Title: A New World
Rating: R (For Language later)
Relationships: X\F
Story: Action\Adventure
Feedback: In lieu of a Faithbot yeah.
E-Mail: KeithColl@gmail.com
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters just worship at their altar.
Summary: After the events of Not Fade Away, a new player enters the game.
FIC: A New World (1/?)
“The artefact has been secured?”
Agent F nodded at his leader’s enquiry. “Yes sir. Your instructions were followed to the letter, they don’t have a clue we’ve taken it.”
“Excellent,” his boss nodded. “In that case, it’s time to put Operation ‘New World’ into action.” The older man’s gaze took in Agent F and all his companions. “One hundred thousand pounds on the heads of each Slayer. Quarter of a million sterling for the heads of Rosenberg, Giles, Wood, and Harris. Half a million for Miss Summers and either of the ensoulled vampires. Two million for Faith Martin.” The massed room broke out in shocked whispers at this last bombshell. After a minute or so, their leader’s cultured voice cut through the mutterings. “But the money for Miss. Martin is payable on her capture and NOT her death. I have some issues to discuss with that young lady before I have her disposed of. The person who kills her will take her place in the dungeon. Understand?”
Agent F beamed as the meeting ended. Giles, Buffy, they’d all pay for what they’d taken from him.
* * *
“Oh honey,” Wood whined as he watched the heavenly sight of his girl-friend’s beautifully taut butt wriggling into her black g-string. “Don’t go.”
”Sorry Nottingham,” Faith looked over a bare shoulder and winked. “But you know
it’s Sunday.”
“I know,” Wood hesitated. “But he’s made it clear he doesn’t want your help.”
He regretted his words when Faith’s eyes filled with hurt. “I know,” the east coast native admitted before pulling her t-shirt and leather jacket on. “But I gotta try, you get?”
“I get it, but it’s cold out,” Wood decided to try his final gambit. “Get back in bed.”
His Slayer chuckled. “Sorry lover.” The Bostonian pulled her calf-skin boots on and zipped them up. “But if you get the whipped cream ready, I promise I’ll be back in a hour and a half max. K?”
“K,” he finally conceded.
He was rewarded with a dazzling smile and a tender kiss on his lips. “Thanks Robbie.”
* * *
Faith’s smile disappeared the moment she closed the door behind her and stepped into the Watcher Keep’s corridor. Her life ever since Sunnydale’s fall had been pretty good, the best ever in fact. Pardoned for her crimes due to the Council’s influence, she’d served as the Council’s roaming trouble-shooter travelling to places she’d only read about in the prison library – Argentina, Japan, India, Australia, France, Spain, and Germany. She had a man who cared about her and had reached understandings with Wes, G, and Red.
There was just one problem – Xander. B still hated her, but she didn’t give a fuck about that. She had enough smarts to realise that with the older woman it came down to B hating to share either the spotlight or Fang. They’d never be friends and she was down with that.
But Xan, that was down to her. His life in Sunnydale had take a lot from him – his best friend, surrogate mother, eye, and the love of his life. But it was what she’d taken from him that still haunted her.
His innocence.
The night she’d torn his virginity from him had been bad enough, not at all the way someone’s first time should be – although a hell of a lot better than her first time had been. But what worse was what had followed. The way she’d treated him that night he’d come to her, offering to help her. He’d believed what had happened between them had meant something, that they meant something, that they were friends
And how had she’d repaid his kindness and loyalty? She’d tried to strangle him. If not for Fang…. Of all the things she was grateful to her mentor for that was the biggest.
It had taken her two weeks after Sunnydale’s fall, while they were recovering in San Diego, to gather the courage to try and talk to Xander. Her attempt had bombed spectacularly with the glassy-eyed former carpenter shaking off his grief for long enough to coldly tell her that ‘he preferred his friendships to come without nasty rashes or painful infections’.
Despite the abuse her first effort had gained her, she’d persevered, she never had learnt when to quit, but Xander’s reactions had ranged from disinterest to aggression. After two months she’d given in to Wood’s pleas to give Xander some space.
But on the four times they’d returned to the newly-constructed Watchers’ Keep they’d found Xander plunging ever deeper into a listless depression. He’d even been deserted by his closest friends, B & little sis had gone to Italy, Red and her girltoy to Rio, and G was too involved in resurrecting the Council to spare much time for Xander.
Not that she blamed them. B had fought for eight years and Red was still consumed with guilt over her evil phase. Seeing X the way he was now probably reminded them of the past. She understood how hard confronting the past could be.
