FIC: MC 39  Jul 01 – Friend’s Legacy (1/?)

Moscow

“Serge, where did you go to bartender school, Milwaukee?  ‘Cause this is a Shirley Temple, without the Shirley AND the temple!  I’d have more chance trying to buy a nuclear warhead than get a decent Shirley Temple in this country.  Only place worse than it is Pylea! ” Lorne shook his head as the cringing Russian reached across the counter to take back the cocktail.  “What are you?  An idiot?  It’s still a cocktail, a badly made one,” he grimaced as he tipped the drink down his throat, “but there’s alcohol in it!”  Seeing a pair of Trogos loitering by the door, he smiled.  “Come in!  Come in!  This is Temenos, newest club in the Caritas empire, everyone’s welcome, no matter,” his nose wrinkled as the two demons shuffled past, “what they smell like.  Slime demons a speciality!”

His smile broadened as he looked around the brightly-lit club, demons of several species peaceably mingling with humans and other demons they might otherwise be hostile with.  Instead they were sat around round tables, sipping drinks, and listening to their fellow patrons bare their souls.  Of course it would be different if they met outside the club, but here, the club conformed to the two Ps – peace and profit

His mood dipped south as a fat man clambered onto stage and began wailing out Motorhead’s ‘The Game’.  “Oh good lord,” Lorne muttered, “and I thought Lemmy was bad.”  He turned to face the performer and quickly wished he hadn’t.  “He’ll want to know about this.”  He winced, that was a conversation he’d hoped to avoid having for quite some time.

                                                *                                  *                                  *

Xander grunted as his cell rang, awaking him from a very pleasant dream were the fate of the world didn’t rest on his shoulders, he didn’t battle the forces of evil every day, he didn’t share headspace with long-dead warrior god, and his girl-friend didn’t need super-powers to realise just how extraordinary she was.  And he could get a decent night’s sleep once in a while. 

”Are you gonna answer that phone or what?”

“Yes dear,” he muttered as rolled up to sit on the side of the bed.  After limbering the stiffness out of his neck, he picked up the phone.  “Hello?”

“Ah, hello my little cinnamon bun,” Xander groaned as he recognised the nervously cheery voice.  “Now,” the caller had the nerve to scold, “is that any way to react when a friend rings you?  I know the last mission I sent you on didn’t exactly go to plan-.”

“Go to plan?” he growled.  “Go to plan?  Not unless your idea of go to plan involves us all being kidnapped by a vampire who didn’t have the book you sent us for in the first place!”

 

“Now custard slice,” the demon chuckled nervously.  “I just know you’re not the sort of man to hold a grudge-.”

”Don’t bet on it,” Xander darkly warned.

“Is that Lorne?” his girl-friend squealed, the only time she squealed was when Lorne rang, you work it out.  “Give me the phone!”

“Faith, the grown-ups are talk-.”  He groaned as a naked arm slid around his torso and snatched the phone from him.  “Faith!”

                                                *                                  *                                  *

“Hey Emerald!” Faith laughingly flipped her stood glaring at her boyfriend the bird.  It was wicked when he got angry, the making it up later was so much fun.  “How’s it hanging?”

“Oh Blackbird!” the demonic club-owner’s beam could be heard clear through the cell line.  “And how are you?  Sorry about that mess with Veneer.”

“Ah,” Faith shook her head, “no big.  We’re all five by five, and we got a new team out of it.”

“No big?” Xander shook his head.  “I forget to put the toilet seat down, she goes into a week long hissy fit.  The demon leads us into an almost terminal trap and it’s no big?”

Faith ignored Xander’s moaning, he was jealous of Lorne’s sense of style.  “Yes, the delectable Elektra, she’s quite the legend you know,” Lorne said.

”But not a patch on me, right?” Faith queried.

”Like it needs to be said,” Lorne giggled.

”Kinda does,” she pressed.

”Well of course not, you’re my little Blackbird!”   Faith grinned unconsciously.  Anyone else called her that she’d rip their damn arms off and beat ‘em to death with the wet ends, but from Lorne it just sounded right, like a favourite duvet – warm and comforting.  “Xander sounded awful mad.”

 

“Don’t worry about him,” Faith paused to stick her tongue out at her glowering boyfriend, “it’s just you caught on a bad day, his time of the mouth.”

“Oh you’re an one!”

“One of a freakin’ kind,” she agreed before sobering slightly.  “So what’s the sitch?”

“Ah,” Lorne swallowed, “I’ve just been attending the premiere night at my new Moscow club-.”

“Lorne the club tycoon?” Faith nodded approvingly.  “You go boyfriend.”

“When a man gets up and starts singing,” the demon hesitated, “sweet-pea, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you, but I really need to speak Xander.”

”Sure honey,” she underarm threw the cell to Xander.  “Be nice,” she warned.

                                                *                                  *                                  *

Xander glared at his girl-friend for a single second longer before speaking into the cell.  “Lorne?”

“Ah, mien leader!” the demon chirped.  “As I was telling the beautiful Faith, tonight was the first night of my Moscow club.   A man got up on stage, a very fat man - a paler version of Barry White, and began to sing.  Turns out he’s a general in the KGB-.”

“I thought the KGB no longer existed?” Xander interrupted.

”Okay, so technically they don’t,” Lorne admitted, “but there’s a practical KGB mafia with its tendrils in the higher reaches of the Kremlin, the Red Army, organised crime, the intelligence services, and big business.  If my boss hadn’t wanted a business in this cultural wasteland, I wouldn’t have come anywhere near the place.  Why, I haven’t even found a bartender who can make a Shirley -.”

“Lorne,” Xander growled, “the point, find it.”

 

“Tsk, tsk, such a temper,” Xander could have sworn he heard the demon’s headshake over the cell line.  He’d gotten a lot braver since speaking to Faith.  “Point is, the guy gets up and sings, and he’s into something big.”

“Lorne,” it was Xander’s turn to shake his head, “we’re not into political revolutions.  The Brotherhood’s remit is strictly supernatural.”

“Okay, cherry pie.”  Xander shook his head, what was this obsession with calling him pastries?  It just made him remember what he no longer ate.  “You want supernatural?  How about this?  The Russian government think they know where Thor’s hammer is and they want it for themselves.”

MC 39.  Jul 01 – Friend’s Legacy (2/?)

Xander’s legs almost buckled under him as an image\memory flashed in his mind.  Suddenly his ears were filled with grunting of men in combat and the clang of weapons crashing together, his nose wrinkled with the stench of sweat and fear, and his eyes saw a giant blond swinging a hammer, taking down foe after foe.  “T…that’s i…impossible,” he stuttered.

“Xan, honey, you okay?”

Waving away Faith’s concern, Xander slumped into a sat position on the side of the bed, head still reeling.  “Talk to me, Lorne,” he growled.

“An archaeologist, Pavel Sachy is his name found a dig, some four months ago, a burial site that led him to another tomb two months ago somewhere in Siberia, that he believes is Thor’s-.”

 

“Nordviks were never buried, they believed in funeral pyres, just like their Viking descendents,” Xander interrupted.

Lorne paused,  “Then I don’t know what to tell you, maybe it’s a trap, maybe the archaeologist got it wrong, but whatever, there’s a lot of interest in him, and he’s been on the run ever since.”

“Okay, okay,” Xander struggled to think.  “Give me a sec, okay?”  He shook his head.  As much as it smelt wrong, there was only one answer.  The spirit he was carrying around inside him wouldn’t countenance Mjolnir being used for evil purposes, not after it had done so much good fighting by his side.   Finally he sighed.  “Who’s after Sachy?”

Lorne paused for a second.  “Only the heaviest of people.”

“Of course,” Xander groaned.

“There’s The Red Revolution, a group of ultra hard-liners who want the eastern bloc back, Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, a big cheese in Chechen terrorism wants it, Putin has the Federal Security Service looking for it as their top priority, and the Mafia are also after it, oh and they’d be very interested in you if you came over.”

“We both know there’s no if,” Xander scowled into the cell line.  “Where’s this Sachy?”

“That I don’t know,” Lorne replied.  “The aforementioned parties are tearing the country apart looking for him.  One thing I do know is that the country’s tied down too tight for a man with his lack of training and resources to get out of.  He’s still in Russia.”

“So how am I supposed to find him?”

“Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky.”

“That sounds like an infectious disease,” Xander commented.

