn't quite decipher them.
"A what? If you're one of those fellows that follows lasses around to peek through their windows…" Tom left the rest of the sentence dangling, certain that the other man could fill in something sufficiently threatening.
"Slayer… I think there was something about that on the cave walls." Cain's low rumble startled them both. "At the cavern of Cyttorak."
"What? Could someone explain what a Slayer is and why he's calling my daughter one?" Tom glared around the room, feeling the entire encounter slipping out of his control.
"The cavern of Cyttorak? I know there's a reference to that in one of those volumes…" Twisting slightly, he peered at Cain. "Could you please put me down?"
With a small shrug, Cain dropped him. Wesley landed on his feet with the sort of familiarity that spoke of experience with falling and dropping, and made his way to the set of shelves beside the door, pulling down a thin volume of deep red leather. Flipping through pages, he was muttering things under his breath that Tom couldn't quite decipher. "Was that the cavern of sacrifice, which would have had a large black stone alter with a set of bronze inlays on the floor, or the cavern of the mysteries, which should have had a large red stone, and possibly a skeleton of the last High Priest of Cyttorak?"
"There was a stone." The words were clipped, tense.
"Which would mean…" Wesley paused, glancing again at Cain, his eyes traveling up the huge size of him. "Yes, that would definitely explain that. Imbued with the power of Cyttorak, the living juggernaut which no mortal can stop. This makes things a bit more complicated…"
"And how does any of that connect to my daughter?" Tom demanded, glaring from Cain to Wesley.
"In the last battle against the High Priest of Cyttorak, there was a Slayer leading the army that fought him. The army attacked the champion of Cyttorak, recorded as He-Who-Wore-the-Crimson-Gem, and while he was busy, the Slayer attacked the high priest, destroying his vampire honor guard and eventually killing him." Wesley paused, glancing back at the book. "It is recorded that when the priest died, his death cries caught the attention of the champion, who then turned to try to destroy her. The cavern collapsed, and the remnants of the army retreated, assuming their foe defeated by the collapse. Faith is now a Slayer."
"A cave in defeating a Juggernaut?" One of Cain's eyebrows rose disbelievingly.
"That is the assumption that they made. And the Champion of Cyttorak was not seen again." Wesley shrugged, placing the book back on the shelf. "The Slayer is a young woman, chosen by destiny as a defender of humanity. I have always assumed that mutants would be included in that 'humanity' as well. The descriptions… the recent ones were devised in the Middle Ages, and occasionally translated, other descriptions are far older. Divine Protector, Hunter of Evil, Defender of the Living, Beloved of Artemis, Maiden Warrior, Blessed Warrior… Whatever the title, it is the sacred duty and calling of a Slayer to fight against vampires and demons, to defend people from supernatural evils."
"There are some people that would consider mutants to be in that category." Tom leaned back on the couch, trying to figure out what this man's feeling about mutants actually was.
"mmmmm." Wesley meandered to the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of tea, apparently trying to figure out how to put something into words. Finally, he settled into his blue recliner, and sipped at the tea.
"Mutants are people, with all the inherent variation of goals, motivation, and reaction. I certainly think that some mutants are dangerous, like that Sabertooth maniac. One of the Watchers tried to call him a demon, but he didn't match any known type… Or Magneto and his genetic based prejudice, backed by terrifying power. Others… well, there are probably the full range of criminal behaviors present in mutants as well as humans, but that simply isn't normally the area of a Slayer's duty." Wesley tried to explain.
"Because…?" Tom prompted, now quite curious.
Wesley looked at him with an odd small smile. "Would I be wrong in presuming that you are a mutant who's past contains some less than legal activity?"
"For discussion, let's consider that. Are you likely to try to send a Slayer after me?" Tom wasn't quite certain if he believed in this whole Slayer thing. But the man had known about the Ruby, so maybe he did know something.
"There's a basic list of questions. If the answer to them is yes, you might be the sort of danger that a Slayer might be sent against." Wesley sat down his tea and began reciting a litany. "Do you intend to trigger the Apocalypse, in the sense of the end of days? Do you intend to wipe humanity from the face of the earth? Do you eat human flesh, blood, bones or souls? Do you seek to call upon ancient dark or chaotic forces to gain probable power, wealth, and the destruction of a vast and ever-growing list of those who oppose you? Do you practice human sacrifice, normally in sorcerous or pagan rituals?"