On each return she’d tried to talk X, but had gotten precisely no-where. He wasn’t abusive anymore, just non-responsive, almost as if the anger had been leeched out of him, leaving behind an empty shell. Which left her with only one course of action. “Hi Faith.”
Faith glanced to the corridor opening to her right. “Rona, Vi,” she nodded to the two Slayers before melting into the darkness beside them. “He leave yet?” Faith relaxed at the duo’s simultaneous headshakes.
Most of the Slayers who’d fought at the Hellmouth battle had left, either returning to their families or had been assigned Watchers. But Vi and Rona had stayed, their families murdered by the Bringers, and were now the teachers of rookie Slayers as well as unofficially serving as the Xman’s shadows. “Any change yet?” she whispered.
“No,” Vi shook her head. “The same.”
“Damn,” Faith muttered. She hated this. If Xan hated her, well she didn’t have to like it, but she could live with it as part of her penance. But she wanted him to be the sweet, kind man she remembered with the others. The world needed good guys like Xander. It was her experience there were all too few of them.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a door opening down the corridor. Her breath caught at the chubby figure that shambled out of the room. “Xander,” she whispered. Her former boytoy was a complete mess. Unshaven and wearing clothes that looked like they hadn’t been washed in a month. His remaining eye was bloodshot and he looked to have put at least twenty pounds on.
Faith felt her eyes sting with tears of frustrated anger. This wasn’t right, she hadn’t known Xan’s ex well but she was pretty sure the former demon wouldn’t want Xan to fall apart like this. “Hell of a memorial you’ve given her Xman,” Faith whispered. Collecting herself she turned to her companions. “Let’s motor.”
* * *
Jesse McNally
Jenny Calendar
Kendra Zabuto
Tara Maclay
Anya Jenkins
Cordelia Chase
Xander’s eyes watered as his fingers traced the etched letters of his former fiancée’s name on the stone memorial. “God,” his voice shook. “I miss you.” He’d been coming to the stone cross Giles had set up as a memorial to those who’d fallen every Sunday since they’d relocated to England.
He and his shadows.
He didn’t need to look up to know they were there. Just behind the tree to the left some two hundred paces there’d be Rona and Vi, and Faith unless he missed his guess. Watching in case some demon tried to snatch him in the early morning, he guessed.
Why the hell they couldn’t take the hint he had no idea. Putting their presence to the back of his mind he continued to talk to his love.
* * *
“How goes it?”
Faith looked behind her in surprise. “G?” she whispered. “How come?”
The Council head smiled sadly. “Faith, I might have failed
spectacularly to get through to Xander, but I can at least keep an eye on him.”
She nodded in understanding. “Have you spoken to him since your return.”
“Nah, last time was enough,” Faith shrugged. “He wants to talk, he knows where I am.”
The Englishman nodded. “I quite understand. One can only help someone who wants to,” the Watcher’s face paled and his head snapped towards the Keep. “What the bloody hell?”
A New World (2/?)
Faith looked up at the middle-aged man’s anguished cry. Her blood chilled as she watched a grey projectile crash into the five storey building that served as the Council base. A half-second later she was flung to the ground as the centuries old building exploded, flinging chunks of debris into the air and flames spurting into the sky.
For a moment Faith stared up at the blazing ruin unable to believe what she was seeing. Then it hit her. “WOOD!” Her heart pounding hard enough to shatter her rib-cage, she bounded upright and charged towards the inferno. “Noooo!”
“Faith!” Giles leapt in front of her, his face haggard. She reached up to knock the Watcher aside. Her eyes widened in shock as a pain shot through her body, turning her muscles to jelly and knocking her to the muddy ground.
* * *
Rio
Willow grinned as she watched her string-bikini clad girl-friend lie on the recliner on their hotel balcony, her curvy body bathed in the night’s moonlight. She’d seen the way other women and men, of course men, looked at her Slayer when they were on the beach. “I’m a lucky girl,” she muttered before speaking up. “Aren’t you getting dressed sweetie?”
Kennedy turned to her and smirked. “I thought it would be
more fun getting undressed.”
“It would,” Willow admitted with a giggle. “But tickets to
the ballet remember?”
“Ballet?” her girl-friend sighed before rising sinuously and striding over to her, her hips swaying seductively. “I spent the first ten years of my life being dragged to those stuffy places by my culture vulture parents. Besides,” her girl-friend slowly ran her tongue over those curvy lips that Willow loved to kiss so much. “I can think of much more productive ways of passing time.”