“Ha, ha Mr. Smarty-Pants,” Lorne replied. “Zukovsky is Russia’s premier independent.  He’s ostensibly a club owner, but makes most his money from his sideline activity of brokering.  Whatever you want, Zukovsky can get – drugs, arms, booze, girls, boys, information. If anyone will know, it’s him.  Look, I’m sending you a file over the email, it has everything you need to know.”

“Okay,” Xander nodded.  “I’ll order us up a jet and be in the air as soon as.  When we land in Moscow, I’ll come and see you.”

“Oh no, my little Battenburg,” Lorne contradicted.  “If you’re coming to town, I’m leaving.  You leave a bigger mess behind than a Motley Crue touring party.”

 “Coward,” Xander chuckled dryly into the phone.

”And proud of it,” Lorne riposted.  “Now you keep those girls safe, you hear?”

“I hear.”  Xander turned off his phone and looked towards an already dressing Faith.  “Wake the others, I’ve got a flight to book.”

“Yeah,” Faith scowled.  “Give me the easy job why don’t ya?  Ken’s gotta be the grumpiest early morning person like ever.”

“None so blind as those who can’t see.”

Faith stared suspiciously at him.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing dear,” Xander smiled innocently at his girl-friend.

“Dickhead.”

“You wound me fair Faith.”

If anything Faith’s glare intensified.  “Gotta tell ya, talking that way only works for Lorne.”

“Yeah,” Xander mumbled, “about that….”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“Why is this Mjolnir so important?  I mean it’s not like Excalibur or some magic weapon is it?”

Xander raised an eyebrow.  If anyone was going to be sceptical about the mission, it was Kennedy.  Tara was too shy to protest, in fact he wished sometimes she’d express more of an opinion but the only time she seemed to ignite was when there was danger, and Faith didn’t much care what they did as long it got her adrenalin pumping.  But Kennedy was always questioning.

Thankfully though she had the discretion to ask the questions in private, this time in a four-seater jet.  Seeing as he had the money, Xander liked to fly in comfort and the plane was certainly that.  Two rows of leather upholstered chairs positioned opposite one another with a fashionably minimalist metal table between them and a well-stacked galley and drinks cabinet behind them, the plane’s floor covered in a light brown carpet so thick and fluffy it was like walking on air. 

“Reason one, none of the people who want Mjolnir are exactly honourable, and Mithras doesn’t want it being used in a dishonourable manner, tainting his friend’s memory.  Two, this weapon could be used to start a war, something that could ignite the whole of Russia, if we get the hammer away from them, they can’t use it as a rallying point.  Third,” Xander paused, “I don’t know what this archaeologist found, but the general populace isn’t ready to find out about demons and ancient gods being real.  If Thor’s hammer is discovered we could have panic in the streets throughout the world.”

“Sounds like good reasons.” Kennedy acquiesced

“Glad you approve,” he smirked at the potential’s glower.

“How we gonna get to this guy who sounds like a skin disease?” Faith asked.

“Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky?” he asked.

Faith shrugged.  “If you say so.”

Xander inwardly winced.  “I’ve still got your fishnets.”

“Really Xan,” Faith raised an eyebrow.  “That’s great, but not really for sharing in company-,” his girl-friend suddenly paled.  “Oh fuck no.  Playing the hooker again?”

“I just know she’ll be a natural,” Kennedy needled.

As usual Faith rose to the bait.  “Why you!  At least my goodies are perky enough!”

Xander and Tara shared a groan and sympathetic look as the two began to noisily bicker.  It was going to be a long flight.

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy  (3/?)

Moscow-Domodevo Airport

“At least it ain’t as cold as I thought it would,” Faith said as she stepped onto the tarmac.

“Faith,” Xander shot her an amused look, “it’s summer.”

”Yeah,” she conceded, “but it’s also Russia.  And I hope you remembered my woollies young man!” Xander looked at her.  “Okay, so that joke didn’t work.”  Faith looked to Tara.  “Where you booked us in, Tar?”

“The Savoy Moscow,” her sister replied.

“Sounds classy,” she nodded approvingly, “me and you will fit right in, Tar.  Don’t know about these other two though.”

“Hey!” Xander exclaimed.

Faith grinned. 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“Each building in Red Square is a legend in its own right. One of these is Lenin’s Mausoleum,” Xander pointed to a red stone building, “where Lenin’s embalmed remains are displayed.”

“Gross,” Faith shuddered.

“That,” he turned and pointed at an elaborately-coloured, multi-tented and onion-domed church, “is St. Basil’s Cathedral, considered symbolic of Russia’s unique position between Asia and Europe.  And see that bronze statue on the stone pedestal?  That’s the monument to Dimitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minn who led the army that expelled the Polish invaders in 1612.”   He turned again.  “And that’s the Kremlin.”  He pointed to the historic fortified complex.  “It serves as the official residence of Russia’s president and includes four palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with towers.”  He turned again and pointed to a medievial looking building.  “On the east side we’ve got GUM department store, which is Russia’s version of Harrods and next to that is the Kazan Cathedral, rebuilt from scratch after the fall of communism.” 

 “X,” Xander looked towards his grinning girl-friend, “you’re such a tourist.”

”Sorry,” he reddened, “it’s just I never expected to see any of this stuff, not for real.”

“Yeah,” Faith’s eyes briefly darkened, “neither did I,” then they shone again, “thanks for bringing me here.”  The Slayer hooked her arms around his, pulled him down and kissed his cheek before whispering in his ear.  “Thanks for bringing me here.”  Suddenly Faith’s eyes rolled back.  “Oh boy, looks like sis has found the tourist stalls, we won’t see her for quite some time.”

“You alright about tonight?” Xander asked.

”Not alright,” Faith shrugged, “but it’s gotta be done.  And we’ll do it clean.”  Faith shook herself.  “’Nough about that, how about you show me around some of these places, take a girl’s mind off stuff?”

Xander forced a smile, hating the position he was going to have to put Faith in.  “Sure.”

                        *                                  *                                  *

The club was filling with strobe lighting, the flashing lights illuminating the girls glistening with sweat and dressed in a variety of scanty costumes dancing on tables filled with leering businessmen, crackling heavy rock music vibrating the smoke-filled room.  The bar was doing heavy business, glasses of drinks containing brandy, whiskey, beer, gin, and of course vodka all being bought. 

Yes, Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky beamed, business was very good.  Still, he scowled to himself, he made far more money now than he’d ever done before the fall of Communism but there was something about the past that made him nostalgic.

All thoughts of the past fled when SHE entered the club.

The teenager who strode through the club entrance was a beauty the better of any of the table dancers working the club.  She was maybe five six with a tiny waist, ample high chest, and an ass that didn’t quit, her curves emphasised by a black Lycra dress that ended at the hip-level of a pair of long, tanned legs covered with a pair of fishnet tights.  Her silky black locks hung down onto her bare shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face containing full, red lips and large dark eyes.

Heart quickening, Zukovsky pulled himself to his feet and waddled over to the girl as she strutted over to the bar, her barely covered ass wriggling invitingly.  “My dear,” he purred, “such a beautiful young lady’s money is no good in my club.  I pay for all your drinks.”

The beauty looked towards him, shocking him with the mesmerising power of her dark eyes.  “Thanks sugah,” the girl beamed at him, she stuck out her hand, “I’m Faye.”

After a second he managed to pull himself together enough to take the young woman’s hand and shake it.  He was surprised by just how much power she had in her slight hand.  “A pleasure,” he kissed the back of her hand, “I’m Valentin.”

“Valentin, like the day?” He stared at the raven-locked lovely.  “Like the day, you know saint of lovers?”

“Modesty prevents me from making such a claim,” he chuckled.  “But I am something of a romantic.”

“Oh yeah?” Faye smiled up at him.  “You buy a girl chocolates and flowers do ya?”

He decided his delightful companion was definitely American and not a particularly bright one to judge from her use of language and idealised view of romance.  “Chocolates, flowers, whatever the lady desires.  And,” he smiled, “in fact I’ve just taken a delivery of quite delightful and stylish selection of ladies’ watches.  How about you come home with me and decide which one you want while we share a bottle of Bollinger or if you prefer Krug champagne?”

“Wow,” the girl’s pool-like eyes widened.  “That sounds wicked cool.  Ya really know how to treat a gal don’t ya?”

“I would hope so,” Valentin smiled.  “But then I would hope that any man would know such a beauty was to be treasured, revered, and pampered.”

 

The girl’s full, delightfully-curved lips parted in a smile.  “Keep talkin’ like that and I’m sure we’re gonna be great friends.”