Feeling rather stunned and faintly nauseous at the list of questions, Tom shook his head and uttered a weak "no. Do people really…?"
"Mostly demons, but yes, there are some humans who try such things." Wesley sighed again, and rubbed at his temple, as if trying to force back a headache. "That is part of the reason why Slayers have Watchers, people who are supposed to be their guides and teachers."
"Based on who's suggestions?" Cain asked, looking rather unhappy, which could have been anger or equal dismay over the questions.
"There has been a Watcher's Council in various forms since the earliest known histories. The current one is based in London, and has been for several centuries. I am… or was supposed to be Faith's Watcher, her light in the darkness of the battle." Wesley's voice sounded oddly flat, as if this was familiar and painful territory for him.
"What happened? She's in prison and you're here. What went wrong?" Tom demanded, glancing once more at the rack of weapons. Was that orange crusting demon blood?
"I suppose… part of it was that I shouldn't have been sent to be a solo Watcher yet. I should have been sent to study with an experienced Watcher in the field, as it were. And the way that it was handled… There were two Slayers in Sunnydale, and when the Watcher of one of them…" Wesley began to falter his way through an explanation. "Well, let's just say that my orders weren't to study with him but to go and take over as the Watcher of the Slayers. It didn't work very well. I had very little real world experience, neither of them would listen to me if I told them that it was a lovely, sunny day, and Faith ended up emotionally isolated and fell in with a rather uniquely devious villain who wanted… well, he wanted to gain more power, and he had a very effective plan. Faith fell under his influence, and… bad things happened. She was injured and hospitalized for a while, and now she's…. well, now she's in prison."
Tom frowned, thinking back to his visit to Faith. "She mentioned something about a few people who'd want her removed. I assume those are the villains that a Slayer is supposed to fight? All those vampires and demons?"
"Mostly." Wesley sipped at his tea, and his hand shook as he put the cup back down. "But… the Council is an organization, and as with any organization, it eventually holds politics. Power-plays. People who think they're above the rules that constrain everyone else."
"Are you suggesting that some of those people might be the Watchers?" Tom sucked in a deep breath, suddenly feeling very cold.
"Implying. Pointing. All of that." Wesley removed his glasses, placing them beside his cup in order to rub at his eyes. "Most of the Watchers in the field would never dream of such a possibility. They go out to risk themselves for the protection of the world, without a Slayer. They see the Council as one of the few places that this whole nightmarish mess can be mentioned without people deciding that they're raving lunatics. Unfortunately, their dedication to duty means that they often have a fuzzy or inaccurate opinion of the people in administration."
"Of course, of course." Tom forced himself to speak the words instead of snarling. He managed to keep from smiting Wesley as the bearer of bad news, reminding himself that killing the messenger accomplished nothing. Things tuned over in his mind, and he tried to figure out how likely these Watchers were to be spying on Faith. His attention was caught by deep popping noises, like a cross between the crackling of knuckles and the uncorking of a wine bottle.
"Who runs this Council right now?"
"The current Head of the Council is Quentin Travers. It was by his order that I was assigned to Faith." There was a small dark gleam in Wesley's eyes, as if he'd caught some inkling of the turnings of Tom's thoughts. "I doubt that he'd have any preparation that could deal with the two of you."
"No, he probably wouldn't." Tom's voice was almost a purr as he considered options of how to deal with the man who considered his daughter an inconvenience to his grip of power. As soon as they had a good plan, Mr. Travers wouldn't know what had hit him. "I think we've done all that we came for here, Mr. Wyndham-Price. It's been interesting to meet you."
"Yes, I suppose that's one way to describe tonight. Be safe, I suppose, and… well, good luck in talking to Faith." Wesley nodded a cautious farewell as they left the apartment.
"It's not our safety that needs worrying over." Tom's words were too low for Wesley to hear, but they caused his partner to chuckle darkly as they left the apartment building.
"Watch yourself, Travers. Your time is up."
End My Daughter the Slayer?
rating: pg13
main character: Tom Cassidy and Angel
minor appearances by Cain Marco, mentions of Faith (the Slayer)
Disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to Faith (creation of Joss Whedon for Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Tom and Cain - creations of Marvel Comics.