“Uh, uh, uh, no siree bob!” Willow giggled as she shook his head. “I’m wise to your tricks you hussy. Remember the opera last month? You distracted me until it was too late. But not this month, oh no.”
“Damn it,” Kennedy mock-scowled while all the time the Slayer’s hands did interesting things with Willow’s lower body. “You’re wise to all my tricks.”
“Well yes I am missy and let that be a less-,” her voice trailed off when the brunette’s gaze turned to the door. “Sweetie, what’s wr-.” Her mouth dropped open when the hotel room door crashed open and over a dozen vampires stormed in. Pushing her shock aside, Willow prepared to utter an incantation.
And hit a magical wall, blocking her from her power. Stunned by the presence of two familiar but much unexpected magical signatures she was helpless to prevent a vampire powering her to the ground. The last thin she heard was Kennedy’s rag-filled screams. And then her attacker’s fangs tore into her.
* * *
Rome
“Come on Dawn! Immortal will be here soon!”
“You kept the bathroom busy for over an hour, remember?
Can slay vampires but can’t manage to slay one zit? What’s up with that?” her
sister snapped through the bathroom door. “I’ve only been in here for twenty
minutes.”
“My boyfriend not yours,” Buffy pointed out.
“You can keep him,” came the reply. “You and evil guys, what’s up with that?”
Buffy bit back her angry retort. “Reformed remember?”
“Whatever. Just go without me, okay?”
Buffy counted to ten before replying. “No Dawn, this trip was about us reconnecting remember?”
There was silence. “Just give me five, okay?”
“Okay,” Buffy agreed. Her triumphant smile faltered when her gaze dropped to the photo on her bedside table of her, Willow, and Xander. Hands trembling, she picked the photograph up, her thumb tracing the outline of her friends’ faces.
“So long,” she muttered. This photo had been taken in her first year in Sunnydale. Before all the bad stuff had happened. In her mind everything had gone wrong after her first death. Faced with her own mortality something had broken inside her, starting a retreat from her own humanity that other events – Angelus, Kendra’s death, Faith’s betrayal, Angel leaving, her mom’s death, her second death, and her dalliance with Spike had only hastened. Only now was she starting to get it all back.
And re-finding herself had involved her cutting herself form those who’d grown used to just seeing her as Buffy the Slayer and just being Buffy Summers. “But soon,” she promised in a husky whisper. “Soon-.”
Her head snapped towards the apartment door. “Dawn,” Buffy opened her bedside table drawer and pulled out Mr. Pointy. “Get out of here,” she ordered, her voice tight with fear. “Go to Giles.”
“What?”
“GO!” she screamed as the door burst open and close to twenty vampires swarmed in. Buffy flung the bedside cabinet into the lead vampire’s face, the impact of her attack lifting the demon off his feet and flinging him and the two vampires nearest him back through the doorway.
A doorway that they shouldn’t have been able to enter through. Except….
“He sold us out.” Buffy whispered as a shocking realisation hit home. The Immortal owned the lease on the place they were living at. He must have invited the vampires. Her sister, the sister she’d once died to protect, was going to die because of her lousy taste in men.
“NOOOO!” A scream on her lips, Buffy lunged forward, ducking beneath a clumsy left to plunge her stake into the nearest vampire’s heart. Sensing a demonic presence behind her, Buffy launched herself into the air, allowing the demon to run under her leaping split before staking her would-be killer upon landing.
A hand grabbed her left shoulder, she reacted with an instant elbow to the throat before spinning round and staking the vampire. Out of the corner of her eye she saw another demon charging her from the right and countered with a side-kick before turning to stake the monster.
“Damn it!” A brawny arm snaked its way around her neck, forcing her to turn her attention away from her would-be attacker. Instead she slammed the back of her head into her attacker’s face, crunching bone.
Grinning slightly at the vampire’s protesting cry, she spun to face him. “NO!” she screamed in protest as her right high heel snapped, knocking her off balance. Before she could right herself, the vampire behind her kicked her in the back of her legs, forcing her to the ground.
The next few moments were agony, the only comfort the knowledge that she’d given Dawn a chance. And then nothing.
* * *
LA.
“Poofter, Gunn’s fading fast!”
“I’ve got vampire hearing too Spike,” Angel snapped. “I can hear his heartbeat.” And his strangled gasps.