“I’m sure we are my sweet,” he looked over his shoulder to the trio of ever-present slab-faced hard men stood there.  “Boris get the car, we’re heading out.”  The moment he turned back to his bubbly companion, replying to her beaming smile with a pleased one of his own.  “Shall we leave my dear?”

Faye looked towards his two remaining hulking guards.  “They coming with?”

“Yes my dear,” Valentin nodded.  “Unfortunately the streets of Moscow aren’t safe for one with my money.”

“Well just as long as they stay outside the apartment,” the girl giggled.  “I’m not that sort of gal.”

“Why,” he purred, “any man with eyes can see you’re a young lady of exceptional class.”

“You know it.”  Valentin smiled as the girl turned and started for the exit, her delectable backside a tantalising sight.  Yes, tonight was going to be a very good night.

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy  (4/?)

“Hey.”

Pavel looked up from his paper at the softly-female voice, straightening from his position sat on the hood of his employer’s gleaming limo.  Seeing no speaker, he peered into the surrounding darkness.  “Who’s there?”

“Hands off,” he started to turn back towards the car in time to see the athletic brunette stood on its roof, but not in time to block or duck her foot smashing into his face, “that’s my girl-friend.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Boris shivered as he stepped out of the back of the club, ears still pounding with the club’s rock music.  He shook his head, it was alright for the boss he brooded, he got a nice soft body to warm his night, Boris and his mates would be stuck outside, listening to him grunt and groaned as he had his way with the knockout.

Boris gasped as a strong arm looped around his neck.  Before he had time to react it was squeezing the air from him.  Heart thundering, he reach up to grab hold of the thickly-muscled forearm and start to bend forward only to straighten in pain when the man slammed a knee into his back.  His leverage gone, darkness soon followed.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Xander let out a relieved sigh when the thug slumped unconscious in his arms.  Quickly looking around to check he hadn’t been seen, he dragged the limp body to the near-by refuse, tied his hands and wrists, gagged and dumped him behind the steel trash cans.  That accomplished, he hurried through the private car park and to the limo.  “Where’s the driver?”

Kennedy grinned at him.  “In the trunk.”

“Cool,” he didn’t have it in him to return Kennedy’s smirk.  “Tara, you drive the car out, Kennedy,” he threw the potential a 9 MM, “if Valentin gets in the car, hold him with this.” 

He turned to leave.  “Xander,” he turned back to Tara, “she’ll be alright.”  After a second Xander nodded.  She better be.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Valentin threw his head and inhaled, the cold air refreshingly biting after the club’s stale atmosphere.  “My dear,” he glanced down at his lovely companion, “a little thing like you must be chilly.”  He pulled off his custom-made jacket and draped it over her shoulders, his vast clothing unfortunately covering her from shoulder to knees. 

But at least he was rewarded by a brilliant smile.  “Thanks Valentin.”

“The pleasure is all mine my dear.”  He replied.  A smile stretched his face as his tinted-windowed Zil limo eased its way around the corner.  “Your chariot awaits my dear.”

“Nice ride,” the beauty looked up and winked at him, “nearly as nice as the ride you’re gonna get later.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“’Fraid,” a cold voice sounded behind him, “you’re going to have to.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Xander crept around the club and behind the criminal’s two guards, a tight smile on his face.  The two thugs probably imagined they were good at their jobs, and he imagined they probably were.  Except compared to a man who fought vampires and far nastier beasts for a living.

The first they were aware of his approach was when he stepped out behind them, grabbed their heads and drove them together.  Even as the two men slumped to the ground, he spoke.  “’Fraid,” his voice chilled at the thought of what the man probably had planned for his girl, “you’re going to have to.”

The fat man spun at the waist to face him, blue eyes filling with shock.  “Govno!” the crook gasped before leaping towards the newly parked limo with considerable speed for a man of his size.

But not enough speed to avoid Faith’s deftly placed foot.

“Suka!” the crook yelled as he plunged to the pavement, hitting the paving stone with a wince-inducing thud.

“That’s my girl-friend you’re calling a bitch,” Xander coolly informed the criminal as he grabbed the man’s shirt collar and a handful of his pants before lifting him a foot or so off the ground, muscles straining with the effort of lifting the mammoth bulk.  He looked towards his girl-friend.  “Faith, get the door.”

“Sure my over-protective hunk of man,” Faith winked at him before hurriedly stepping around him and pulling the car door open, “hey Ken, is that an automatic in your hand or are you just pleased to see me?”

“Funny,” Kennedy put the gun down on her lap, hand still resting on the gun’s cold handle.

“Thanks,” Xander said before heaving the heavy thug into the back seat.  That accomplished, he looked up at his girl-friend.  “Get in the front with Tara, I’ll look after our guest.”

Faith glanced towards the two unconscious thugs lying on the pavement.  “What about them?”

Xander shrugged.  “What about them?  We’ve got what we want, they can raise the alarm as soon as they wake up, we’ll be long gone.”

“Five by five.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Valentin groaned, he tried to roll away from the water dripping through his ceiling.  Five thousand dollars a week for his apartment, and still he had to put up with leaks.  Capitalism, hah!

“No matter how far you move, the water’s still going to splash you.”

Valentin’s eyes flickered open, puzzled by the huskily familiar voice.  “Faye,” he gasped as he recognised the brunette beauty stood by his side, dripping bottled water onto his head even if she had changed into a black blouse and figure-hugging leather pants tucked into cowboy boots.

”It’s Faith you idiot,” the girl rasped.  “And for the record, not on your best day.”  He blinked as he looked around, registering with a sinking heart his surroundings of a oil-slicked garage containing his limo, and four youths all aged in their late teens with a distressing array of power tools sat on his car’s trunk.  “’Kay X, he’s awake.”

The young man of the group smiled darkly.  “Kinda can see that Faith.”

Faith smirked.  “Well you do kinda need things pointing out to you.”

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Valentin blustered.

“Neither do you.”  The boy’s smile widened.  “Have you heard of the Mithras Brotherhood?”

Valentin felt his bladder almost open.  Swallowing his fear down deep, he shook his head.  “I have nothing to do with the supernatural, nothing at all!”

“We know that,” Xander rose from his position slouched against the car.  “That’s why you’re not dangling from the ceiling by your feet.” Valentin was unable to prevent a worried glance up.  “If you cooperate, nothing will happen to you.”

“I might even give you a kiss,” Faith taunted.

“No you won’t,” the boy shot the Slayer a dark glance before looking back at him.

“W…what do you want?” Valentin stuttered.

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (5/?)

“Do those two cars look out of place in this neighbourhood, Xan?”

Xander stopped rising out of their car at Faith’s whispered question.  Valentin’s frightened instructions had led them to one of Moscow’s more run-down neighbourhoods, a street where aside from their own battered rental the only two cars parked there were gleaming sports cars stood directly outside their target’s house.  Xander scowled as he looked across the road to note a previously missed figure lent against the boarding-house’s porch entrance.  “Damn,” he scowled, “someone’s beat us here.”

“Yeah, but he must still be in there if they haven’t brought him down.”

“Yeah,” Xander nodded at Faith’s comment before grinning.  “Maybe you should go ask for directions?”

“Sure, hon.” Faith slid gracefully out of their cramped car. 

“Don’t do too much damage,” he warned.  “I need to question him.”

“Five by five.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Bela took a contented drag from his cigarette, eyes narrowing as he noticed the curvy brunette strutting across the street towards him, long locks blowing in the night air.  “Hey baby,” he flashed her his best smile.  “What can I – oooof!”

His greeting turned into a pained exclamation when the bitch kicked him square in the balls.  Legs suddenly buckling he stumbled forward and onto a knee to the forehead.  Head ringing, he stumbled backwards, hitting the porch wall and sliding to the ground.  He cursed as he reached into his jacket only for his attacker to beat him to it, yanking his TT-30 out of his holster before he could get it.  “Nice piece.”  He gasped as the brunette grabbed him around the throat, her impossibly tight grip cutting off any warning shout he might make.  “Let’s take a vow of silence shall we?”

“Not like you could take a vow of celibacy.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

”Funny, Ken, real funny.”  Faith shot the potential a glare even as she passed Xander the man’s automatic.  “Wanna ask him some questions, hon?”

