Chapter 20.
David Xanatos was not a happy man. He had been out most of the night, scanning the skies with night-vision and infrared goggles hoping to find gargoyles, but found nothing. And though he was rich, he didn't like to think of himself as pampered. But there was almost nothing open in this town at night. He couldn't rent a car, he couldn't call a cab—it was nearly impossible to get a hotel room, even. There wasn't a single 5-star hotel in the town, but David had had to pay more than the cost of a suite at one of the nicest hotels he owned, just for a double room at a crappy hotel.
But Owen had insisted. Apparently there were dangerous creatures about in this town. Though neither of them were pushovers in the martial arts and both of them were armed, when Owen insisted about something like his personal safety, Xanatos listened. He watched as Owen finished performing a ritual by the door to the room.
"That will keep anything intending us harm out," Owen explained as he stood up and smoothed out the lines of his suit.
"Such as?" Xanatos raised an eyebrow. Just because he was willing to go along with Owen's insistence didn't mean he didn't want to know why. Actually, since Owen insisted so little, it actually piqued his interest all the more.
"I sensed a Fyarl Demon nearby. Not the brightest demon ever, but very strong. And immune to nearly everything but silver. And I didn't think to pack any silver weapons. I apologize," Owen said.
"But that spell you did will keep it out?" Xanatos confirmed.
"It's called a ward, and it will keep out anything except the most powerful of witches or Oberon's Children," Owen nodded. "And I picked this hotel and this room because this window gives a view of 63% of Sunnydale's skyline, so we can continue our search, should you wish it."
He did.
In the morning, Xanatos called the helicopter to pick them up and take them to LA. Sunnydale was only a few hours outside the LA metro area, but David Xanatos wasn't about to drive into that city in rush hour traffic. And it was actually cheaper to hire the helicopter, pick up the things they needed, and rent a car for the drive back than it was to get everything they wanted shipped same-day to Sunnydale. It was the shipping charges that made costs outrageous.
Included in their new supplies were blessed sliver daggers and silver bullets, along with a case of tasers. Electricity would disable most things while only killing a few. That was an important consideration since they were visitors, unaware of the local politics. It would be a shame to kill something that roared at them out of the darkness, only to find that the roar was that species' way of saying 'hello'.
They also rented a car to drive themselves back to Sunnydale. The roads heading out of LA were practically empty, so the drive back was pleasant and short. Having a car would also make them more mobile the next night. Xanatos had insisted on a convertible, but Owen had countered that a power moon roof would give them many of the advantages they sought, with added protection if they were attacked in their car. So they compromised and got the moon roof.
When they got back to the hotel, the clerk refunded them much of the money they'd paid for the night before. Apparently, it was some sort of late-night-arrival deposit.
The first nice day in a week found Cordelia eating her lunch on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard with her Cordettes. Well, technically it was a fountain. They hadn't actually run water through it since before Cordelia had been born. Too many pranks. If kids weren't filling with Jello or something worse, then they were peeing in it or throwing garbage in it. Now it was just a concrete tub that collected leaves each fall and gave kids a nice place to sit and eat their lunch.
Cordelia ate her salad, hardly tasting it and not listening to the mindless chatter going on around her. She'd run into Jono in the hall and verbally took him apart; and yet, she didn't feel any better. He hadn't cringed, or cried, or any of the sad, loserly, pathetic stuff he usually did. In fact, he'd smiled at her. Quite creepily. She had half a mind to report him to Principal Flutie. Except that he probably wouldn't do anything about it. She'd gone off in search of her next favorite target, Marcie, instead. But the little skank was nowhere to be found. Apparently, she'd found somewhere other than the band room to hide out.
She sighed and forked another bite of salad with diet, non-fat dressing into her mouth. She had just swallowed when a huge BOOM echoed across the courtyard and the back of her head was sprayed by something warm and wet. A huge weight fell on her and she toppled to the ground.
"That is what happens to all bullies eventually. Someone gets fed up and snaps. Cordelia was lucky that two people snapped at the same time and got in each other's way. That could have very easily been you Jonathan was aiming for. Or that an invisible Marcie brought a knife to school for," Miss Calendar lectured her clan. It was a good teaching point. "No more picking on others. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Jenny," the other four intoned.
