SPN/BTVS: The Devil's Gate, NC-17, part 3 of 4
See bottom of post for links to other parts.
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*
Things were tense around the Hyperion for the next day or so, if tense meant feeling like you'd jump right out of your skin if someone looked at you funny, or like the walls might explode, leaving them all a pile of ash and rubble on Wilshire Boulevard, if someone said the wrong thing. Jo divided most of her time between the office and the infirmary, between research and nursing, talking spells and spell theory with Willow and Andrew and feeling like an absolute fraud because what the fuck did she know about magic?, talking Maria and Petra through their infirmary time and never once feeling like she could bring up the ten girls. Not after she'd tried to say to them, "Look, I just wanted to tell you I'm so sor--" and Maria set her jaw and Petra croaked, "Shut up, bitch, just shut up. No one in this whole damn hotel needs to say anything like that, okay?"
So instead they talked around the subject, about how Faith was being even more drill sergeant than ever, how Angel was letting her because he never could tell Faith no, how Shandee had gone on patrol again with her squad and singlehandedly brought down a Nagorsa demon with a grenade and a machete. She gave them silly quizzes out of glossy old copies of Cosmo, answer (a) (b) or (c) to the question If your man had a close female friend, how would you deal with your jealousy? She dialed the international calling card for Maria and held the handset to her ear when she wanted to talk to her parents.
And finally, she told them about her dad.
"That's rough," Petra said. "But you know your mom was just protecting you."
"I know." Jo drew her knees up to her chest. She hadn't been sure how they would take it. "But still."
"But nothing. I wish my parents had bothered to show me that kinda concern. Maybe then I wouldn't have followed a band called Skulls Kill Willy out here when I was sixteen."
Maria laughed. "You didn't."
"What, are you the only two people here who haven't heard that story?"
Jo smiled with them, but said, "You're not angry I didn't say anything before?"
"I'm not gonna lie," Petra said. "We're not some hivemind, you know, we don't all think the same. Some people might be pissed you didn't tell the whole story, yeah. But the Big Four across the pond would have stomped the idea before we went if they didn't think it was worth it -- so you got the mandate from on high, Jo. This was something we had to do."
Maria didn't quite meet her eyes, which Jo told herself she could take, she hadn't expected to get off scot-free, after all. But then Maria said, "My brother was killed by a vampire. When I got my powers, my parents were so happy, they wanted me to come here. They even donated my university money to the organization."
"What?" said Petra. "You never told me that about your parents."
Maria shrugged. "Manuel was the oldest. They had a lot of plans for him."
"My mother had plans for me, too," Jo said. "Funny how we ended up in the same place."
She didn't mean to have Angel there holding her hand when she went up to Faith's room to make confession, but he was already there when Jo arrived, occupying an armchair while Faith sat on the floor whittling a stake. And just the thought of him leaving them alone together...Jo figured she could admit that Faith made her nervous. A little nervous.
"I have to tell you something," she said, shutting the door behind her. Her breath didn't quite catch up with her speech, though, making her sound like someone had just thwapped her in the gut. Good start.
Faith didn't look up from her whittling. "This important, blondie?"
"Might be. It's about why you first found me at Devil's Gate."
Faith put down the stake, but not the knife, and finally raised her eyes to Jo's.
Jo took a breath. "My father was killed there when I was ten. He was hunting and things went wrong, and he got killed. And so I came out here with this idea that I'd clean the place up. Finish the job, I guess. Make his death right."
She waited approximately the length of a lifetime for Faith to respond. When she did, her voice was quite calm. "And you saw an army of supergirls and thought we'd do the job for you."
"No--"
"And now you feel guilty. And you want to get it off your chest."
"No, I didn't mean to fool you into doing anything. But I was pretty much hiding it from you when I should have been completely open, and I'm sorry for that. It's just when I first got here, I didn't know if I could trust anybody."
"You didn't think maybe when we were getting ready to go out and risk our lives for you, you didn't think that might be a good clue?"
"Faith," Angel said.