”Yeah,” Xander crouched down beside the thug.  “How many guys upstairs.”  The man stared defiantly at Xander.  Xander sighed before taking the man’s little finger and bending it back to almost breaking point.  “I’m not like you,” Xander told the man, “I don’t get off on this.  But I will do it, the stakes we’re playing for are too important not to.  Talk.”

“Chetyre!” the man gasped, sweat dripping down his broad forehead.

“Four,” Xander nodded.  “Now who are you?”

The thug forced a grin.  “FSB, you’re dead fucker.”

“Shit,” Xander slammed his fist into the man’s forehead, knocking him out.

“What’s the sitch, hon?” Faith asked.

“It’s the Russian government security agency up there with Sachy,” Xander hurriedly explained before looking around, “Ken, dump him in the trunk and keep the engine running.  Faith,” Xander grimaced, “I want you outside Sachy’s room in five minutes and knocking on his door, demanding to be let in, then jump as far as you can out of the way.”

“’Cause when they turn they’ll fire?” Xander nodded.  “Great plan, X.”

“I try,” Xander looked to Tara,” I’m sorry Tara I need you with me in case Sachy needs medical attention.”  The honey-blonde nodded nervously.  “We’re going up the fire escape, the moment they turn towards Faith, I’m going to open fire.”  Eyes alight with alarm, Tara’s mouth opened.  “These are very bad people, the sort that torture comes second nature to.  I’m not taking any chances.”

                                    *                                  *                      *

“You think you’re not going to talk?”  Pavel Sachy groaned as one of the four men who’d burst into his room an hour ago drove a foot into his stomach, cracking another rib.  He knew there was no hope of salvation, he’d chosen this neighbourhood to hide up in precisely because no-body interfered in anyone else’s business.  There’d be no concerned citizen calling the police.  His only hope was to die without talking, without spilling the secret that could drown the country he loved so much in blood.  He moaned as his hair was grabbed and his head lifted off the bloody carpet to receive a tooth loosening fist to the mouth.  “You’ll talk.”

He looked around the half-lit room through bludgeoned eyes hoping to see anything approaching compassion in his captors’ eyes.  His heart sank when he saw nothing but grim resolution in three of the four and in their leader he saw something close to glee.  “Hey!” A woman’s voice sounded through the door.  “What the hell are ya playing at!”

All four men turned and, with a cold regard for the woman’s life that chilled him to his marrow, drew and fired their guns, emptying them into the door, turning it into firewood.

And then the window by the fire escape exploded inwards.  Pavel’s eyes widened as he saw the heads explode off first one then two, and finally a third of his attackers, their mingled blood and brains re-decorating the drably grey wall behind them.  The leader, his hand still gripping Pavel’s hair, let out a string of curses as he yanked Pavel to his feet perhaps in the hope of using him as a shield.

And then he screamed as a youth jumped through the window frame, a bullet from his huge handgun slamming into the thug’s knee, dropping him to the ground, Pavel on top, the fall sending yet more pain through his ravaged body.  Blood dribbling from his mouth, Pavel vaguely heard the man’s desperate swearing curse as the young man walked over.  “Damn,” the young man cursed, his accent identifying him as American, just like the woman in the outside corridor, “I’d hoped for a clean kill.”  The man’s foot smashed into Pavel’s captor’s head, knocking him out.  “That’ll do for now.”  The man looked over his shoulder.  “Tara?”

The girl who clambered in through the window had an air of serenity that only the truly good and innocent could manage, Pavel noted in what was for his scientist’s mind a curiously whimsical way.  He suspected that shock and blood loss were taking their toll on his normally analytical mind. 

The blonde crouched over, concern filling her liquid eyes.  “I..it doesn’t look good Xander,” the angel-in-waiting reported, her palm gently pressing against his cheek, “h….he’s grey, his breath is tortured, pupils are dilated, and he seems to be bleeding internally, h..he’s-.”

“Dying,” Pavel interrupted.  He forced a smile.  “But you have made my last minutes considerably less painful than they might have.  And for that I thank you.”

“Damn,” he turned his head to see a coal-eyed beauty, the owner of the distinctive voice he’d heard outside his room, “he’s a mess.”

”Have you heard of subtlety?” the young man shook his head before crouching down beside him.  “Pavel-.”

“You’re the one,” he gasped as pain raged through him, causing sweat to break out through him.

“The one?” the young man looked puzzled.

”The young warrior from the foreign land prophesised,” he coughed again as pain tore through him, “in the scribblings at Thor’s grave.”  The young man exchanged stunned looks with his companions.  “The clock on the wall.  It’s not working because I took out its battery and put a floppy disc in its place.  The password is,” he groaned, eyes beginning to blur, “Voyaka’s Molotov.”  The youth stared at him, eyes confused.  “Warrior’s Hammer.”

“Oh right,” the young man rose and walked to the clock.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“Found it,” Xander turned back to the others, red floppy disc in his hand. 

Tara looked up at him.  “He’s dead, Xander.”

“Damn,” his brow furrowed.  Another life he’d failed to save.  “Let’s get out of here.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

He watched as the three kids left, a scowl separating his lips.  They were a complication he didn’t need.  “Illich, it’s me,” he growled into his cell, “I’ve found a lead to the hammer, but we’ve got a problem.”

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (6/?)

The Kremlin

“You lost him!” President Putin leaned over his office desk, eyes bulging as he glared at the quailing man before him.  “There better be a damn good reas-,” he shook his head.  “No,” he corrected, “the reason hasn’t been invented that excuses this mess!”

He was filled with a vague sense of accomplishment by the FSB Director’s quailing before his righteous rage.  Today it was so much harder to frighten people than it had been in the good old days.  “According to the survivor, he’s identified two of his assailants as Xander Harris and the Slayer Faith Spenser.”

”A Slayer?” Putin felt his heart quicken.  His own personal assassin, she could be quite an asset.  And Harris had considerable resources that could be brought to bear for the betterment of the Russian Federation.  “That does not help us though,” he shook his head.  “I want that hammer!”  With that hammer in his possession, he could easily spin it to convince his people that it proved they were a nation of warriors-born, a people that should take back what was by right theirs, by force if necessary.

“Yes Mr.  President.”  The FSB director swallowed.  “We do have a lead though.  An email account belonging to the archaeologist has been hacked, revealing his travel plans around the time the object in question was discovered. We know it’s in the Yakut-Sakha republic.”

Putin shuddered at the mention of the bleakly mountainous area interspersed with sprawling plateaus and broken by river and costal lowlands.  Harsh wasn’t in it.  “Then get on with it,” Putin ordered.  “Flood the area with every available man.”

“Yes sir,” the intelligence service chief hesitated.  “Sir, the republic is over three million square kilometres.”

Putin stared stonily at the man.  “Then you better get on it then.”

”Yes sir,” the FSB director turned away.

“Oh, and the survivor?”

The FSB director turned back towards him.  ”Yes, sir?”

“He’s an embarrassment, have him killed.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky’s night was going from good to bad to worse to quite appalling.  First he meets the most tempting beauty that he could ever remember meeting, then said beauty and her friends kidnap him, and now, he’d barely been freed when five Mafia thugs had turned up to question him.

It never rained, it poured.  In this case, heaping full buckets of shit.

“You say, they claimed to be from the Mithras Brotherhood?” The speaker was a tall lean man by the name of Ola Tomaz, a Pole who’d worked for the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs as an interogater in the old days.  The man’s finely cut suit couldn’t hide what he was, a thug feared the length and breadth of Moscow.  Valentin nodded.  He didn’t bother to look towards his bodyguards for help, they’d already proven their worth or lack thereof tonight.  “And you told them of the whereabouts of Pavel Sachy?”

Valentin smiled weakly and nodded again.  “I thought to-.”

 

“To perhaps use this information for your own profit, even knowing we desired the information.”  The enforcer shook his head.  “Most foolish, most greedy.  But there is perhaps a way you can save your neck.”

”ANYTHING!” He gasped, his voice echoing around his once resplendent but now hideously wrecked apartment, the thugs having broken everything in the place as an object lesson.

Tomaz  nodded at this reaction.  “Tell me everything.  And this time,” Tomaz’s fillings glinted in the half-light, “I’d suggest you don’t leave anything out.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

The Yakut-Sakha Republic.

“Wow, this place is…”

When Faith’s voice trailed off, Kennedy suggested.  “Desolate.”

”Wild,” Xander muttered.

“Beautiful,” Tara whispered.

“I was gonna say big, but whatever wets ya pipe.”  Faith shrugged as the others turned towards her.  “What?  I ain’t deep.”