“Well then mighty leader,” his grand-childe’s sarcasm cut him deeper than any of his wounds. “What do we do?”
The hell of it was Angel didn’t have a clue. After the battle they’d retreated to the Hyperion. He’d refurbished his hotel with money he’d embezzled from W&H to upgrade the property, including the best security and surveillance system money and David Nesbit could provide. He hadn’t truly expected to live through the battle with the Circle. Now that some of them had, he was lost, drained by his injuries and an age-old weariness.
“What were they?”
He turned at Illyria’s question. “You didn’t recognise them?” he didn’t have to ask the re-born goddess who she was referring to. During the battle, several hundred strange humanoids had appeared, cutting through the Black Thorn’s hordes like a knife through butter. They hadn’t been human or demon, but other than that…. Deciding they hadn’t the resources to fight this new foe, they’d retreated to re-group.
“I have not encountered them in the past,” the goddess’ eyes narrowed and her head turned towards the door. “What is that?”
* * *
Agent F smirked down from his rooftop opposite the hotel as he watched the rocket he’d just fired crash into the building. “Bye, bye, Angel,” he whispered as the establishment burst into flames. “I always told Buffy the only good vampire was a dusted one.” Still chuckling he melted into the darkness.
FIC: A New World (3/?)
“What did you do to her?”
Giles remained calm in the face of Rona’s angry cry and despite the raging conflagration behind him, its heat hammering down on him with a fierce intensity. Oh god, all those innocents, there had been over thirty Slayers and more than fifty Watchers and assorted support staff in the building, all ruthlessly butchered. With the distance separating them from the keep he couldn’t hear anything but the cracking of the flames but in his mind, he could hear the scream of everyone in there.
It was an effort but he managed to keep his focus. “I used a taser,” he raised the offending device. “I visited Dana last night,” he explained. When first confronted with Dana he’d been consumed with guilt at what the Calling had done to the already troubled girl and had determined that the Council would do whatever they could do to help her. Their efforts had been in vain and whenever he visited her he’d been forced to arm himself with a taser for his own protection as he refused to have the insane Slayer strait-jacketed. He hated having to carry the weapon, but the girl recognised him from visions of Buffy’s past and would cling onto him almost as if seeking protection. She’d never attacked him or any of the Scoobies, but she had attacked others, and so he insisted that all of them be armed when they visited her. Fortunately he’d neglected to remove the weapon from his jacket after last night’s visit otherwise Faith would have torn him apart in her futile eagerness to get to Wood.
“Did you have to stun her?” Rona snapped.
“Well no my dear,” he snarled. “Maybe I could have talked her down, what do you think?”
The African-American Slayer’s eyes flashed and her mouth opened but in a second Vi was between them. “Calm down both of you!” the red-head ordered before turning to him, a look of bewilderment on her face. “Mr. Giles, who?”
He stared at the young woman for a long second before answering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. There wasn’t a shortage of suspects with grievances against the Council, just those with the nerve and resources to strike at its very heart. The only possible candidates he could think of was Wolfram & Hart.
“Oh good lord.” If they’d strike here, then Buffy and Willow could also be in danger. Heart thundering, he reached inside his jacket for his mobile.
”Don’t.”
“I beg your pardon?” he looked up to see Xander stood opposite him, a lucidity in his that had been missing for a year. And all it needed was a massacre, if only he’d known he have organised one… Shoving aside his macabre thought, he stared at his sin. “They need to be warned.”
“Odds are whoever organised that,” his son nodded towards the blazing ruin, “has the resources to tap a cell. We’re out-manned, out-gunned, and on the run. Our only advantage is -.”
“That they don’t know we’re still alive. Oh bollocks,” Giles digested the unpalatable truth of Xander’s words before dropping his mobile back in his pocket. “Very well. I’ll need a new mobile.”
“We also need a place to re-group. Any ideas?”
“One,” Giles turned to Vi and Rona. “Bring her,” the two Slayers looked more than little intimidated at that thought of restraining Faith. Which was understandable given the terrifying number of Slays and awesome reputation the Bostonian had built up this past year. “Here,” he threw Vi the taser. “Stun her if she resists or tries to harm herself.”
* * *
“Ugh, this stinks.” He chuckled as he sloshed his way through the council’s underground tunnels, the sewer’s wastage dripping from him. “Still, with the million I got from the Scythe and the three million from the dead Slayers I can buy all the baths I need,” he comforted himself. “And all the girls and comic books I’ve ever wanted.”
