Part Two - Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Something inside Wesley broke.
The sound of his gun being fired filled the air as he took shot after shot at the demon’s head. The time for talking was over.
The demon fell back onto the ground, but it wasn’t dead. The hideous laughter continued to issue from its deformed mouth, angering Wesley all the more. The vampire lunged at him again, followed by the other two demons. Wesley was not the best in hand to hand combat, but his anger goaded him on. As he rolled out of the demons’ way, he grabbed a piece of plywood laying on the alley floor, and rammed it into the vampire’s heart. A cloud of dust filled the air as one of the other demons took a swing at Wesley, knocking him back against the alley wall, pummeling his face with supernatural strength.
†
Angel knelt down low upon the rooftop, his eyes never leaving the group of demons below. He waited impatiently, biding his time to collate as much information as possible before leaping into the fray.
Angel cocked his head to the side as he listened, zoning in on the conversation four stories below. He had recognized the red robes immediately, having assisted when one of them when they had been caught in the elevator door at the office months before. His brow furrowed as he heard of their plan. They had planned for me to bring back Wes. No, scratch that. They had counted on it. Angel inwardly cursed himself. He should have known any dealings he had had during the time as CEO would have been shady and untrustworthy to say the least. And now he had put Faith’s life in the balance.
“Hey!”
Angel’s voice called out from above. The demons looked up, and Wesley slumped down onto the ground against the wall. He lifted his eyes, now filled with tears, and there was Angel, jumping down from the building the opposite side.
“I don’t take kindly to people trying to kill my friends,” Angel said as he took a few swings at the demons, sending them flying backwards. As the demons were momentarily incapacitated, he knelt next to Wes. “Are you alright?” He looked at the ex-watcher with concern. His face was, well it was a face of a broken man, and it took Angel aback for a moment. Clearly he had underestimated the watcher’s feelings for the slayer.
“No…I need…I need to find Faith,” Wes managed, trying to regain oxygen after being knocked about pretty badly. “The girl…Sarah Roberts…she’s being held under the theatre as well.”
Angel nodded in agreement. “Go and find Faith. Let me take care of these guys. I’ll meet up with you down there. And then we’ll find the girl.”
Wesley scrambled to his feet and set off to the theatre without looking back. The sounds of Angel battling the demons didn’t even register to him. All he could think about was getting to Faith. The demon’s words echoed in his ears.
Too late. Too late.
As Wesley ran off to find Faith, Angel turned back to the three demons as one of them began to regain consciousness. He strode towards him, picking him up by his robes.
“Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” Angel’s face morphed into its vampiric form as he growled at the demon.
“And I’m just praying for the hard way!” Angel’s head lurched forward as he head butted the demon, only to have another demon leap onto his back. Angel’s hands instinctively reached behind and grabbed the demon by the nape of his neck, tossing him effortlessly over his shoulders before snapping his neck in two. Angel snarled as he turned towards the larger of the three, picking him up from the ground and throwing his fist into his deformed face again and again, kicking out behind him as the other dared to approach him.
“Right! You and I are going to go and find your friends.” Angel swung his hand round the demon’s neck and bought him into a headlock.
“Come on then, bumpy! Lead the way!” A swift punch in the gut persuaded the demon to point the way to the theatre. Angel just hoped that he would find his friends in one piece when he got to the basement.
†
Faith’s body lay stretched out on the altar, blood dripping from her slashed wrists, while a collection of robed demons encircled her, moaning out a chant. But Faith wasn’t there. She had faded in and out of consciousness for a while, fighting against the drugs as they flowed through her bloodstream, attempting to shut down her system. But now she was somewhere else.
The slayer remembered being transported by three men to where her body lay now, even remembered the pain as the sacramental knife tore open her skin; but words, information-anything that could possibly save her right now? Faith couldn’t remember a thing.
Faith looked down at her body now. She looked so pale, so helpless-nothing like her former self. She was fading fast, she could feel it. The life was seeping out of her wounds, the altar beneath her body glowing with the power the slayer’s blood gave it.