“Got that right.”

“Heard that Ken,” Faith warned the muttering potential before turning to Xander.  “What’s the plan big guy?”

Xander glanced towards him as he continued to drive.  “We’re heading to Yakutsk, the information on Sachy’s disk indicated his contact who can tell us the last part of the journey lives there.”

“Lucky,” Faith glanced around the four by four they’d travelled to the wild country in, “we changed cars.”

”Lucky we came in the summer, otherwise we’d never have heard the end of your moaning about the cold.”

Faith glared at Tara.  Sis’ new girl was definitely a bad influence.  Pulling her eyes away from Tara, she looked around, drinking in the wild plateaus surrounding them.  And then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Faith blinked as she awoke and looked around.  “How long?” she croaked, mouth cotton-woolled with sleep. 

“Seven hours,” Xander dryly replied.  “Or five hundred and fifty miles if you want to put it that way.”

“Wicked,” Faith cricked her neck, working the kinks out of it, “I don’t get why we didn’t hop on a plane though.”

Xander shook his head.  “Passport control, in a country as closed up as Russia is, is just too risky.  We run the risk of being picked up.”

“X,” Faith winked at her boy-friend, “I always run the risk of being picked up.”

“That you do.”  Xander shot her a grin before sobering.  “We’re here.”

“Whoa,” Faith looked around to see tanneries, sawmills, and brickworks.  The place had an edgy feel to it, the sorta of place she guessed wild west frontier towns had looked like some one hundred and fifty years ago.  “Wild.”

“Yeah,” Xander nodded.  “The road we’re travelling on was constructed by labour camp inmates.”

”Nice,” Faith muttered, skin crawling.

“The first thing we’ve got to do is find a motel to stay at, catch up on some rest,” Kennedy suggested.

“Why?” Faith looked around, a look of carefully manufactured innocence on her face.  “I’m rarin’ to go.”

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (7/?)

“Don’t know about you guys, but this town hasn’t exactly got a friendly feel about it.”

Xander nodded at Kennedy’s comment even as they drove past a loud bar, the cold sun bearing down on them.  “When a city’s had the history that Yakutsk has it’s not surprising.”  The others looked towards her boyfriend, Faith yawned, X was going into lecture mode.  “It only became a city when the Russians discovered just how much gold and precious metals there were around here in the 1880s.”

”Like the mining towns of the old west.”

 

Xander nodded at Tara’s comment.  “But it grew even more through the addition of the forced labour camps.”

”Yeah great,” Faith broke in.  “But I’m more concerned about the police sweep going on right here, right now.”

“Are you sure?”

Faith raised an eyebrow at Tara’s whispered comment.  “Oh yeah, I’ve seen ‘nuff police sweeps back in Boston, there’s way too many police for the size of the town.”

“Do you think they’re looking for us?” Kennedy looked towards Xander.

Xander grimaced as he pulled up outside what looked to judge from the honking great big wardrobe sat in its window to be either a furniture or antique shop.  “Could be us, some criminal, a dissident, but I’m taking no chances, let’s grab Petar Javor and get out of here.”

“Hate to state the obvious,” Faith commented as she leapt out of the car to land in the dust filled road, “but what if he doesn’t want to come with us?”

“I’ve got that print-out of Sachy’s notes, that should convince him we’re genuine,” Xander replied.

“And if it doesn’t?” Faith motioned to Tara and Ken to stay in the car.

“Always bringing up problems, never solutions.”

“Just my way, hon.  Just my way.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Petar Javor’s heart skipped a beat as the couple entered his small but lovingly maintained shop.  Not through the brunette’s undeniable beauty but the certain knowledge what their presence must mean.  Two warriors such as these, for that was what they were to judge from the way they moved, he remembered and had avoided their type as best he could when on military service some fifty years ago, were an oddity in a quaint old shop such as his.  And therefore could not be here on shopping business.

“H…how may I help you?” he stuttered.

The young man’s answering smile belied his obvious deadliness.  “Hey,” he paused, “I don’t know where to start exactly.”

Petar let out a relieved sigh.  An American!  This was altogether different.  In the early days he and his friends had always secretly wished that the Americans would come and save them from Stalin and his trained pig Beria.  “Yes sir,” he spoke slowly, his understanding of the language rather better than his command, “how may I help you?”

“Please,” the young man looked embarrassed, “not sir.  Just Xander.  This is,” the young man glanced towards his companion, “is Faith.  You’re Petar Javor?”

He nodded slowly, wary again that the youngsters knew him.  “Great, we-,” the youth broke off when a car horn beeped outside, turning towards the disturbance.  “Oh great.”

Petar broke out into a sweat as a trio of cold-eyed, granite-jawed men walked in.  These could not be mistaken for anything other than what they were, they called themselves FSB today, but they were just the same as the KGB animals from his youth.  The lead man’s eyes shot over the two Americans before looking towards him.  “Petar Javor, I have a warrant for your -.”  The thug’s eyes shot back to the girl.  “She’s the girl!”

“Sure am.”  Petar’s mouth dropped as the girl moved almost faster than his eye could follow.  Gliding forward, she caught the lead agent with a spinning backhand punch that lifted him off his feet.  Petar gasped as the human body flew towards him, he barely ducked in time to allow the projectile fly over his head and crash into the far wall, and drop to the ground in a moaning heap.  The other two men, their piggy eyes alight with barely comprehending horror, reached into their jackets for the guns doubtless holstered there.  Before either could draw their weapons she was on them.

The one to her right threw a left that caught the beauty without any apparent effect on her forehead.  She retaliated by slamming an uppercut into the thug’s jaw that flung him through the glass door and onto the pavement beyond.  The final man attempted a kick that the girl caught at an ankle and used the man’s off-balance position to pull him onto a forearm to the forehead that sent him crashing into the wall, knocking a table over as he slid limply to the ground.

“Have you quite finished scaring, Mr. Javor?” the young man casually asked as if he saw this sort of thing every day.

”Ah,” the girl winked at him, “I didn’t scare him.  I entertained him.”

”Yeah,” the man grimaced at the sound of sirens in the distance.  “They must have back-up or rung in their position before entering the shop.”  The man looked towards him.  “We need to leave now!”

Petar looked around his wrecked shop.  “W…who are you?”

“There’s no time for that,” the brunette beauty snapped.  “You know what they were and what’ll happen to you if you’re here when their reinforcements arrive.  Ya coming?”  He nodded mutely.  “Smart man.”  Suddenly the girl was by his side, hand gently yet firmly gripping his elbow as she guided him out of the business he’d spent a lifetime building up.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“Move aside!”

Kennedy looked up as Xander hurried out of the shop.  She quickly complied, leaping into the passenger seat.  “Things didn’t go well, huh?”

“Three FSB agents recognised Faith as on the wanted list,” Xander quickly explained as he gunned the engine.  “She beat them up.”

Kennedy raised an eyebrow.  “Diplomacy really isn’t Faith’s strong point is it?”

“Shut it, Ken.” Faith snarled from the back seat as she climbed into the car.  “Tar, Ken, this is Petar.  Petar, ignore Ken, she’s an ass.”

“We’re leaving here,” Xander announced as the car screeched away from the kerb.

”Yeah,” Faith agreed laconically.  “Shame about the two helmeted bikers coming up behind.”

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (8/?)

“Damn,” Xander confirmed Faith’s words with a glance through his wing mirror.  No uniforms, just black leather jackets and tinted helmets, he’d guess they weren’t police.  They’d have to be Mafia or some revolutionary group.  Things were definitely getting more complicated.  Lips pursed, he slowed off the engine.

”Jesus, Xand!” Faith screamed.  “They ain’t after an autograph!  They’ve got silencers!”

“I know,” Xander replied through gritted teeth.  He waited until the two motorbikes were drawing level with their slowing vehicle, and then yanked the wheel to the left, swinging the car tight to an upcoming corner.  The car bounced slightly as it hit the unsuspecting biker on the left, lifting him off his saddle and flinging him into the wall.

“Guy on the right’s aiming his gun!” Kennedy shrieked.

”We’ll see about that,” Xander muttered before continuing to spin the wheel until he was facing the alley wall and the biker was now behind him.  Then he hit reverse, flooring the pedal until steam was erupting from the tyres and they hit the thug behind them with the trunk, throwing him from his bike and into the wall.  Xander straightened the car and started off again.