* * *
“Coming!” His host’s eyes widened when he opened the door. “Good lord it’s been a bloody long time! How long has it been?”
“Twenty-two years. Since you were assigned that potential of yours,” he supplied.
His old friend’s eyes shadowed at the mention of the girl he’d raised as his daughter only for her to be brutally murdered. “Ah yes, of course. And how might I help you?”
“By dying,” he brought his automatic from behind his back and fired. The silenced gun made a mocking phfft before impacting on his former comrade-in-arms’ chest. His friend’s eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened in a wordless shriek before his legs folded beneath him before falling to the ground. For a second he stared down at the corpse and sighed. “Terribly sorry old bean, but young Rupert’s wrecking the Council. We both know it, you’re just too soft-hearted to do what needs to be done.” He turned to his agents behind him. “Gentlemen, you know what I require of you.”
* * *
Dawn’s breath came in heaving gasps as she raced away from her apartment, sweat soaking her from head to foot and her sister’s screams reverberating through her. Buffy dead. She choked back a sob. Grieve later. If you didn’t run she’d die too and then she would never get a chance to avenge her sister.
“Well hello pretty thing.” Dawn’s heart skipped a beat when a quartet of vampires stepped out of the shadows to surround her. Thanks to all the dojo time she’d pestered Buffy into spending with her this past year, she could and had handled two minions on her own on patrol before now. But four. And, her heart dropped further as she realised that in her hurry she’d left her purse behind, she didn’t even have a stake. The lead demon leered at her. “We’re going to have some fun.”
“That’s what I hate about you vampires,” a voice sounded from behind the demons. “Always wanting to hog the pretty girls.”
* * *
The moment he’d finished instructing the two Slayers, Giles turned towards the Council car park. Relieved that the inferno hadn’t yet reached the car park, he started forward, impatient to be off so that he could find a phone box and safely call Buffy and Willow. “Wait.”
He turned towards his surrogate son. “What now?” he demanded in frustration. “We need to get to a car and fast!”
Xander didn’t blink. “Our own cars might not be safe.”
His fellow male’s words brought him up short. ”Booby-trapped you mean?” Giles
pursed his lips together in thought. It was a possibility that hadn’t occurred
to him, but was one that was far from impossible.
“Maybe. But I was thinking out bugs.”
“BUGS!” exclaimed Roan. “Someone’s trying to kill us and you’re worried about a few insects-,” the dreadlocked Slayer’s voice trailed off when both he and Xander turned to stare at her. “Which aren’t the type of bugs you were talking about of-course.”
After arching an eyebrow at the teen, a subtle reminder to think before speaking or acting, he turned back to Xander. “What do you suggest?”
Xander grimaced. “If jailbird,” the younger man nodded towards Faith’s crumpled frame, “was fully awake I’d suggest hot-wiring a car.”
“I can do that,” Giles interrupted. Ignoring Xander’s continuing unwillingness to let go of his and Faith’s troubled past, he smirked at Vi and Rona’s twin surprised looks. “I wasn’t always a bloody Watcher you know.”
* * *
Illyria scowled as she dropped from the hotel and into the sewers, careful not to drop the unconscious half-breed she was cradling in her arms. She’d sensed the weapon a split-second before it had hit. Enough time for her to throw the nearest half-breed to the ground and cover him with her body, but Spike and the one that the mortal she’d possessed had known as Charles had been killed instantly.
“All will pay for the indignity visited upon me,” she intoned. “All will tremble at an old one’s fury!”
FIC: A New World (4/?)
“Where are we heading to Mr. Giles?”
“A former Watcher colleague has a country house an hour or so away,” he replied to Rona’s question.
“A Watcher?” Xander queried. “Are you sure he can be trusted? I mean with all the mass resignations.”
Giles was briefly surprised that Xander had been sober enough for him to notice of the resignations that had followed his changes to the Council including the banning of the Cruicatmen, the changing of Watcher entry requirements, and introduction of a Slayer salary. “He wasn’t a hard liner,” he explained. “And he didn’t resign then. He resigned in June ’98. He is Samuel Zabuto.”
Xander’s single eye filled with understanding and his mouth opened but Vi beat him to it. “Who?”
“The Watcher of the Slayer between Buffy and Miss. Psycho,” Xander explained.
Giles cast his son a worried glance. While he was relieved that the young man had been shocked out of his depression by recent events his continuing attitude towards Faith was a cause for concern. He resolved to have a word with the founding Scooby as soon as possible. A very stern word.
