Faith hadn't been able to answer Mort's question about her heart maybe stopping while she was in the hospital, and she hadn't liked the uncertainty or the question. Not that she expected most people to get a kick out of thinking about their maybe-death. Being Faith, she'd decided that tough thinking about thorny questions wasn't her strong point. On the other hand, it had been Wesley's job.
Wesley was in the upstairs library, with a stack of old books beside him, another open in front of him, and a notebook with a pencil at his elbow.
"Hey," Faith spoke from beside a shelf, wanting to make certain he knew she was there before launching the tricky questions.
"Faith? What brings you here? I'm well aware that the library isn't your favorite place," Wesley blinked at her, one hand remaining on the book to mark his place.
"Mort and I were talking earlier, and he mentioned something. A question and a good point. We both know that I got hurt pretty bad back in Sunny, and spent a while in the hospital," Faith began awkwardly, certain that there would be no graceful way to ask.
"Yes, your injuries were quite severe. I'm not even certain that every Slayer would have been able to survive such a nasty combination of injuries," Wesley nodded. "A valid, if unsettling observation. Where does the question come into play?"
"Medical shows. Do we know if I flat-lined at the hospital? Would it have made someone else a Slayer if I had, even if it was just for a few moments?" Faith dropped the question like a rock. There was no point in dancing around it, and the sooner she spat it out, the sooner he could get back to whatever he'd been reading, probably either about the Door or looking for the scary vampire woman.
"Wha… I…" For a few moments, Wesley resembled a fish. Then he seemed to pull himself together. "While I do not know if you did or did not flat line at the hospital, it would certainly have been possible, given what I know about your injuries. Anything severe enough to leave you in a coma might well have caused your heart to falter or stop. The Sunnydale Hospital wouldn't release your medical records to me, only to you, or a designated legal guardian – something about patient privacy. I don't know if your heart stopping for a few moments could have Called a new Slayer or not, very few Slayers have the chance for sufficiently skilled medical attention to let us find out such a thing. I'm almost positive that there's never before been a Slayer in a coma."
"So, would there be a new Slayer?" Faith's fingers twisted at a loose thread at the hem of her tank top, and brushed against the scar on her stomach. "Is there any way to find out if there's another one out there?"
"There are a few people among the Watchers who are still talking to me, I can see if they've heard anything about a new Slayer. Failing that, there are a couple rituals intended to track down a Slayer… the way it is supposed to work is to give an indication of which way and how far to a Slayer. If it would pick up another with you here, that should tell us something." Wesley frowned and tapped at the notebook. "The implications if stopping a Slayer's heart for a while Call another could be quite disturbing… not that drowning and CPR don't raise similar disturbing issues. Medically speaking, there are a number of ways that someone's heart could be stopped."
"How many times could one person dying Call another Slayer? B can't be the first Slayer ever to have someone work with her, she can't be the first Slayer to know someone who knew CPR. How the hell can we be sure there aren't already more Slayers out there?" Faith leaned against the book case, and shook her head. "Maybe there's a whole bunch of us, and we all get fed this line that we're the only ones standing between Earth and the Apocalypse. Kind of makes you fight harder if there's nobody else to call, you know?"
"That's a truly disturbing idea. I just wish I could blame it entirely on you. Something similar crossed my mind shortly after I first heard of Miss Summers' drowning and resuscitation. Considering some of the senior Watchers…" Wesley paused for a few moments before speaking again. "As I said, there are disturbing implications. I will have to make a few calls, and perhaps I can try one of those Slayer locating spells after we deal with this Mistress Vampire."
"Yeah, just thought you'd have a better chance of answers than me," Faith shrugged, trying to suggest that the idea of dying didn't make her skin crawl.
"Those aren't questions that Slayers are normally taught the right references to approach," Wesley murmured, his eyes taking on the unfocused and glazed cast of someone who was no longer paying attention to what was right here in front of them. "Perhaps Nathan… and maybe if we can get a few others to cast the spell and triangulate the results… Best if we can get a reference from somewhere in Europe as well…"
"I'll let you get to that," Faith turned towards the library door before she remembered the email from Willow. "Hey, Wes, one more thing. I sent an email to Red, back in Sunnydale, asking her if she could find anything about a Door to the Heavens, maybe why that vampire wants it so bad. She found something about a door to send the restless dead through. I wasn't sure if it could be used to bring them back. I'll print out the email so you can have what she said and maybe check back if you want more details. 'Course, if seems that there's weird shit going on there to keep them busy, so it could take a while for her to get back on that."