Jenny sighed. At least 'Jenny' was her name... after a fashion. It sure as heck beat 'Fearless Leader', the name they had tried to call her at first.
Giles had Amy and Willow with him the next night. He left his two 'brawlers' to patrol on their own. Hopefully they kept each other out of trouble. But he didn't want the fighting styles of those two to influence this new clan if he could help it. They weren't likely to be as durable as slayers or gargoyles.
It turned out that the Hyena clan was even rawer than he'd guessed. Miss Calendar had neglected to begin training them in even the most rudimentary martial arts. Her excuse that she had been helping them deal with their changes cut no ice with him. He'd helped his own clan adjust to far bigger changes and taught them martial arts at the same time.
She did at least have them all carrying a minimum of one stake apiece.
After warm-ups and a few drills, Giles stepped up to spar against the one known as Kyle. He certainly appeared the most confident and the de facto second in command. At a guess, he was the leader of the children before Jenny and the Hyena joined the group.
"Enough!" Giles called. The young man stopped fighting and walked over to his friends holding his side where Giles had clipped him gently.
Jenny cringed. That had been ugly. Giles had been playing with Kyle like a cat plays with a mouse. And Kyle was the best of her clan. "So, verdict?"
Giles wasn't even breathing hard. It wasn't that they weren't strong or fast, but Giles was stronger, at least as fast, and fully trained. There was no contest. He judged they would be on equal footing with recently risen vampires. "The Primal possession was used by tribesmen to give trained warriors a boost in order to compete with supernatural predators. The keywords being trained warriors. Expecting children to suddenly be able to take down vampires simply because they are stronger and faster than a human is... implausible," Giles studiously ignored his own hypocrisy and that of the watchers council. Slayers were measurably faster and stronger than vampires, for one thing.
"So, no killing vampires?" Rhonda asked.
Giles shook a talon at her. "I didn't say that. I would suggest a few months of intense training before you go seeking out another fight. Miss Calendar, you certainly have the skills needed to train them in the basics, and if you need advanced training after that, I'm sure you can find someone in LA willing to help. But for now, there's no reason to be unprepared. We will teach you one move that may save your lives one day; a technique that is taught to all watchers. Done correctly by a human, this move will best 95% of vampires who have never seen it. Your clan should have no problem pulling it off."
He, Willow, and Amy all walked them through the technique of palming a stake, walking calmly up to a vampire, and stabbing him quickly with an upwards thrust under the ribcage instead of trying to power through it.
"Surprise is your greatest ally when performing this move. You don't have to be faster than a vampire for this to work, simply faster than the vampire is expecting you to be. The most important part," Giles said, "is to strike quickly and without mercy. This is a dangerous game you've entered, and the prize for second place is death." He left Willow and Amy in charge of the training while he and Jenny had a quiet word.
"This thing with the Anointed One, I think it's going to happen soon," Jenny began. "There have been portents. A cat last week gave birth to a litter of snakes. A family was swimming in Whisper Lake when the lake suddenly began to boil. And just today, two people tried to kill Cordelia Chase."
"One assumes they'd met her?" Giles deadpanned. He had heard several horror stories about the Chase girl from both Willow and Amy over the last few weeks.
"I'm serious. Two of the most mild-mannered kids you ever knew suddenly decided to try to kill the same person. Luckily for Cordelia, Marcie walked up behind her just as Jon pulled the trigger. Marcie was pronounced at the scene and the cops got to Jonathan after he used another bullet on himself. They found a note complaining about bullying, but not much else."
"And Cordelia?"
"Her parents are suing the school, of course. Their little 'angel' couldn't have been so mean as to cause two people to try to kill her," Jenny scoffed.
Giles just raised an eyebrow.
Jenny threw up her hands. "Fine, maybe the last isn't a sign of the Apocalypse. But I'm just letting you know to be on your toes. Something is coming. And considering how you just manhandled my clan, I really want you to be ready for it.
"Noted," Giles assured her.
They drilled for several more hours after that, until the Hyena clan, having to get up in the morning for school, called it a night.