* * *
He smiled as he stepped out of the shadows, enjoying the vampires’ confusion. “I mean what is it with you guys?” he continued. “All brooding and mysterious. Leaves a normal guy feeling all inferior. ‘Course,” he tilted his head to one side and smiled. “I’m not exactly normal.”
His preamble finished, he leapt into action. After slamming a stake home into the nearest vampire’s chest, he executed a side kick into the stomach of another demon, lifting it off its feet and propelling it into the near-by wall. Even as the vampire stumbled away from the wall, he sprang to meet it, his stake smashing into its heart.
Carrying on his charge, he rushed through the monster’s dust and ran half-way up the wall before leaping off and cart wheeling to land behind the last two vampires. Before either vampire had chance to react he staked them both in lightning succession. “W..who are you?” a shaky voice demanded from behind him.
His mouth dried when he turned to face his questioner. Even with her cheeks puffy and her eyes bloodshot from crying, she was still one of the three most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Finding his tongue he straightened. “I’m Connor,” he pronounced. “Son of Angel and Darla.”
* * *
“The Circle of Black Thorn?”
”Decimated sir. The units’ performance exceeded expectations.”
“Excellent, another force for evil gone,” his leader nodded his approval. “And what of Angelus?”
“His hotel was destroyed with him and his companions within it.”
“No confirmed kills?”
“No sir, but the entire building was annihilated in a ball of fire.”
“Very well,” his commanding officer looked far from satisfied. “Rosenberg and her pet Slayer?”
“Both confirmed dead.”
“Excellent. And Summers?”
“Dead,” he paused. “However our agents report that her sister escaped.”
“Pah,” his boss waved away that part of news. “Dawn Summers is of no consequence, a freak. Nothing more than a loose end that can be tied up at my leisure.” His leader leaned towards his videophone screen, his eyes intense. “What of Martin, did she leave to follow Harris?”
“According to our inside source she was out of the building when we destroyed it.”
”Excellent!” his leader beamed. “And what of the vampire I ordered?”
”She has been captured sir.”
He attempted to keep his tone neutral but his disgust must have come through because his commander’s eyes hardened. “You have a problem with my orders?”
“Sir, it’s just I don’t understand why the plan requires a vampire.”
“It doesn’t,” the older man smiled, his eyes cold enough to chill ice. “I require it. You see, the demon I had you abduct has a reputation for sadism that is unparalled even amongst her fellow vampires. That little street tramp fancies she has the knack for torture, but I want to show her different. Besides I have a debt to pay.”
* * *
“What’s happening?” Angel groaned as he awoke pain shooting through his battered body. Not even his battles with Buffy, the Beast, or Faith had left him this broken up inside.
”We were attacked by a flame spell or dragon,” the goddess informed him, her
tone flat.
“There were two of them?” Angel groaned, now that just wasn’t fair. He suddenly realised that the Old One was carrying him cradled in her arms. Embarrassed, he let out a shout. “Put me down!”
The god\human hybrid sighed long-sufferingly. “You are injured,” she replied. “It makes more sense for me to carry you.”
“Put. Me. Down,” he repeated through gritted teeth.
”Very well.” The goddess released her grip, dropping him into the sewage.
Angel glared up at the expressionless figure stood over him. “I said put me down, not drop -,” his voice trailed off as he looked around. “Where are the others?”
Something indefinable flickered in Illyria’s eyes. “The half-breed called Spike and the human named Gunn both died.”
The first emotion to hit him was sadness. And then a cold rage erupted, first Doyle, then Cordelia, then Wesley, and now Gunn. Every single one of his friends dead. Spike, his grand-childe too. Somebody was going to pay. Ignoring the pain and weariness afflicting him, he struggled to his feet. “Who?” he demanded, his voice hoarse with pain and anger.
The hybrid shook her head. “I know not.”
“Then we had best find out,” he declared. “And then kill them all.”
“A worthy goal,” Illyria nodded.
“Glad you approve.”
* * *
“Connor?” hope flared in Dawn’s heart. Willow had told her about meeting Angel’s son, how he was nearly the match of his father. And the boy did sort of look like a skinnier version of the ensoulled vampire. Maybe there was a chance for her sister after all. “What are you doing here?”
“I came here with a message for your sister.”
Dawn turned back to her apartment. “She’s in there being attacked. Maybe-.”
“No,” the child of two vampires interrupted. “I can’t sense any heartbeats in there. She’s dead.”