Distribution: Paula, Twisting the Hellmouth, Quickfics, Wic - anyone else ask. If I've said yes for a previous short BtVS/X-Men crossover, you can have this if you want.
note: for those unfamiliar with the character of Black Tom Cassidy, he is an Irish criminal (and mutant). His partner in crime is the Juggernaut (Cain Marko) and they have had a fairly long and colorful criminal career spanning much of Europe. Tom has a cousin named Sean Cassidy (Banshee of the X-Men) who worked for Interpol for a while.
set during season 4(BtVS), after Faith turned herself into the police in Los Angeles. After OZT, Before the High Evolutionary tried to muck things up.
* * *
Tom sighed as he returned from the prison, having just managed to sneak a glimpse at the visitors log for the prisoners. His daughter was only listed as having had a total of three other visitors ever: a detective K. Lockley of the L.A.P.D., someone named Wesley Wyndham-Price, and someone listed as Angel something undecipherable. He'd finally found a better sample of unreadable handwriting than his own carefully practiced scrawl. Naturally, that raised his suspicions. Why was this 'Angel' trying to not have a legible last name? What was 'Angel' hiding?
And just what sort of interest did this 'Angel' have in Faith anyhow? Was Angel a girl, or a man's name?
Just thinking about it made his stomach churn, and his grip on his shillelagh was white-knuckled. It was only years of practice avoiding attention that kept up the pretended limp that he'd been using as an excuse for the shillelagh anyhow. They wouldn't take a man's cane when he needed it to walk, would they?
Cain was waiting outside, leaning against a wall and glaring at the whole world, as if daring something, anything to make trouble. Unsurprisingly, the area around him was very quiet. The only times that normal humans ever tried to cause trouble with Cain was when there were large groups of heavily armed military men, preferably with a tank or two. They still lost, even with the tanks, but it generally made a huge mess and normally seemed to act as stress relief. Unless Cain was just in a bad mood and everything made him even angrier - then things could get a bit ugly.
"How'd it go in there?"
Tom sort of shrugged, not quite able to figure out why the visitors log had left him so angry. The suspicion was easy enough to understand - he didn't want any other criminals involved with his daughter. But it also inspired this sort of hurt feeling, like an emotional bruise, that left him puzzled. "She's only had three visitors, and one was one o' the detectives that locked her away."
"Huh." Cain moved away from the wall, and they started walking back towards the hotel. "Does this mean that we need a plan to get her out?"
"Not yet, my friend." His grip on the shillelagh had changed, so that it looked less like a cane and more like the proper cudgel. "She said that she needs a bit of time to think, and that's the only place that she feels safe enough to do it. I had the feeling that she got involved with some hefty trouble."
"What sort of trouble?" Cain's question held a second question - was this a trouble that they would meddle with?
"I don't rightly know what sort of trouble yet. But it might be that the other two visitors may hold a bit of a clue. One was signed in as 'Angel', the last name something too illegible to make out. The other one was a Wesley Wyndham-Price." Tom was already trying to figure out the most effective way to learn more about these people, and what possible connection they had with his daughter.
"Probably easier to start with the second one. The last name sounds upper crust, British ancestry, either from over seas, New England, or the South. Doesn't sound like he comes from Westhaven, I'm pretty sure I knew who all the have's were around there." Cain frowned, his hands moving as if crushing an unseen object, and his knuckles crackled like gunshots.
"Yes, that makes sense. If we find this Wesley, then he can explain just what his connection is with my daughter." Tom had all sorts of scenarios flitting through his mind, from a devoted boyfriend to just a friend, to some sort of legal student or state person feeling sorry for the criminal to one of the people who had dragged her into the whole mess to begin with. And if this Wesley was responsible fro Faith's troubles…
"Do you think that Wyndham-Price knows this Angel?" Cain's rumbled musings caught Tom's attention.
"Well, 'tis a possibility, I suppose, although it wouldn't be wise to count on it. They don't visit at the same time, an' that's the only thing that we can be certain of just now." Tom considered the chances, drifting away from the thoughts of the many ways they could ruin or end the life of whoever had dragged his girl into trouble. "If they do, it might explain why they both visit her."
"Good points. Where do we start looking for him? This is a big city, and I don't know it at all."
Tom smiled as he caught sight of a teenage girl in a little tiny shirt and pants that barely rose high enough on her hips to stay on, with a slender gold chain encircling her waist as she half screamed at some unfortunate on the other end of the connection. "Why not start with the extremely simple? We can see if he'd listed in the telephone book, and if he is, we can go pay him a bit of a visit."
Chuckling, Cain looked at the phone booth. "So, there was a phone book back at the hotel, might cause less of a scene that way."
