Chapter 42.
PRESIDENTIAL SUITE,
S.F. AIRPORT HILTON,
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
LATE SPRING, 1999
(7:05 A.M./PST)
It was Xander who heard the not-quite muted whispering from the direction of the bedroom where they had left Buffy. So, he excused himself from Willow and Giles and went to investigate.
"Buff? You okay?"
The somnambulistic Slayer looked at the young man: "I'm fine. But, Mom's about to get kidnapped."
Xander could not decide what was more astounding; what Buffy had just said. . .or the almost-blissful _way_ she had said it.
* * * * *
SUMMERS RESIDENCE,
SUNNYDALE, CAL.
Joyce looked at the telephone receiver in complete bewilderment.
"Buffy," she finally replied: "I know what you do requires a great deal of catharsis. And, that it often takes the form of gallows-humor. But, if this is one such morbid joke, it is most definitely not even remotely funny! So, call me again, later this evening, when I get home from work."
Whereupon, Joyce hung up the phone and headed for the front door, car keys in hand. When she opened the front door, however, she was so startled by the man she found standing just outside, on the front stoop, that she almost dropped the keys!
"Oh! Oh, dear. I'm so sorry for yelling like that, sir. It's just that. . ."
"Quite all right, Mrs. Summers," replied Ethan Rayne: "A perfectly normal, and understandably instinctive, reaction."
"Thank you, Mr. . .?"
She paused as the realization hit her.
"Wait a minute! How did you know my. . .?"
She was cut off by her envelopment within a sickly-green beam of light.
* * * * *
JOSHUA TREE, CALIF.
(7:10 A.M./PST)
Sam Lawson reacted immediately. Faster than most human eyes would be able to follow, he unzipped the top part of his flight suit and withdrew a Colt M-1911.
"Get out of here!" he shouted over to the Green Lama and Magga: "I'll hold them off as long as I can."
"No, wait. . .!" the former tried to reply. But, it was too late. Lawson was already opening fire up at the hsigo of the lead kuei-jin. And, sure enough; his first bullet hit it right between the eyes. A feat of marksmanship he duplicated with the two hsigos next to it! Unfortunately, if he had been under the belief that their sun-blocked riders would crash to earth with them, he was destined to meet his Final Death extremely disappointed.
With a well-synchronized "kiai," all three kuei-jin angled their bodies like skydivers. So that, when they landed on the ground, they were six feet closer to Lawson. Whereupon, they used the momentum of their landing to spring upward once again. Closing the remaining distance between themselves and the gun-wielding Caitiff before he could properly realign his aim.
* * * * *
SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT HILTON
(7:12 A.M./PST)
The instant Xander had gotten over his shock, he ran back into the living room to get Giles and Willow. Practically dragging the former by his right hand!
"Quick, Buff. Repeat for them what you just told me."
The blonde Slayer, still under the hypnotic trance, did as instructed.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Giles, trying hard to fight his rising sense of panic by _not_ polishing his glasses: "Buffy? Buffy, tell me. Exactly _who_ is abducting your mother?"
"Ethan Rayne," she calmly replied: "He's used the Ferrula Geminiarum to split her in two. He will then hypnotize her stronger half into going to work, as usual, so our neighbors in Sunnydale don't suspect anything. Meanwhile, he's going to call us here and tell us he's holding her weaker half hostage. Threatening to let both halves die of neuro-empathic exhaustion if I don't steal those vellum incantations for him."
"And, if you comply?" continued Giles: "Where are you to meet him for this alleged exchange?"
"Atop the central tower of the Golden Gate Bridge."
It was at this exact moment that the phone on the bedroom nightstand began ringing...just as predicted.
* * * * *
JOSHUA TREE, CALIF.
(7:15 A.M./PST)
When he first began fighting crime, during the 1930's, the Green Lama had used what the Akashic Brotherhood had taught, concerning "radioactive salts," to devise a kind of battery powered by a compound of lithium and radio-iodine. And, with a pair of these lithium iodide batteries strapped to his each of his forearms, he could turn his index and middle fingers into organic TASER's! Non-lethally subduing any and all gun-wielding assailants with a temporarily paralytic electric shock.