”Man,” Faith sounded a little shaken, “that was-, shit!” Faith yelled as the rear windscreen exploded in shower of glass.  “Get down!  Pigs on our tail, Harris!”

“I see them,” Xander winced as he swung around a right corner and headed under a bridge, two flashing-siren police cars screaming after him.  About the only good news was this chase was taking place against Russian police cars rather than American’s, a 4 * 4 would be toast in that situation.

Although, he winced again as a third car flew out of an alley just ahead of him, only a hard spin of the wheel ensuring they avoided being hit by it, if there were too many of them, it wouldn’t make much of a difference.  Their flight took them onto the kerb, totalling the garbage cans stood in front of a shop, the front grille scraping the shop’s brickwork before he finally managed to straighten the car, what passer-bys there were running shrieking for their lives.  “Faith,” he threw his girl-friend a pair of heavy work-man’s gloves even as he pulled back onto the road, “put those on.”

”What-.”

“For once,” he jammed the accelerator down as a police car started out of the street ahead of him, their vehicle shuddering, but the lighter police car flipping over with the impact and crashing into a lamppost, its roof caved in by the impact.  “Don’t argue!”

“When we get out of this Harris,” Faith snarled.

Xander raised an eyebrow, if Faith saw a future she was a lot more optimistic than him.  Suddenly another biker burst out of the road ahead, directing his bike with one hand and shooting an automatic with the other.  Xander looked towards Kennedy.  “Get down!” he snarled before hitting the accelerator and ducking down so that his eyes were barely over the dashboard.  The biker attempted to pull around him, instead Xander hit him head-on, biker and bike parted company, bike screeching into a mangled mess under Xander’s tires, biker flying over the roof and landing on the road behind. 

Seeing a turning to his right and noting yet a police car coming directly at them to join the two chasing behind, Xander yanked his wheel to the right and span into the road, grimacing slightly at the sound of screeching brakes and then the shuddering crash as at least two of the cars pursuing them crashed together as they attempted to turn into the road.  Paintwork tore away as the 4 * 4’s sides screeched against the narrow alley’s walls.

Bursting out of the road’s exit, he saw another two cars racing towards him from the left and veered right. Seeing an alley opening to his left, he yanked the car across the road and sent it careering into an opening so tight that he lost both wing mirrors upon entry, the mirrors crashing against the walls, dropping off to litter the road.  Spinning out of the road, he yanked the car left to avoid a police car heading straight for them, the car unable to avoid screeching up the alley they’d just exited.

Xander’s eyes widened as he pulled out of the turn to see a mother and child crossing the road ahead of them, scared eyes staring back at them as they froze in the middle of the road.  “NOOO!” Xander’s sweat-plastered muscles protested as he yanked the car harder than he’d done before, pulling it around the frozen still with terror couple.

And then he turned onto a bridge filled with other vehicles, their horns honking and drivers’ voices raised in unintelligible curses as he zipped in and out of the traffic.  Seeing two police cars heading towards them against the flow of traffic, he let out a shout.  “Faith!  Anything behind us?”

”Yeah!  Three squad cars!”

“Great!” Xander snarled before pulling on the wheel; tyres, brakes, and aching muscles protesting in unison as he pulled the car across the bridge and off its thankfully unbarricaded side.  He vaguely heard the others’ yells as the car fell like a stone, the suspension screaming as they hit the ground.  All around them cars blared their horns and skidded away from them, looks of disbelief on their drivers’ faces as Xander spun the car around and started off, the smell of burning tires filling the air.  Xander took the momentary respite to pull barbed wire out of the Always Pocket and pass it to Faith.  “Any more cop cars, and you know what to do.”

“You drive like a fucking maniac, you know that don’t ya?”

”Says you,” Xander muttered.

“To be fair, she should know,” Kennedy muttered.  “Girl’s nuts.”

Xander grinned at the potential before pulling into an industrial park.  “This car’s too hot, we’ll have to find another to get us out of -.”

“Xander!” Tara let out a distressed cry.  “Mr. Javor’s having a heart attack!”

“No!” Xander’s own heart dropped.  Pulling into a sawmill’s shadow, he stopped the car, leapt out, and hurried to the back.  One look at the old man’s grey face was all he needed to know.  “Mr. Javor-.”

“Boy,” the antique shop owner’s voice was little more than a wheeze.  “You came for the information Sachy left with me?”

“How do you know that?” Faith asked.

“Young lady,” Petar chuckled, “I am a man of no consequence.  And yet today, some foreigners and some FSB pigs come to visit me.  What could they want but the information that only I and the probably now dead Sachy hold?”

“I’m sorry about this,” Xander muttered.  Another person he’d failed to save.  Some hero he was turning out to be.

 “Son,” Petar smiled weakly, face graying, “you should not be sad.”  The old man groaned.  “You have given an old man some excitement and the pleasure of the brief company of not one but three beautiful ladies, I’d forgot what it was to be alive.  And in return,” the man beckoned him closer, “I will tell you the directions to what you seek.”

The moment the man had told them, his breath rattled off.  Xander rose, shoulders seemingly unable to straighten. “Okay,” he sighed.  “Let’s find a car we can boost and get to this dam villag-.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (9/?)

Faith spun around at the voice, hair dancing at the speed of the movement, the others following suit a split-second later.  Instead of the expected FSB thugs holding guns on them, there stood a solitary giant of a man who somehow managed to make his six feet three inches look squat thanks to the amount of powerful muscle stacked on his frame.  And he was a hard-looking bastard too, brown hair cut into a crew cut, and brown eyes about as grim as they came.

Not that Faith was bothered by any of that.  “Listen bud,” she growled.  “Make a smart decision and walk on by.  This ain’t got nothing to do with you.”

The man didn’t look intimidated, not that she expected especially considering the size difference.  “I think not,” the man replied, his thick accent giving him an added air of menace that he scarcely needed.  “I have been guarding Thor’s hammer for years now-.”

”Look,” Xander stepped forward, Faith uneasily noted he had the slightly nutso look in his eyes he seemed to get whenever Mithras came a calling.  “I don’t care who you are, but that hammer is mine!”

”I think not,” the man repeated.

Xander swung a hard right that connected clean with the man’s jaw, knocking him back a step.  Then the man swung back, this time with a left that Xander managed to block on his right shoulder.  “Damn fool man,” Faith muttered as she started forward, “and they say I have a temper.”

The stranger followed up his left hook with a knee to the groin that Xander again blocked, this time with his thigh.  And then Faith entered the picture with a knee to the small of the Russian’s back and an arm looped around his throat in a chokehold.  “I know he’s a pain, Comrade,” she sympathised as she started to apply pressure, “but he’s my pain.  And I’m kinda fond-, shit!”  The man\thing let out a roar and suddenly began to sprout golden-brown fur, muscles thickening and broadening as he shot up a foot in height and trebled in weight.  Her arms no longer capable of fitting around the creature’s suddenly barrel-sized neck, Faith grabbed hold of two handfuls of shoulder-fur and clung on for dear life. “CRAP!” Faith screamed in shock as she looked down at the others.  “Why does this always happen to me?”

“Because you’re the one who always runs headlong into situations?” a wide-eyed Tara suggested.

”Hello?”  Faith screamed down indignantly. “I was trying to help my boy-friend!  And what happens?  I end up grappling with Baloo!”

“I can’t believe Faith just admitted to watching the Jungle Book.”

Faith glared at Kennedy.  “Hello!  Focus!”

“Faith,” Xander stared up at her.  “Do you want to come down from there?”

“Sure,” pushing up on the monster’s shoulders, Faith used the momentum to leap-frog her over the demon’s head and dropped into a crouch facing towards Xander.  “Axe, now!” she snapped.  “It’s time I did some monster-felling!”

“That won’t be necessary.”  After taking a breath, Xander stepped forward. 

”Are you nuts-.”  Faith glowered but silenced at Xander’s raised hand.

“You’ll be Ursa Major, head of Winter Guard won’t you?” When he didn’t receive an answer, Xander continued.  “I’m a friend of Professor Xavier.  You know the X-Men?”

“I have experience of the X-Men,” the stranger responded.

Faith blinked at hearing a human’s voice come from the bear’s mouth.  Her head snapped to her boy-friend.  “You mean he’s a mutant?”  Faith glared at Kennedy, damn potential, always butting in.  She’d been about to say that. 

“Yes,” Xander nodded, eyes still fixed on the hulking creature.  Xander pulled out his cell.  “How about this.  You take my cell and ring Professor X, ask him to vouch for us?”