"True enough. And if it takes us a while, then we aren't going to have to make people wait. It would put a kink in out plans if we had to worry about the police trying to capture us, and they would be a nuisance." Tom chuckled, for a moment wishing that he was as bullet proof as his partner.
Once they were back in the little hotel, it only took a few minutes to have in their possession both a current phone book and a Los Angeles city map. Then, Tom started searching through the W's while Cain flipped through the few channels on the hotel television, eventually settling on a wrestling entertainment program. "Found him, now to figure out where this address is and how we get there from here."
"That's the whole point of the map."
"The whole…. Of course that's the point of the map! Now, can you help me figure out where Azucar Street is?" Tom glared at Cain, frustrated by trying to find anything in this unfamiliar, chaotic city. "He's got an apartment at 437 Azucar, so all we have to do is figure out where it is and drop in."
A bus trip later, and they discovered that Azucar Street was safe enough, slightly shabby neighborhood that looked to have started the slow slide towards decay. They kept a wary eye out for either law enforcement or mutant related conflict as they walked up to the seven story brick building. People walked along, not paying attention to anyone else, too caught up in their own lives to care about their neighbors.
"I hope this place has solid floors." Cain muttered, looking at the building. "Otherwise I'm going to end up doing a surprise inspection of the furnace."
To their relief, the floors proved to be quite sound, although a few of the boards did creak as Cain stepped on them. They had only a little trouble finding the proper apartment, and then Tom had the lock on the door picked in scarcely longer than it would have taken someone with a key to unlock and open their door.
"Not a very good lock." Tom shook his head, half smiling. "I'd be ashamed to call something like that my own."
They walked inside, looking around with curiosity. There were several large shelves of leather bound books, many of which looked old and scuffed. On the coffee table was a volume with a raised carving of a hideous snarling face that resembled a medieval gargoyle. A rack of swords and axes was beside the window, as well as a loaded crossbow.
"This looks a bit odd." Cain muttered, looking at the weapons. "Nice blades though."
"Demon compendiums? Book of the Dead? Books about magic and curses? Is this one of those daft souls who is drowning in those role-play games?" Tom's question fell into the apartment.
Raising one of the swords, Cain peered at a few dark spots near the hilt. "I don't think he's playing. There's something crusted on here, and it's a sort of orange color."
"Orange?" Tom blinked moving closer to inspect the sword for himself. "What would leave something orange on a sword blade?"
"Another question to ask this guy. As soon as he gets here." Cain returned the sword to the third position on the rack, and went to lean against the wall, not entirely certain the somewhat battered gray couch would support his weight.
Eventually, Tom got bored waiting, and went to explore the kitchen, deciding to make some tea. Cain started flipping through the channels, grumbling at the discovery that this guy didn't even have cable. Or any interesting videos. And so the pair of them impatiently waited.
It was several hours later when there was the sound of rattling keys outside the door. Having never been relocked after Tom and Cain went inside, the door simply swung inwards when the key was put into the doorknob, revealing a lean man with dark circled eyes, dressed in a pair of wrinkled slacks and a dark button up shirt. He looked up, spotting the two of them and tensed, alarm clear in his eyes.
Suspecting that Wesley might bolt, Tom lunged forward, grabbing the man and dragging him inside. "Oh no you don't. You've got a few questions to answer."
As he dragged the younger man inside, he was rewarded by a sharp punch to his stomach as Wesley tried to escape the grip, and another to the jaw that left him seeing sparks.
"Enough!" Cain roared as he grabbed Wesley, dragging him out of Tom's grip and holding him in the air.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?" Wesley Wyndham-Price glared at the pair of them, the anger in his eyes almost concealing the fear.
"The gentleman dangling you above the floor is Cain Marko, and I'm Tom Cassidy." Tom rubbed at his jaw for a moment, trying to figure out where this man had learned to deliver such a strong punch. "We've got a couple questions for you."
This didn't seem to surprise Wesley, although it was actually a bit disappointing that he didn't seem to recognize either name. His next words made it even more clear that he didn't know who they were. "Who are you working for, and what makes you think that I'll tell you anything?"
"Who are we working for?" Tom repeated blankly. "We're not working for anyone. I'm here on a more personal matter. How do you know Faith?"
"Faith? This is about Faith?" The man seemed entirely surprised, and while the apparent levels of confusion didn't drop, he did seem slightly less angry and afraid. "What is your connection to her?"
"She's my daughter." Tom glared at Wesley. This was certainly easier when people were terrified of him and his partner.