With those words, she left the library. She could let Wesley tackle the question of finding out if there were more Slayers than just her and B. If he couldn't get anywhere, it really wouldn't change anything for her, and if he could find an answer… It still wouldn't change what she had to deal with. The only way that it would change anything would be if there was another Slayer close to them, and that was damn unlikely.
"Best to just find Mort and maybe go on a patrol or something…" Faith headed down the stairs, letting one hand trail along the wall as she considered that they really needed to get the wiring here fixed so that people could actually see on the staircase.
She found Pyro on the computer, and managed to convince him to let her print out that email, with only a small mention of the fact that it had information that might help them stop the psycho vampire woman before she could kill them all. He said that he'd get the pages to Wesley in the library 'in just a few minutes.' Faith hoped that meant Wes'd actually get them tonight instead of tomorrow or next Tuesday.
With that out of the way, she went looking for Mort. After several rooms where he wasn't, she finally found him on the third floor, tugging wires away from one of the support beams in the wall, with several of the panels removed so that he could get to it. Beside him were a metal trash can, a spool of new wiring, and several tools that Faith couldn't name beyond the hammer and the wire-cutters. Light came from a camping lantern, set so that it caught a light socket on the ceiling, one that dangled a few inches from the ceiling by several wires, one of which looked rather frayed.
"You look like you're hoping to go kill some vampires to make the ugly thoughts go away," Mort gave her a half grin, and dropped the bit of wiring into the trash can.
"That obvious?" Faith didn't bother trying to deny what he'd said. Thinking about the chance that she'd died, even if only for a few moments, thinking about what some people might do with the idea that killing a Slayer for just a moment would activate another… ugly. Thinking about some evil vampire that looked like a Nick-at-Nite sitcom housewife getting a door to bring in all sorts of restless and probably hungry dead things… also ugly. Killing demons and vampires was a lot more productive than denial.
I talked to Wesley about what you said, about me maybe flat-lining at the hospital," Faith admitted. "It led to ugly thoughts about some of the more ruthless Watcher types. The ones who worry more about politics than fighting demons."
"How'd that go?" He jumped up, taking hold of the beam to tug out some metal staples, which he tossed towards the trash can. That was followed by the dangling socket. "I'll need to replace that tomorrow, and then we can see about the rest in this hall."
"He said it was a good, if disturbing question, and he'd have to talk to a couple people and check a few things. I think we can leave it to him, because it won't change things here," Faith rolled one shoulder as she remembered the sensation of falling off the building, a knife in her gut and seeing B glaring at her, Faith's blood sprayed over her hand and shirt. "Can we go kill things now?"
"Yes," Mort agreed.
Of course, they had to clean the work area up first, so that nobody would trip over the tools, the new wiring, or the trash can, and they had to take the lantern back downstairs. They needed to go to the garage anyhow for Mort's motorcycle. Faith collected a short sword and a dozen stakes, and pulled on a leather jacket. She could tell from the hang of Mort's jacket that he'd picked up some weapons as well, but it was hard to identify what he had… a knife? More stakes? Ah well, it didn't matter that much.
They would go out for a patrol and kill things… make the area safer for humans and all that good stuff. It was the second best form of stress-relief that Faith knew.
End part 50.
Lacking any suspicious deaths reported in the local paper, they headed towards the old building that looked to have been a factory, though Tanya wasn't quite sure when it had been used or what it might have produced. Mort thought it looked like the sort of areas that mutants who couldn't blend often hid. Faith thought it looked like dozens of demon and vampire lairs that she'd seen in the past. Considering that there was a vampire in the area looking for mutants… It wasn't a reassuring idea.
They considered the old building, with the two crumbling smokestacks that looked big enough to drop a car down, and the rows of darkened windows… and some farther from the road that showed light. Behind the empty building, a line of trees rose almost as tall as the building, and they could hear the soft sounds of water flowing.
"I think the river is over here, maybe behind the factory?" Mort asked.
"Could be," Faith mused. "We'll need to keep that in mind, nothing quite as embarrassing as slipping and drowning in a river because we got careless and stupid."
"Do we need to worry about water demons?" He asked.
Faith considered that as they crept towards the building. "If I'm remembering the books right, the sort of thing that live in rivers in this part of the world tend to be mostly harmless to adults. A bit farther north and there's some nasty water sprites that tend to try to make people drown themselves, a bit farther south and there's some alligator demons. There's a couple ocean demons, but… river, not ocean. It should be clear of nasty demons."