The bear stared at the Sunnydale native for a moment, golden eyes uncomfortably intelligent, well at least when compared to her dumb as a post boyfriend’s.  Faith heaved a sigh of relief when the bear shrunk back to normal size.  “I will ring the professor,” he stated, eyes wary.

“Thanks.”  Xander handed the phone over.  “He’s number eight on the speed-dial.”

“I’m number one, right?”

“Why me?”  Xander sighed.  “Yes, Faith you are.”

“Just checkin’.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“You are of course wondering what possible importance literature has.  What lessons it can teach you about life.”  Proffesor Xavier smiled at the students’ shocked mutterings.  “No,” he shook his head.  “I wasn’t reading your minds.  Just predicting your reaction.  Every class I’ve ever taught asks the same question.”  Professor Xavier looked around the well-lit room, savouring the moment before continuing.  “It nourishes the soul.”  His smile broadened at the students’ evident confusion at his esoteric answer.  “It prepares us for life, teaches us morals, the difference between right and wrong, history.  A writer’s only limit is his imagination.”

“Professor, the phone for you.”

Professor X glanced towards the doorway.  “Thank you, Logan.”  He nodded even as he thought in all his life he’d met few people more instinctively primal, more dangerous than Wolverine.  If not for the Canadian’s strict code of honour, he would be one of the world’s most vicious criminals.  “Children,” he began wheeling himself to the door, “Wolverine will take over from me.”  He smiled.  “Logan, I’d like you to discuss your favourite book with them.”  Professor Xavier stopped by Wolverine’s side.  “I seriously doubt that that particular position is possible, even for someone with the use of all their limbs.”

“Ha, ha,” Wolverine glared at him.

Upon reaching his office, he picked up the phone.  “Hello?”

“Professor Xavier?” a Slavic voice growled at him

“Speaking,” he searched his memory for the name of the vaguely familiar voice’s owner.  Finally he had it and slipped into flawless Russian.  “Mikhail Ursus?”

“Da,” the Russian paused.  “Do you know a-.”

“Alexander Harris,” he saw the young man’s image in the Russian’s mind.  “A fine young man, you can rely on his word with absolute confidence even though much he will tell you is fantastic.”

“Thank you, sir,” the Russian mutant replied.

“No,” he shook his head, “thank you for trusting me enough to ask my advice.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“X,” Faith’s eyes didn’t shift from the mutant as he talked to Professor X, “how did you know?”

“After our meeting with the X-Men,” oh, she could just slap that smug look off her honey’s face, “I researched extensively into mutants, finding out as much as possible about them, the major players, how mutations happen, the groups, that sort of thing.  When Ursa Major transformed into a bear, I knew who he was.”

”Smart-ass.”

If anything Xander’s smirk deepened.  “I know.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Mikhail hung up the cell and silently handed it back to the young man before speaking.  “The professor says you are to be trusted.”  The young man let out a relieved sigh. “Was his answer in doubt?”

“No,” the young man commented, “you just try being threatened by an eight foot monster.”

“Actually,” commented the brunette beauty who’d jumped on his back, “when you think about it, it happens to us all the time.”

“Yeah,” the young man nodded slowly, “good point.”

Mikhail looked around the young group, surprised by the apparent lightness.  “I suggest we leave here as soon as possible,” he said.  “If you are being chased it is unwise to stay in one place.  My car is this way.”

”Oooh,” drawled the coal-eyed brunette, “I just love a take charge guy.”

For some reason, Mikhail felt very worried.

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (10/?)

“You claim to be the avatar of a warrior god?” Mikhail felt his head swim as he drove the car out of Yakutsk.

”X doesn’t claim,” growled the girl who claimed to be a ‘vampire Slayer’, he’d fought vampires but never heard of a Slayer, “he is.”

Mikhail felt a rare smile tug at his lips at the tough girl’s protective streak.  It was all rather fantastic, but a man with the impeccable honour of Professor Xavier, a man proclaimed world-wide as a champion for the mutant rights, vouched for the young man.  “Very well,” Mikhail’s smile disappeared, “but then why do you also claim a prior claim on Thor’s hammer?”

“Thor,” the youth sounded both hurt and wistful, “was one of Mithras’ allies back in The Demon Conflicts.”  The youth shook his head before looking towards him, eyes intent.  “How do you know about Mjolnir?”

“That is simple enough,” Mikhail explained.  “A friend of mine discovered Mjolnir two years ago.  Knowing the turmoil it would cause in our already chaotic country but also knowing how difficult and dangerous it would be to even attempt to smuggle the hammer out of the country, it was decided to leave the hammer where it was.  Besides there was a problem.”

”Great decision,” drawled Faith.

Mikhail ignored the exotic beauty to glance across at Xander.  “And what do you intend to do about the –, GOVNA!”  His question changed to a curse when the wheel snapped from his hands and the car flew off the road and nose-first into a snowy embankment.

“What the fuck!” screamed the Slayer.

”Someone shot out the left tyre!” Mikhail roared even as the window cracked under another shot. 

”Tara’s hurt!” the other brunette screamed from the back.

“FUCK!” Faith roared, anger battling fear for supremacy in the Slayer’s voice.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Xander looked around, mind racing.  The car was dangling perilously in mid-air, the door he was squashed up against perhaps eight feet above the snowy ground.  If he was to make a guess, they had to be wedged between two boulders or something, no way ice could hold up a heavy-.  “Oh no!” he ducked instinctively as a bullet exploded through the driver’s window and embedded itself in the roof just by him.  “Look,” Xander thought quickly.  “Faith you and I will drop out beneath the car-.”

”What if it drops on us!” Faith argued.  “No way am I getting squashed!”

Xander groaned, why him?  “The longer we argue-.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“What?”  Xander’s eyes widened as he turned to Ursa Major in time to see him begin to change, his extra bulk filling the car.  “Okay,” he hurriedly agreed.  “That works too.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Mikhail felt an unwilling smile tug on his lips at the youth’s reply.  These American children had a way of growing on a man. 

His now golden eyes narrowed and a growl rumbled out of his vault-sized chest as he tore the car’s door off with a single yank of his arm and leapt out, ground shuddering beneath his heavy bulk.  He dropped to all fours as he started towards the shooter, ground trembling under his galloping charge.  Time was of the essence, the shooter would be thrown off by his change, but if he was any sort of professional, he would recover his nerve and then Mikhail would have a serious problem. 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“Oh heck!” Xander cursed as a shot from the right crashed into the car’s trunk.  Twisting his head, he saw a trio of suited gunmen striding in their direction, two of them shouting angrily at the third for opening fire too early.  Xander looked around again.  Realising the trio would have to pass through a copse of ferns before reaching them, he took a breath.

”X, aren’t we gonna do something about the nasty men shooting at us?” Faith snarked.

Xander asked the lord almighty for more patience.  “Give me a moment de-,” the men entered the copse, he and the car were momentarily out of sight.  “Now!” The door flew open as he pulled on its handle, plunging him to the ground.  “Owww,” he groaned as he hit the ground, the impact only slightly softened by the snow covering it.  Shoving aside his discomfort, he rolled to his knees and drew a pair of Ingram Mac-10s.

Just as the three men stepped out of the copse.

There was a second of stunned silence and then the three men started to raise their guns.  But Xander’s Ingrams were already raised, giving him the split-second drop on which such life and death situations hung.  Teeth gritted, Xander let loose with a blast of bullets.  The guns shuddered in his hands as fire spewed out of their muzzles in a left to right arc.  Crimson erupted from the trio of hired killers as they danced like puppets who’d had their strings cut before sinking to the ground, their weapons unfired.  Xander spun around at the sound of something behind it, hoping like hell he hadn’t emptied both of them.

“Relax, Harris.”  Despite her words, Faith’s face had a strained look on her face as she knocked aside his guns.  “Help me with sis,” Faith looked up at the car, “before the whole thing collapses.”  Faith paused long enough to shoot him a strained grin.  “But we can leave Ken.”

“I thought you weren’t coming out?”

”Hell,” Faith looked up at the car, “I wasn’t, thing is though, I re-thought my position-.”

”You’re saying you were wrong?” Xander raised his hands as Faith glared at him.  “Perish the thought.”

“And the thing’s gonna come down at some point.  And I really didn’t wanna be in it when it did.”

“Yeah.” Xander stared up at the perilously positioned car.  “About that, how are we meant to get Tara down if she’s out cold?”