How had she gotten here? She had imagined her death a thousand times, expected it on numerous occasions, but she’d always thought she would die in battle, as any slayer should: a fight to the death-not like this. It had happened so quickly, the drugs had immobilized her, allowing the demons to do with her as they pleased. There had been no fighting, no punches thrown, nothing.
Faith was no slayer. There was no fight left in her, nothing to keep her heart pumping, and nothing to keep her soul on this plane. Faith shielded her eyes as the light got brighter. She looked over to her body and knew instinctively that this was the end, and her last thought was of Wesley.
She had no idea where he was or if what the vampire had said was true, but she knew that she loved him. She loved him in a way she never knew she was capable of; he had saved her in more ways than he would ever know. And now she was leaving him.
There were so many things she wanted to say to him, things that she should have said by his bedside at the hospital only a day earlier, but she’d held back, afraid of getting hurt. Now though, that hurt, so scary and palpable the day before, seemed irrelevant.
The room began to spin with movement, demons chanting chaotically, but not even this could distract Faith from her body. She approached it hesitantly, tilting her head to the side as she stood above herself. Her face looked in pain. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she fought back the death that was slowly encasing her. The chants coming from the demons became a mere murmur in Faith’s ear. It now seemed there was nothing that could bring Faith back into this world.
†
Wesley had managed to threaten his way past security with his gun in tow, not caring about the negative attention he was getting from the dancers as he made his way backstage. There had to be a trap door…something! How did he get underneath?
A shady looking stagehand walked swiftly by him and Wes knew that there was a good chance he knew something.
He slammed the man up against the wall.
“Where is it?” he demanded, pointing his gun at the man. “Where’s the passageway to the lair under this theatre? I know that you know, and believe me when I say that I will have no qualms about killing you if you don’t tell me this instant!” Wes’ eyes were on fire with rage.
“What? I don’t…”
The gun clicked.
“Oh, that passageway, heh. Why didn’t you say so…um…it’s in that dressing room over there. On the floor…Ow!...under the rug! There’s a latch. Just pull it open,” the man scrambled about. Wesley let him go, but not before connecting his fist with the man’s face a few times.
Wesley found the trap door leading to the underground lair without any problem. Fortunately the man he met in the hall had had some sense of self preservation, and had told him the truth. Wesley opened the heavy door that led underneath, and quickly jumped in, falling to the ground some ten feet below with a thud. The sounds of chanting suddenly filled his ears, and he scrambled to his feet again, wincing in the candlelight of the underground lair. He saw them…the men in the robes; robes that displayed the same emblem of the Wolf, Ram and Hart that he had seen on the shaman that had resurrected him…and that was no doubt on the shaman that had healed him in the hospital. It all came together. He had had no idea how huge this was.
Wesley fought his way through the crowd to the sacrificial alter that was set up, and his heart fell into his stomach as he saw Faith laying there…incapacitated. Her wrists were cut, and she was bleeding. Her precious blood flowed like a river onto the cold stone slab she was laid out on. Strange markings covered the stone…no doubt part of the ritual.
There were at least a dozen of them, but Wesley didn’t care. He let out a cry as he ran through the horde of priests, taking as many of them out as he could with his gun, and using his fists to do the rest. He was on fire with rage, and it made him stronger than he had ever felt before. As he swung at priest after demon priest, watching them fall to the ground, he knew with perfect clarity that he couldn’t do this-he couldn’t win-without love. He wouldn’t be able to kill every single creature in the room in the span of a few minutes without love. That was what they hadn’t counted on.
Free will.
As the last priest fell to the ground, Wesley hurried to Faith, taking her limp body in his arms. He held her tightly for a moment, overcome with emotion, before returning to reality and placing a finger at her pulse.
She was still alive. But barely.
He quickly ripped a few strips off his shirt, tying them around her wrists to stop the bleeding. He held her to him again, breathing in the smell of her hair, taking in everything that he could…just in case it was the last time.
“Faith,” Wes pleaded. “Please…be strong for me. Please…wake up. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…I should have known…I was such a fool. Please don’t leave me.”
