"The Mofos failed." The vampire confessed, even more afraid. This human punished failure, but than so did any vampire's master.
"7 Mofos demons against a handful of humans and the humans defeated them? What is the condition of the humans?"
"Two are injured, but will survive. They'll be hospitalized over night and released in the morning. I overheard one of the humans talking on the phone informing another."
"They didn't see you? And any chance we could get to them in the hospital?"
"I was outside the hospital and I heard him through the window and he didn't see me. Also, the hospital has magical protections that keep vampires out. Who put them there or keeps them up, we're not sure."
"The Slayer's old group perhaps." The human said thoughtfully. "Alright, pull back for now. Let's observe them for awhile and see what we can learn about this group. As long as they have a seer in their midst they're a danger to me. Perhaps we can identify the seer and take him or her out. You made sure there was no connection to me?"
"The Mofos thought I was the one hiring them, they didn't care about details, just their pay."
"Smart of you. If I thought you'd been stupid enough to implicate me or to lie to me, I'd be turning you inside out right now. Go, keep an eye on them. Figure out which one is the seer."
Relieved, the vampire left as fast as he could without looking like he was running away. He wished he could run away, but he'd allowed himself to be bound into a contract with this human and getting out of it meant death with a great deal of pain. The vampire enjoyed inflicting pain, like many vampires. He didn't like being on the receiving end. Especially from this human, he could be even more creative than a vampire when it came to inflicting pain and he could track a runaway employee down anywhere they went and the inflicted pain would be even worse.
Xander hung up the cell phone and sighed. "Giles says they'll both be fine. The hospital will be keeping them at least overnight. Jenny has a bruised larynx and a headache from reduced oxygen flow and Oz has a concussion and a headache of his own. Both will take time to fully recover but aren't in any danger."
"That's good news." Cordelia said softly, placing her hand on his shoulder. "And Giles and the others?"
"Are standing guard, Willow won't leave Oz's side anyway and Giles won't leave Jenny's. Amy's got them covered with notice me not spells. Cordy, we have this place buttoned up tight against vamps, but we didn't have anything in regards to demon protections on the place. And seven of the fuckers got in here and two of our people were hurt."
"We weren't expecting to have to deal with other demons as much, Xander. The Hellmouth draws vampires, not other demons. In the what, ten months Buffy was in Sunnydale before she died the second time, she dealt with how many demons?"
"The preying mantis lady, Machida and Molloch the Corrupter, everything else was vampires."
"Exactly, on an almost nightly basis it was vampires. Tonight we saw more demons at one time, than she saw in ten months. Once Jenny is better, she and Amy can research ways of keeping demons out and maybe we can put them on the hospital too and you won't have to worry about possibly missing der kinderstadt. I know you worry about that possibility. It's why you go there every day and run a scan. You still don't know if you'll even be able to find an invisible or possibly out of phase demon. It's a burden you carry, in the hopes you can stop it before any kids die, but with protections on the hospital, you won't need to run scans every day. You've got so much on your shoulders already, Xander. Let the rest of us do our share of the work. You can't do everything and you can't think of everything."
"No, I can't. We sought out and invited Magic users into the group for a reason, we need what they can offer and they want to help keep people safe as much as the rest of us do."
"If they didn't want to be part of what we're building here, they would have said no and walked away. Heidi reminded you that you were honest with everyone and you were. Both your memories of Alexander and your counterpart's show free choice wasn't always theirs. You've been very determined to make sure we each understand our right to choose."
"Because why you do something is as important as how you do it. I won't force anyone to either join or stay. Alexander's memories show how he was forced to be apart of the Corp and how he resented it. The Corp brainwashes a telepath and the younger they can get one, the more complete the brainwashing tends to be. He had to bury his resistance down deep because if he didn't, they'd have used other means, far worse and he knew it. Once he was free, he made a completely free choice to join the Anla'shok. He didn't regret it. Both my counterpart and myself had too many choices taken away. I won't take anyone's choice. It was hard enough locking Ford into his mind and I told myself, it's for the best. Doesn't change the fact that I took his choice from him. I especially won't take our own people's choices from them."
"Whether it's telepathy or Magic, misuse can ruin lives." Cordelia agreed softly. "The Shadows and Vorlons wanted control over others, the Psi -Corp, real or not, did too. There's a line between protecting and controlling. We will not cross it."