But, these were not mortal gunmen currently dismembering Sam Lawson. These were kuei-jin, armed with chain whips and hook swords. And, they could recover from such paralysis much more quickly than humans! Just as their pet hsigos were now beginning to regenerate from their otherwise fatal head wounds.
Add this to the fact that there were still nine more kuei-jin hovering aloft, and the Green Lama saw no other choice.
"Magga? Give me the chu-ko-nu."
"What?!" she exclaimed.
"Take the Dagon-sphere, and deliver it to Frisco! I'll stay here, and hold them off."
"You are not as young as you used to be, Jethro Dumont! If anyone should hold these off-"
"Do what I say, woman!" the Green Lama snapped: "Get going!"
The Shaean wizardess reluctantly acquiesced. Although, not without glowering at him. Two seconds later, she was gone. And, the Green Lama hefted the chu-ko-nu (a modern variant of the Chinese repeating crossbow, operating on the principles of the Gatling gun) up to chest level. The same way anyone else might heft a double-barreled shotgun.
"All right, folks. What say we get this party started, without further delay?"
Whereupon, he fired the first three silver quarrels into Sam Lawson's killers. Followed by all three of their pet hsigos.
* * * * *
SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL, CALIFORNIA
(7:17 A.M./PST)
The Ropen had finally reached the West Coast of the United States. A Setite-Embraced practitioner of the Hem Ka Sobk Craft, rather than a true dragon, he had once tried to seize power from Cleopatra VII, last of the Egyptian Ptolemies. But, Shaea, a crescent-moon theurge of the Silent Strider Garou, had used the fabled Dagon-sphere to bolster her own considerable magicks and drive him off. Sending him into what she had thought would be permanent exile in the farthest corner of the then-known world: the island of New Guinea.
Shaea's curse had weakened over the millennia, however. To the point where Glory's re-emergence on the Earthly plane had eliminated it, altogether! Thereby gaining her the Ropen's undying gratitude and loyalty.
Now, he and the Glorious One were approaching the Channel Island of San Miguel.
"OK, Ropen!" she exclaimed: "Home in on those ley lines. This trip has taken way too long, already."
One smoky snort of agreement later, the Ropen and Glordelia disappeared from the video lenses of the DRI spy satellites that had been tracking them. A moment later, they rematerialized much further eastward. Somewhere between the Superstition Mountains of Arizona and the Colorado Piedmont.
"There it is, Ropen!" Glordelia shrieked with glee: "There's the little tin bird carrying the guy I'm looking for."
She pointed to the white Legacy Learjet carrying Brother Demetrius. And, when the almost-incredulous pilots of the plane spotted her heading toward them on an intercept course, they told their passengers to strap in as they were about to try some evasive action! But, it was ultimately no use. Though the Learjet managed to withstand being buffeted by the slipstream of the initial near-miss, it could not evade the stream of fire issued by the Ropen upon the latter's U-turn. A stream of fire that set the plane's entire tail ablaze!
The Learjet went into an uncontrollable power dive, with the chief pilot broadcasting a constant "Mayday," as Brother Demetrius and Kristin Adams unbuckled their safety belts. Struggling for all they were worth against the G-forces assailing them so they could each don a parachute pack. The Greek monk was _still_ struggling, however, when he suddenly found himself at the center of a shower of white orbs of light!
His disappearance, parachute and all, in the midst of those orbs was the last thing Kristin Adams ever saw.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, back at the Presidential Suite of the S.F. Airport Hilton, Rupert Giles was finding it ever more difficult to remain calm as he listened to the vampirized Ethan Rayne unwittingly repeat, over the phone, most of what Buffy had already told him (before finally being brought out of her precognitive trance with a finger snap from Xander).
"And, just where are we to make the exchange?" he asked through gritted teeth: "Assuming we succeed at stealing those vellum pages once the Learjet has landed."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ripper," replied Ethan with an irritating gloat: "Didn't I tell you? The pages aren't aboard there, anymore. They and their courier are now waiting for the Slayer at a picturesque little manor house on Prescott Street. Number 1329, to be precise! So, that's where we'll make the exchange."
tbc