The Faith that had become separated from her body, the Faith that was beyond the mortal confines of her body, looked around to see where the voice was coming from. There was something so familiar about it.
“Please… wake up.”
Faith looked down to see Wesley bundling her limp body into his arms, hastily strapping up the woman’s wrists as he pleaded with her. A smile crossed her face. He was safe. No matter what would happen next, Faith knew she could handle it, the vampire had lied, Wesley was here and safe.
“Please don’t leave me.”
Faith’s hand went to her mouth as she felt tears fill her eyes. She wanted to touch him, to tell him everything was going to be alright, that… that she loved him. Faith didn’t want to leave him, she wanted to stay with him, but the light was getting brighter, his words were fading into the distance. Faith struggled with her hold on reality; images and people started to flash before her eyes: Her mom, Buffy, Giles, Angel, Wesley.
Wesley.
She wasn’t ready; this was not how she was going to die! Tears slid freely down her cheeks as the image of Wesley cradling her limp body began to drift away from her. She wanted to fight, to fight her way back to him, but there was nothing to fight, nothing for her to beat or kill. Nothing but herself.
Nothing but herself.
Faith began to step forward, moving closer and closer towards Wesley with every step until she stood opposite him, her body being the only thing in between them. Her hand went to his cheek, carefully wiping the tears from that as she lent over the altar and kissed him.
The light began to fade, the voices grew louder. Faith was no longer opposite Wesley; she was in his arms, back in her body. She could hear his voice talking to her, coaxing her from her sleep. She made out Angel’s voice in the background, but she couldn’t see them. Her eyes struggled to open, her limbs still paralyzed from the drugs, but she was here, here with Wesley. And that was all that mattered.
Wesley suddenly felt a slight dampness on his shoulder, and when he pulled Faith away from him to look at her face, he noticed the tears streaming down from her closed lids. When her eyes opened weakly, he let out a sigh of relief, his own tear-strewn face mirroring her own. He pulled her to him once more.
“Please…don’t ever do that again,” he whispered fiercely, yet tenderly, in her ear.
“Is she ok?” Angel had made his way down to the underground lair, the demon in tow. His face was full of worry at the sight of Faith laying there in Wesley’s arms. It was like some sort of twisted Pieta.
“She’s alive,” Wesley answered, beginning to lift her into his arms. “But she’s badly hurt; paralyzed, if I’m not mistaken. I’m beginning to suspect that she was drugged. We need to get her back to the hotel.”
“Wait, don’t you think we should take her to the hospital?” Angel asked as Wesley brushed past him and the demon.
“Too much paperwork…too many questions…too much time lost,” Wesley responded tersely. “I can take care of her wounds. One good thing about a watcher’s training is that you learn the trade of doctoring wounds pretty extensively. And if there was something mystical in the drug that she was given, then there may be a spell that could help her.”
Wesley paused. “What about him?” He nodded towards the demon. “Perhaps he could get one of the shamans…”
“Yeah, we could torture him for a bit, try to get him to help; but I have a feeling he’ll die first, considering the ways of his people,” Angel interrupted. “And since you seem to have it under control, I’d rather just kill him now,” he said as he quickly twisted the demon’s head, sending him crashing to the ground with a thud.
“Fair enough,” Wesley muttered.
Angel jumped up to the top level, and threw a rope down for Wesley to climb. It was a bit difficult to manage with Faith in his other arm, but he refused Angel’s help, unable to let go of her for even a moment. When he got to the top, he remembered that they hadn’t finished their mission.
“Wait! I almost forgot! Sarah Roberts! The girl…”
“I’ll find her,” Angel said quickly. “You take care of Faith.”
Wesley nodded, before hurrying off.
Angel watched as Wesley carried Faith’s limp body out of the room. He wanted to go with them, he wanted to make sure that Faith was alright, but there was more work to do here, and he knew that Wesley would take care of Faith. He was, after all, her lover… as strange as that still seemed to Angel. It didn’t matter what he thought about it though; it was clear that they cared for one another; he’d seen that from both of them over the last few days.
Chapter Eleven