"Thank you, Rupert. For all your help," Jenny said with a warm smile, laying a hand gently on his shoulder.
Giles returned the smile with a fearsome one of his own and nodded.
"Giles, we might have trouble. I think we're being followed," Buffy's voice came over the radio.
"Followed?" Giles repeated.
"There's a black Mercedes that's been following us for a while. License plate 1 Alpha Bravo Kangaroo 982."
"We're on our way, we'll stay low. Also 'K' is 'Kilo' not 'Kangaroo'. Remind me to teach all of you the military phonetic alphabet later. And are you sure they're following you?" Giles asked.
"There's not much traffic. Kinda hard to miss," Buffy pointed out.
The proper height for patrolling had been the subject for much furious debate amongst the gargoyles. Buffy, with her gigantic wings, wanted to patrol as high as possible to see the whole town at once. The downside with that plan was that the whole city would be able to see them too, just by looking up. Plus, there was a limit to what eyes, whether human or gargoyle, could take in at once. Similarly, they didn't want to fly too low. Dodging trees, houses, and especially power lines was not fun, and rather dangerous. Plus, if you were that low, you were vulnerable to attack from the ground.
Thus, a standard patrol height was reached. High enough not to hit any trees or power lines, but not much more than 20 feet higher than the tallest buildings in Sunnydale. Which generally gave them a good view and enough extra oomph when they dove in attack.
Which meant that Giles was very out of practice at flying low. He almost hit two buildings and a parked semi-trailer on his way to meeting Xander and Buffy.
"Giles, are you sure you haven't been drinking?" Amy joked. "Those were some pretty close calls."
Giles sighed. "No, I assure you- What's this?"
"What's this" turned out to be three vampires walking out in the open. Granted, it was a pretty narrow alley they were in. But they were carrying a woman's body. Said body moaned and twitched, revealing her face.
"That's Kendra!" Willow realized.
"Radio Xander and Buffy over here quickly!" Giles ordered Willow before he and Amy dove into the narrow lane.
Armor is cheating, Amy decided. And she didn't like it when the other side cheated. That was her group's job.
Giles had landed on one vampire and jumped from there onto another, driving his stake into the second vamp's chest. Except that the vampire hadn't dusted, just backhanded a surprised Giles into the wall.
Amy had been following Giles down and was going for the one carrying Kendra, but when she saw Giles take that hit, she adjusted her course and hit the one who was about to follow up his first blow instead. She sent him flying. A crash behind her caused her to turn as one vamp tossed Kendra into a trash heap. As he advanced, the one that Giles had nearly crushed was also getting up.
There was a roar behind her and Amy got to see Willow knock the vamp behind her to the ground. Her own attempt at staking was no more successful than Giles' had been. Amy turned back- and all thought was driven from her mind as her face exploded in pain. She had thought that 'seeing stars' was a euphemism or something that happened in cartoons, but now she knew better. The stars sure were pretty. But she didn't get to see them long before another fist slammed into her gut. Her arms, which had flown instinctively up to her face, now went down to protect her stomach as the air was driven from her lungs. And a fist went back to her unprotected face. It probably would have gone on like that if someone hadn't intervened.
Amy could no longer see clearly; blood, tears, and pain obscured her vision; but it could only be Giles fighting. And having been given a few seconds to recover, he came out swinging. An inhuman roar pierced the night as Giles struck. The power behind the blow combined with Giles' knowledge of fighting easily shattered the demon's jaw, which the demon immediately brought his arms up to protect. Giles gave him two more body blows before kicking him away; the other two vampires were approaching.
Amy looked over to Willow in a panic. If her vampire was here, then... Willow didn't look good. One of her wings was obviously broken, but she couldn't see well enough to tell if she was breathing or not. Amy crawled over to her friend until she was satisfied that Willow's chest was still moving. She looked back to see the fight again.
Giles was good. She hadn't really realized just how good he was until now, as he mostly let the kids do the hunting. In the back of her mind, Amy wondered just how many years Giles had been studying martial arts. Amy considered herself a pretty good fighter now. She'd been training for a month and had several dozen kills to her credit. But none of them were like these guys. She'd been defeated so easily. And yet, Giles was still standing against two of them. No mean feat, as Amy could tell you from personal experience.