"Your wha…?" For a moment, the dangling man had an expression of complete blank shock, before it turned into an angry glare. "Then where have you been all her life, you miserable wretch?"
"Where have I been? Her ma thought that I would be a bad influence, so she divorced me when Faith was just a little girl. Now, how do you know her, and why is my daughter sitting in prison?" Tom glared, one hand gripping his shillelagh.
"Faith is a Slayer, and I'm her Watcher, or supposed to be anyhow." The words were soft, barely audible. A series of emotions flickered through the man's eyes, but Tom couldn't quite decipher them.
"A what? If you're one of those fellows that follows lasses around to peek through their windows…" Tom left the rest of the sentence dangling, certain that the other man could fill in something sufficiently threatening.
"Slayer… I think there was something about that on the cave walls." Cain's low rumble startled them both. "At the cavern of Cyttorak."
"What? Could someone explain what a Slayer is and why he's calling my daughter one?" Tom glared around the room, feeling the entire encounter slipping out of his control.
"The cavern of Cyttorak? I know there's a reference to that in one of those volumes…" Twisting slightly, he peered at Cain. "Could you please put me down?"
With a small shrug, Cain dropped him. Wesley landed on his feet with the sort of familiarity that spoke of experience with falling and dropping, and made his way to the set of shelves beside the door, pulling down a thin volume of deep red leather. Flipping through pages, he was muttering things under his breath that Tom couldn't quite decipher. "Was that the cavern of sacrifice, which would have had a large black stone alter with a set of bronze inlays on the floor, or the cavern of the mysteries, which should have had a large red stone, and possibly a skeleton of the last High Priest of Cyttorak?"
"There was a stone." The words were clipped, tense.
"Which would mean…" Wesley paused, glancing again at Cain, his eyes traveling up the huge size of him. "Yes, that would definitely explain that. Imbued with the power of Cyttorak, the living juggernaut which no mortal can stop. This makes things a bit more complicated…"
"And how does any of that connect to my daughter?" Tom demanded, glaring from Cain to Wesley.
"In the last battle against the High Priest of Cyttorak, there was a Slayer leading the army that fought him. The army attacked the champion of Cyttorak, recorded as He-Who-Wore-the-Crimson-Gem, and while he was busy, the Slayer attacked the high priest, destroying his vampire honor guard and eventually killing him." Wesley paused, glancing back at the book. "It is recorded that when the priest died, his death cries caught the attention of the champion, who then turned to try to destroy her. The cavern collapsed, and the remnants of the army retreated, assuming their foe defeated by the collapse. Faith is now a Slayer."
"A cave in defeating a Juggernaut?" One of Cain's eyebrows rose disbelievingly.
"That is the assumption that they made. And the Champion of Cyttorak was not seen again." Wesley shrugged, placing the book back on the shelf. "The Slayer is a young woman, chosen by destiny as a defender of humanity. I have always assumed that mutants would be included in that 'humanity' as well. The descriptions… the recent ones were devised in the Middle Ages, and occasionally translated, other descriptions are far older. Divine Protector, Hunter of Evil, Defender of the Living, Beloved of Artemis, Maiden Warrior, Blessed Warrior… Whatever the title, it is the sacred duty and calling of a Slayer to fight against vampires and demons, to defend people from supernatural evils."
"There are some people that would consider mutants to be in that category." Tom leaned back on the couch, trying to figure out what this man's feeling about mutants actually was.
"mmmmm." Wesley meandered to the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of tea, apparently trying to figure out how to put something into words. Finally, he settled into his blue recliner, and sipped at the tea.
"Mutants are people, with all the inherent variation of goals, motivation, and reaction. I certainly think that some mutants are dangerous, like that Sabertooth maniac. One of the Watchers tried to call him a demon, but he didn't match any known type… Or Magneto and his genetic based prejudice, backed by terrifying power. Others… well, there are probably the full range of criminal behaviors present in mutants as well as humans, but that simply isn't normally the area of a Slayer's duty." Wesley tried to explain.
"Because…?" Tom prompted, now quite curious.
Wesley looked at him with an odd small smile. "Would I be wrong in presuming that you are a mutant who's past contains some less than legal activity?"
"For discussion, let's consider that. Are you likely to try to send a Slayer after me?" Tom wasn't quite certain if he believed in this whole Slayer thing. But the man had known about the Ruby, so maybe he did know something.