The door was unlocked, and opened without the slightest resistance or noise. Faith didn't like the implications of that any more than she liked seeing the light shining through in the far corner of the windows. "Abandoned and unused my ass."
Mort reached into his pocket and there was a cracking noise, accompanied by a hint of greenish light. He shook his hand and the light spread, revealing it to be one of those little lightsticks that people took camping, trick or treating, or to some of the wilder parties that Mellie had tried to keep her from knowing about. Giving her a small grin, he quipped, "There's no need to stumble around in complete darkness."
They moved slowly, not wanting to trip over whatever might be on the floor. Dark shapes loomed over them, and Faith hoped that those shapes were abandoned machinery and structural supports. She didn't feel anything ready to attack in the room, but that wasn't enough to make her relax. Something had made a light in here, and she didn't know what it was or what it wanted.
As they moved towards where they thought the light was coming from, Faith could hear a metallic, rattling noise. She suspected chains, which left her wondering who or what was being chained up. Was it a prisoner? A semi-wild pet? An engine that someone was working on modifying? They couldn't find a normal lamp and had to hang up a lantern?
There was a door, with a sliver of light shining through the cracks beneath and beside the door, with a rectangular name tag dangling from one side. Most likely this had once been an office of someone half way important to the building.
After glancing at Faith, Mort reached out and turned the handle. Faith was mildly surprised when it swung open easily.
The pair of young men chained to the wall weren't much of a surprise at all. Neither was the pair of bodies on the floor, both young women, about the same ages as the guys. Both of the bodies were blond, their clothing slightly torn, and bloodstains at their throats. She could feel them both, and wondered just when they would rise.
"A pair of couples out for some quality time and things went to hell?" Mort glanced from the guys to the bodies, one eyebrow rising.
"You have to get out of here before he comes back!" The closer guy, wearing a red shirt under a denim jacket, insisted. A bruise prevented one eye from opening all the way, but he looked afraid and resigned.
"Bastard had fangs…" the farther guy muttered, his dirty blond hair drooping over his eyes. He wore a blue and yellow letter jacket. "He killed Jenna and Pam."
"Vampires have a habit of doing that," Faith agreed. "How about we get you guys out of here while you're still alive?"
"D'ya happen to have a key for these? It isn't that we wouldn't like to go before the girls wake up and have us for dinner, but we are kinda tied up…"
Faith walked towards the guy in the red shirt, looking at the chains. They were old, and rusting, and had been looped around his wrists, lacking a proper set of manacles to hold him with. "No manacles… I'd say this is definitely a third rate holding facility. You better be up to date on your tetanus shots."
The guys exchanged wide eyed looks, and both blurted words at the same time, their voices overlapping, "Third rate? Just get us out of here!" and "Bigger problems than tetanus."
"Uh huh, that's why we're going to go away," Faith took hold of the chain keeping the guy in the red shirt, and yanked. The angle wasn't very good, and if the chains had been new, or if they'd been bigger it probably wouldn't have worked. As it was, they were only standard chains and more rust than steel, so the link shattered in a spray of rusty slivers. One wrist had about six inches of chain dangling from it, the other having closer to five and a half feet of rusty chain. "You might want to wrap that around your arm so it won't trip you on the way out."
Mort had taken a slightly different route, hopping up and yanking the hook that the other chain fastened to out of the wall. "It's not ideal, but you can travel now. We can figure out a better solution when we aren't in a vampire lair waiting for a couple brand new vampires to wake up with the munchies."
The guy in the letter jacket muttered something under his breath and reached into his pocket, the gesture causing the chains to rattle, as well as producing a lighter jingle, one that sounded an awful lot like car keys. "Whoa, all that ranting and the biting… the bastard left the car keys in my coat pocket!"
"You have a car?" Mort asked.
"In the back, between the building and the river. We… thought it would be a good place to take the girls, and didn't want anyone seeing us from the road," Red shirt admitted.
Faith glanced upwards, wondering yet again if horny guys were worth saving or if it would be better to just let them get eaten. All of this because they wanted to make out with their girlfriends… "Right, let's get you guys to your car now, and then you get out of here. Get into a house, and don't invite anyone inside. No matter who it is. Vamps need the verbal invite before they can come inside, and it's better to be a little careful rather than dead."
The guys weren't too steady on their feet, and they both stumbled and staggered as Faith and Mort helped them out of the former office. Faith glanced at Mort, figuring that once they had these bozos in their car, they'd have to come back in and preemptively stake the girls before they could rise. It was a simple plan, a good plan.
It wouldn't last.
End part 51.