The third vampire was also picking himself up. He gingerly reset his jaw, looked at Giles, then at Amy, and started towards the girls. Amy forced herself to stand up despite the pain she was in. She glanced around before the vampire got to her and realized she was trapped. Even if she was willing to leave Willow and Giles behind, the alley was too narrow for her to fully spread her wings. She wasn't flying out of here. If she had the time, she probably could have climbed one of the walls, but she didn't have that kind of time. The vampire was almost on top of her.
Amy danced to the side to get a little room. She tried jabbing at his jaw, but the vamp wasn't going to let anything hit his injured bone again. On the plus side, he was being very defensive, which meant he wasn't landing many blows either. Still, Amy was getting punched more than she'd ever been hit in her life. She had never been so relieved to hear a gargoyle's roar.
"Buffy, help Giles!" she yelled without looking up. Buffy was their best fighter after Giles, and she hoped the former Slayer would be in time to make a difference in that fight.
Xander came down right on top of where the vampire Amy was fighting had been a second ago. His look of surprise clearly told he hadn't been expecting to miss. But he didn't let that stop him. A quick elbow spike to the gut caught the demon by surprise in return and opened up a wound, though the howl they heard wasn't from the vamp.
Amy chanced a quick glance backwards to see that Giles was a lot closer now than when she'd last looked, and he also looked very beat up. His left arm hung limply at his side, flopping about as the rest of his body moved. His right wing also hung wrongly, clearly broken. Whatever happened, they weren't flying out of here tonight.
She turned back in time to see Xander spin his tail at the opponent. It was a unique move and most vampires were surprised by it since most fighters never fought something with such a large and powerful tail. But not this one. He caught Xander's tail, then pulled him off balance and grabbed a wing instead. He traded receiving another blow to his jaw in exchange for breaking Xander's wing. Xander bellowed in pain as the vamp staggered back from the blow he'd received.
Amy took the opportunity to attack and actually drove him back a few paces with her own powerful blows before he took control again and was driving her back, in return. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees in spasms. He fell on his face, still shaking, and Amy could see why. Sticking out of his back, two leads were attached to wires that led to a blond man in a blue suit and red tie.
His voice was nearly a monotone but edged with just the hint of a smile, "I've always wanted to say this; come with me if you want to live." Behind him, a black car at the end of the alley had the two doors facing her open. The man walked up to her and handed her the stun gun. "Just keep holding down the button until I rescue the rest of your clan."
Amy did as she was told and quickly pressed the trigger. She was rewarded by the vampire spazzing on the ground. "Xander, can you help Willow?" she nodded to the car.
Xander was clearly in pain, but he nodded. He went over, picked Willow up, and sat her down on the passenger seat.
Amy turned her attention back to Giles' fight. Except Giles was out of the fight. It had been two on one again until the stranger showed up. At least Buffy didn't look like her wings were injured. The blond man tasered first one and then the other vampire. Buffy muttered her thanks to him, then went to collect Giles. Seeing Buffy carry the blue gargoyle like an overgrown baby was so weird that Amy almost burst out laughing. But even the smile that image brought to her face hurt.
Buffy gently slid Giles into the car and over to the other side before buckling him in. She sat down in the space between his legs and the driver's seat. "Okay! We're in!"
Amy looked over at the stranger then remembered, "Wait! Where's Kendra?" She looked over at the pile of garbage she'd been dumped on, but her body was gone. There was no way any of the vamps they'd been fighting could have done something to it.
"There's no one else here," the blond man said from her side. "I'm sorry, but we must go. These batteries won't last." With that, he dropped his tasers and walked calmly back to the car. Amy followed him, only slightly limping. He let Amy get in first then got in after her. It was a tight squeeze, almost every inch of room in the car was being used.
"We're all in, Mr. Xanatos."
A/N: On compromise: My girlfriend wanted a cat, but I didn't want a cat. So we compromised and got a cat.
A/N2: I don't know how Joss got away with Jonathan telling people that he'd climbed to the highest point in the school with a high-powered assassin's rifle, but was only going to commit suicide. I think that episode came with an extra gullibility pill.