”NO!” Dawn felt her legs buckle, a pair of strong arms grab from behind and then
darkness descend.
* * *
Giles drove up the gravel drive that led to his fellow Watcher’s thatched cottage, the nervousness he would normally have felt at meeting the aging legend buried under the morning’s tumultuous events. “We’re here,” he announced as he eased onto the brakes, halting the stolen vehicle just outside the front door. Looking over his shoulder to the back seat, he saw all three girls were glassy eyed. “Vi, Rona,” he tried for a soothing tone but wasn’t at all sure he succeeded. “Please take Faith inside.” Once the trio had climbed out of the car, he turned to Xander beside him. “Son, I appreciate your efforts today. But please, ease up on Faith, she’s suffering enough at this moment.”
“Why should I?”
Giles fought back a sigh at Xander’s bitter tone, he knew first-hand how stubborn the younger man could be. “Xander, you are the most forgiving person I know. You forgave Buffy all her mistakes, Anya for sleeping with Spike, Willow for trying to kill you, and me for running out on you all following Buffy’s second resurrection. What makes Faith so different?”
“I love you guys, her I don’t. I could have once, but she threw that back in my face.”
“Well at least-.”
“Mr Giles!” his head snapped towards a grey-faced Rona stood in the house’s doorway. “Mr. Zabuto’s dead!”
FIC: A New World (5/?)
Connor stared in bemusement at the beauty in his arms for a second before shaking himself out of his shock. Lifting Dawn’s limp body into his arms he disappeared into the darkness.
* * *
Giles looked in disbelief at the former Watcher’s corpse. They were in the former Watcher’s living room. Zabuto was sat in his chair, a ghastly hole in his chest and S&W revolver resting on his lap. “He didn’t do it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Giles tore his gaze from his colleague’s body to look towards his son.
Xander stepped past him and crouched down by the body, taking obvious care not to touch it. “Where’s the suicide note?” Giles looked towards Vi and Rona, both Slayers shook their heads. “And suicides usually don’t shoot themselves in the heart, it’s always the head.”
“How can you be sure?” Vi asked.
Xander’s gaze didn’t shift from his inspection of the corpse, but his stark answer made Giles’ heart shrivel. “I thought about it enough this last year.” Finally Xander stood and turned to face them. “We can’t use the phone, it might be bugged,” the founding Scooby declared. “All this might be a trap. We best leave now.”
“Very well,” Giles turned to the Slayers. “Let’s go.”
”Why didn’t you let me go to Woodie?”
* * *
“How do you intend to find our assailants?” Angel stopped at his companion’s query. He’d been so consumed with vengeful thoughts of tearing his enemies apart he hadn’t even considered how he’d find out who they were. “I have a few contacts remaining from my pre Wolfram & Hart days,” he replied uncertainly. “We’ll track them down.”
“A good plan,” the goddess. “Then we’ll torture them for information.”
Angel resisted the urge to shudder. And he thought Angelus was visceral. “In my experience bribes usually work better. Torture is always a last resort.” He stopped as his mobile began to ring. “Who in the hell?”
* * *
Giles stared at the Bostonian Slayer. “I beg your pardon?” it was the first time since he’d tasered her that Faith had spoken her silence.
“Woodie needed me,” Faith glared at him, the look in her eyes causing his stomach to flutter nervously. “And you kept me from him. Why?”
“Faith,” Giles struggled for words, rocked by the intensity of the senior Slayer’s hatred. “You’re my charge, I couldn’t let you sacrifice yourself-.”
“Ah bullshit!” Faith snorted. “You’re just like all the rest. My ma’s boy-friends needed me to be their special girl. Lin needed me to be her Slayer. Just like you,” the east coast native jabbed a furious finger his way, “needed me to stay in a shithole of a hotel so I was close enough to give your precious daughter back-up, but not so close that you’d actually have to treat me like I mattered!”
“Faith that’s not -.”
“Now,” he was alarmed to see tears welling in the brunette’s soulful brown eyes, “one of the only two people to ever treat me with respect are dead and you need me to help you find his murderers. And that’s five by five. I’ll help you hunt down and kill every last one of the bastards. But afterwards,” the young woman’s heart-shaped lips curled up in disdain, “I’m through with the Council. I’m gonna go work with Angel. You got a problem with that, you best send another one of those wet works teams after me.”