”Shit,” Faith placed her hands on her head and peered up at the car.  “Kennedy could drop her to me and I could catch her-.”

”With a head injury?”  Xander raised his hands again at Faith’s glare.  “Okay, so I don’t have a better-.”

“Perhaps I could help.”

Xander heard Faith’s gasp as he and her spun around to face the giant bear stood there.  “You know, for someone so big,” Faith commented, “you’d think you’d be less sneaky.”

The bear let out what Xander profoundly hoped was a chuckle before stepping past them and easing the car door open.  He dragged Tara’s limp body out and cradled her in his arms.  ”Ohhhh,” Xander heaved a sigh of relief that was lost in Faith and Kennedy’s whoops when Tara’s eyes fluttered open.  The witch gasped as she looked up at Mikhail.

”Do not worry little one,” Mikhail growled.  “I will not hurt you.”  Mikhail looked at them.  “I was going to take you straight to the burial site, but now we will have to make a slight detour to a base I have with a spare car.”

After a second Xander nodded.  “Sure, lead on.”

FIC: MC 39 Jul ’01 Friend’s Legacy (11/11)

Mikhail led his companions through the snowy woods up and down the hills, the weight of the witch he cradled in his arms inconsequential to one with his abilities.  He couldn’t help but worry slightly about the unavoidable tracks they were leaving, but hoped it would either quickly snow or that the would-be murderers’ back-up would be slow in coming.  “Who were they?”

“There were no papers on the one I killed,” he replied to Xander’s shouted question.  “That would suggest they weren’t government.”

“Mafia then,” suggested the youth.

”That would be my guess,” he agreed as they strode around a corner to find his log cabin.  The cabin had been built by hand, probably by some peasant hoping to escape Lenin or Stalin’s expansionist hand, and was a work of simple yet lovingly created craftsmanship.  “Please,” he lowered the girl in his arms to the ground and returned back to his human shape, “go in.  There is a key under the woodpile.”

“Ah, how romantic,” Faith snarked as she opened the cabin’s door and strode in.  “Nice log cabin, but you ain’t got no chance of being all woodsmany and getting any of us in front of the fire.  Well,” the girl chuckled, “maybe X, ‘cause I got my suspicions.  Someone who dresses that bad just has to be over-compen-.”

”Faith!”

Mikhail chuckled and shook his head before walking around the back of the cabin where he had his back-up vehicle sheltered beneath a snow-covered tarpaulin.  He began taking off the covering, revealing the white-painted snow-mobile underneath.  “I’m sorry about Faith,” a tremulous voice said behind him, “s…she doesn’t mean it.”

“I understand,” Mikhail smiled at the witch.

”Oh,” Tara stared at him.  “You do?”

“Your friend cares deeply about people, but she also wrongly believes that people knowing you care is a sign of weakness,” Mikhail paused.  “She uses flippancy and barbs to hide such emotions.”

“H…how?”  Tara reddened.

“Professor Xavier would not waste his time on people he believed without potential,” Mikhail explained.  “Therefore Faith’s behaviour must hide deeper emotions.  How is your head?”

The witch reached up, winced as she touched the large red welt on her forehead and then grinned as it slowly faded, a golden light enveloping it.  “All better.”

“Magic,” Mikhail’s eyes widened.

”You doubted me?”

Mikhail chuckled at the youngster’s impish smile.  “Not at all.”  He sobered.  “Get your friends, we cannot wait around for our pursuers to catch up with us.” He paused as a thought occurred.  “The journey is long.  Tell them to get any blankets and food they can find.”

“That won’t be a problem, Xander has everything we’ll need in his Always Pocket,” the witch explained before rushing off.

Mikhail sighed as the youngster ran off, casting a longing glance over his cabin.  It had been compromised, he dare not come back to it.  A shame, he had spent many a peaceful day in it.  In seconds the youngsters had joined him.  “How far to the grave?”  Xander asked as the youth climbed into the back.

“A day and a half,” he replied.

“Then we best get going.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

“We’re here.”

Xander’s eyes fluttered open at Mikhail’s growl.  He glanced at the mutant, the guy looked like death warmed up, unshaven, blood-shot eyes, and haggard features.  But then he had been driving for, Xander’s eyes widened as he glanced at his watch, thirty hours.  “Okay,” he looked around.  It was early morning, the sun still not quite finished breaking through the grey clouds above, meaning their apparent destination, a crack in a craggy rock beneath a ledge was filled with gloomy shadow.

”How did you find this place?”

Mikhail looked over his shoulder to Faith.  “A government-sponsored mutant had been chasing me for close to a month, I couldn’t shake him.  I was wounded, half-blind with pain, I fell off the ledge and landed in the snow outside the crack, desperate to escape the cold, I climbed inside and hid in there for a few days.”

“What happened to the mutant?” Tara whispered.

”I killed him.”

Xander raised an eyebrow.  There was a conversation stopper.  Shoving the door open, he climbed out.  “Mikhail, you and Faith come with me.  Tara-.”

“Forget it,” the witch shook her head, eyes fierce.  “I’m coming with you.”  He opened his mouth.  “You might need some help with translating.”

”Where she goes I go,” Kennedy interrupted.

”Fine,” Xander threw his hands up in exasperation.  “It’s too cold,” he pulled his jacket around him in a vain attempt to keep out the whipping winds, “to argue.”

“Is it a brave or foolish man who surrounds himself with women?” Mikhail asked.

”When I’ve worked that out I’ll tell you.”  Ignoring the glares, Xander allowed Mikhail to lead them through the crack.

The first thing Xander noticed was how quiet the inside of the cave was when compared to the outside.  The second was how tight the space was.  At first they were forced to walk side-on, then crawl on their hands and knees, the only bonus that at least he had Faith’s butt ahead of him, and then crawl snake-like on their bellies.  Finally though they broke out into a small opening with some scribblings on the far wall beneath a hole and before a bubbling creek.

“I think Thor had a serious injury, something that prevented him leaving here. And in the moments before he died, he was struck by some prophetic dream that he scribbled down on the scribblings you see before you.  Only the one he wrote about can touch the hammer.”  Mikhail shrugged.  “I could see it, but when I tried to touch it my hand went through.”

”Why were all the different parties after something incorporeal?”  Kennedy asked.  “I mean if they can’t carry it out what’s the point?”

”Either they didn’t know or didn’t believe it was,” Faith suggested in a hushed whisper before looking at him.  ”Must be you, X.”

Xander was less than certain but swallowing his trepidation, he reached into the hole.  He heaved a sigh of relief as his fingers encircled the weapon’s hilt, the cold steel tingling to touch.  After a nervous lick of the lips, he yanked the hammer up. 

He gasped as the weapon swung loose.  Despite the countless centuries that had passed, the weapon’s gleam remained untarnished by rust and seemed to hum with power.  For a second they all stared at the mythical weapon, somehow unquestioning that it was indeed Thor’s hammer.  The handle was perhaps two foot long with a grooved handle that Xander’s hand seemed to meld itself to, its head was about a foot long itself and still immaculate, not a scuff on it despite the battles it must have seen and the years that had passed.  Some part of Xander’s soul screamed the hammer’s legitimacy.

“What do you intend to do with it?”  Mikhail asked.

After a long lingering look, Xander shoved it into the Always Pocket.  “Make sure no-one touches it but the man it was made for.”

 

Mikhail smiled.  “A wise decision.”

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Grand Hotel Europe, L’Europe Restaurant, St. Petersburg

The dining room was beautifully decorated and furnished in the finest of Art Nouveau.  Its brightly coloured windows bathed its patrons in soothing light and the harp music only added to its intimate atmosphere. Its five star European menu wasn’t bad either.

All in all, it was a world away from the hell they’d gone through during the last few days. 

Xander returned his gaze to the fifth member of their party.  “I’d like to offer you Russia to run on behalf of the Brotherhood, but there’s almost forty good-sized demon-hunting groups and too many miles for one man to cover.”

“I have friends who would help,” Mikhail replied.

“The other members of The Winter Guard?”  Mikhail nodded.  “Right,” Xander stared at the big Russian for a minute before nodding.  He’d hoped the Russian would suggest such a solution.  “In that case,” he paused.  “How many of there are you?”

“Myself, Vanguard, Steel Guardian, and Sibercat are the last members.”

Xander stared at the Russian, seeing the sorrow in his eyes.  Deciding not to comment on so private a grief, he continued.  “In that case, we’ll set up four trust funds, separate accounts, everything….”

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