"There's a basic list of questions. If the answer to them is yes, you might be the sort of danger that a Slayer might be sent against." Wesley sat down his tea and began reciting a litany. "Do you intend to trigger the Apocalypse, in the sense of the end of days? Do you intend to wipe humanity from the face of the earth? Do you eat human flesh, blood, bones or souls? Do you seek to call upon ancient dark or chaotic forces to gain probable power, wealth, and the destruction of a vast and ever-growing list of those who oppose you? Do you practice human sacrifice, normally in sorcerous or pagan rituals?"
Feeling rather stunned and faintly nauseous at the list of questions, Tom shook his head and uttered a weak "no. Do people really…?"
"Mostly demons, but yes, there are some humans who try such things." Wesley sighed again, and rubbed at his temple, as if trying to force back a headache. "That is part of the reason why Slayers have Watchers, people who are supposed to be their guides and teachers."
"Based on who's suggestions?" Cain asked, looking rather unhappy, which could have been anger or equal dismay over the questions.
"There has been a Watcher's Council in various forms since the earliest known histories. The current one is based in London, and has been for several centuries. I am… or was supposed to be Faith's Watcher, her light in the darkness of the battle." Wesley's voice sounded oddly flat, as if this was familiar and painful territory for him.
"What happened? She's in prison and you're here. What went wrong?" Tom demanded, glancing once more at the rack of weapons. Was that orange crusting demon blood?
"I suppose… part of it was that I shouldn't have been sent to be a solo Watcher yet. I should have been sent to study with an experienced Watcher in the field, as it were. And the way that it was handled… There were two Slayers in Sunnydale, and when the Watcher of one of them…" Wesley began to falter his way through an explanation. "Well, let's just say that my orders weren't to study with him but to go and take over as the Watcher of the Slayers. It didn't work very well. I had very little real world experience, neither of them would listen to me if I told them that it was a lovely, sunny day, and Faith ended up emotionally isolated and fell in with a rather uniquely devious villain who wanted… well, he wanted to gain more power, and he had a very effective plan. Faith fell under his influence, and… bad things happened. She was injured and hospitalized for a while, and now she's…. well, now she's in prison."
Tom frowned, thinking back to his visit to Faith. "She mentioned something about a few people who'd want her removed. I assume those are the villains that a Slayer is supposed to fight? All those vampires and demons?"
"Mostly." Wesley sipped at his tea, and his hand shook as he put the cup back down. "But… the Council is an organization, and as with any organization, it eventually holds politics. Power-plays. People who think they're above the rules that constrain everyone else."
"Are you suggesting that some of those people might be the Watchers?" Tom sucked in a deep breath, suddenly feeling very cold.
"Implying. Pointing. All of that." Wesley removed his glasses, placing them beside his cup in order to rub at his eyes. "Most of the Watchers in the field would never dream of such a possibility. They go out to risk themselves for the protection of the world, without a Slayer. They see the Council as one of the few places that this whole nightmarish mess can be mentioned without people deciding that they're raving lunatics. Unfortunately, their dedication to duty means that they often have a fuzzy or inaccurate opinion of the people in administration."
"Of course, of course." Tom forced himself to speak the words instead of snarling. He managed to keep from smiting Wesley as the bearer of bad news, reminding himself that killing the messenger accomplished nothing. Things tuned over in his mind, and he tried to figure out how likely these Watchers were to be spying on Faith. His attention was caught by deep popping noises, like a cross between the crackling of knuckles and the uncorking of a wine bottle.
"Who runs this Council right now?"
"The current Head of the Council is Quentin Travers. It was by his order that I was assigned to Faith." There was a small dark gleam in Wesley's eyes, as if he'd caught some inkling of the turnings of Tom's thoughts. "I doubt that he'd have any preparation that could deal with the two of you."
"No, he probably wouldn't." Tom's voice was almost a purr as he considered options of how to deal with the man who considered his daughter an inconvenience to his grip of power. As soon as they had a good plan, Mr. Travers wouldn't know what had hit him. "I think we've done all that we came for here, Mr. Wyndham-Price. It's been interesting to meet you."
"Yes, I suppose that's one way to describe tonight. Be safe, I suppose, and… well, good luck in talking to Faith." Wesley nodded a cautious farewell as they left the apartment.
"It's not our safety that needs worrying over." Tom's words were too low for Wesley to hear, but they caused his partner to chuckle darkly as they left the apartment building.
"Watch yourself, Travers. Your time is up."
End My Daughter the Slayer?