Giles stared aghast at the brunette’s shapely behind as she stormed out of the room. He hadn’t meant to use Faith, he really hadn’t. But with hindsight, he could see that, consumed with Jenny’s death, Angel’s return, and Buffy’s Crucitamen, he’d terribly neglected her. He started when he felt a hand on his elbow. “Come on G-Man,” Xander muttered in his ear. “Whatever killed Zabuto might be watching this place.”
”Quite,” he replied dazedly. Whatever it took, he’d make it up to that poor
girl he silently promised.
* * *
Angel stared at the ringing phone. “Are you not going to answer it?”
“Um?” he glanced over his shoulder to the hybrid stood behind him. “Thinking about it,” he replied. “Problem is, most of the people I know who have this number are dead. It’s probably an enemy ringing to check that I’m dead.”
“My guide mentioned that he used Caller Id to avoid calls from the half-breed Harmony,” Illyria commented slowly. “Does your phone not have such a tool.”
Angel winced. Great, now the recently resurrected were more familiar with modern-day technology than him. If he was human he’d be blushing right about now. “Yeah,” he admitted brusquely before glancing down at the display. Eyes widening, he answered the phone with a bark. “Connor! Why are you ringing me?”
* * *
Xander kept a worried eye on Giles as the grey-faced Watcher drove them through Newmarket’s streets, the earliness of the hour meaning that the roads were thankfully mostly devoid of traffic. The strain of the last couple of hours had left the Council head haggard and drawn, his usually bright and alert eyes dull and lifeless.
And then there was, Xander risked a discreet glance into the rear view mirror, Faith. He’d hated her for so long for living when his Anya had died. It hadn’t seemed right that the bitch who’d tried to kill him had survived while the girl he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with hadn’t.
But the hurt and pain in the outburst she’d directed at Giles had robbed him of much of his rage. Willow, Anya, Deadboy, and Peroxide Boy should have taught him there were shades of grey in the world and not just black and white. “Never was the sharpest knife in the drawer,” he muttered to himself. He now regretted the off-hand and, he winced, downright rude he’d treated her attempts at reconciliation. Faith really needed a friend right now but she didn’t have anybody. And given her current mood making up would be a heck of a chore. But she was worth the attempt.
For himself, he was ashamed to admit it but today’s events had shaken him out of his year-long depression. Ensuring that Giles, Vi, Rona, and now Faith were protected and avenging those who’d died in the keep had focussed him, given him a reason to continue. At least for now. Xander’s remaining eye narrowed as he noticed something. “Giles, pull over.”
* * *
Connor smiled at his father’s tone. “Daddy, I’m hurt. So recently re-united and already you’ve no time for me?”
“Connor,” he could almost hear the Irish vampire counting to ten. “It’s not that I’m not-.”
“Relax dad,” his tone turned serious. “Are you okay?”
His father sighed “I’m okay, but Wes and Gunn, they’re dead.”
“Oh,” Connor felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. His memories were fragmentary at best but her remembered enough. He swallowed the bitter bile rising in his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” his father paused for a second. “Do you need something?”
“Yeah,” Connor swallowed. His dad wasn’t going to like his news at all. “After speaking to you I jumped on the next plane to Italy and went to see Buffy to ask for help-.”
“YOU DID WHAT!”
Connor swallowed at his father’s interrupting roar. Even a half a world away his parent was still scary. “But when I got there, she was dead. I managed to get her sister out there though.”
“Buffy,” his father croaked. “Who?”
“I’m not clear, Dawn fainted after I rescued her.”
“Okay,” his father paused for a second. “Well done for saving Dawn. Now were are you staying, at a hotel?”
“Yes, at the-.”
“Don’t tell me,” the vampire interrupted. “This line might be tapped. Are you registered under your old or new name?”
“New.”
“Okay, that’s good. They’re less likely to know that. You remember Faith and Willow.”
“Yes.” He nodded. The frighteningly powerful red-head and the sex-bomb Slayer were difficult to forget even after a memory-altering spell.
“Good, have you got some paper and a pen?”
“Yeah.”
“Here are their numbers. Ring them both, tell them what’s happened. If anyone else answers or you get their machine just hang-up. Keep moving, change your address daily. Whatever took Buffy out is out of your league.”
“I can handle myself!” Connor hissed, bristling at the insinuation.
“Son, who are the best fighters you’ve ever fought?”
“You and Faith,” Connor answered without hesitation.
“Buffy beat us both.”
“Oh.” Humbled, Connor nodded. “I’ll do as you ask.”
“Good, I’ll get over to Italy as soon as possible. Ring me daily. And soon?”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”