Faith threw the knife down and got to her feet. "No, don't even. I know exactly what she wants, she wants someone to tell her it isn't her fault that Neesha died, it isn't her fault Ulan died, or Erin or Christy or Laoting -- no, she just--" she'd been addressing Angel, but now she turned a furious glare on Jo, "--she just wants to unload her shit on us and then walk away feeling like a brave little hunter again, like just because she's not one of us, her actions don't affect us. And I'm not gonna let her fucking do that."
"I already did," Angel said. "I told her it wasn't her fault. And it isn't. I don't think she needs that from you."
Jo tried to speak. "I just--" Dammit, why couldn't she get the words out? "I'm just trying to be open about this finally."
"Okay, fine, you were open about it. You're done." Faith made for the door. "Now get out."
"Faith," Angel said again. "You don't hold a monopoly on losing people."
She swung back around, dark hair flying, and came charging toward him. "Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Angel?"
He got to his feet as well. Tall and dark and solid, not giving an inch against her, and for the first time Jo had an inkling of the vast wealth of things she didn't know about them, of everything she was missing from their histories, both shared and personal. "It means," Angel said, "you need to deal. Maybe if you were anyone else right now, you could be as selfish and angry as you want. But you're leading this group and you don't have that luxury."
Faith gave a bitter, brittle laugh. "I cannot believe my fucking ears. I am tired of all these people playing grief counselor who are like the fucking encyclopedia for not dealing. Xander, Buffy, Willow for fuck's sake today tried to tell me how to do it. And now you of all people."
"Because we've been through it before. So we messed up in the past -- you can learn from our mistakes."
"Past? The hell's so 'past' about taking three years to heal up from a bad fight, Angel?"
Jo didn't even need to look at him to know that had been the wrong thing to say. The air in the room was suddenly ten degrees cooler, fifty pounds heavier. "Don't go there," he gritted out.
"Oh, I'm going there. 'Cuz it's long past time somebody laid your shit bare. What, just because you let us all crash here and you change some bandages every once in a while you think you're the poster child for how to grieve properly? Just 'cause you're not living on the streets eating rats again doesn't make you well-adjusted, Angel. There's more than one way to quit your life."
Jo chanced a glance at Angel while Faith railed. She'd never seen him so -- he was absolutely seething, thunder in his expression, jaw twitching, fists clenched. "I told you, the Senior Partners didn't just spare me by accident -- they still think they can use me--"
"So you got two great excuses. You want to quit being the big champion and all that other shit? Fine. But don't pretend those are the real reasons."
"And you're going to tell me what those are. Because you just know so much about it."
Abruptly, Faith dropped her combative stance, shoulders falling, resting back on her heels. Even her next words were soft. "I know what you lost, okay? I know exactly who. And I kept my mouth shut for so long because of that. And I'm not trying to say that what I -- what the division lost is the same as Cordy or Wes -- or anyone else. But it's not nothing either. And you should get that about me, instead of telling me what to do."
The tension radiating from Angel didn't fully dissipate, but as Jo watched, it did ease, his face relaxing that crucial minuscule degree which allowed her to breathe again. "Don't I always tell you what to do?"
Faith didn't quite smile, although it was there, in her eyes. "You used to. Haven't done it in a while. Guess I'm just used to being my own person now."
Angel stood there looking at her. "The girls," he said, "they aren't nothing to me."
"Yeah, I know," Faith said, "I know. You don't have to tell me that either."
*
The slayers held a memorial service that night. Candles had been set up around the lobby, the flames swimming in glass holders and the overhead lights dimmed so that all was suffused in an orange glow. The entire division was present, the overflow of girls spilling out into the courtyard and blanketing the stairs and leaning on the upstairs railing, looking down. Jo sat between Hilary and Shandee on the front counter, the only place left.
There was nothing formal about it. For Jo, the rituals would have included salting and burning, which John Winchester had done for her own father when he'd died where the girls had, and which she knew his sons had done for him. It was the way of hunters. But it would be impossible to do without going back for the girls' bones, and not all of the slayers had grown up believing in spirits, or would have understood the act as anything other than desecrating the dead. The group had only one way of saying goodbye, and this was it.
Faith held a long white taper high. "Laoting was a kickass slayer, a great team member. And unlike most of you, she never once gave me any lip."
She passed it to a tall slayer named Felice, whose brown face was already glistening with tears. "Laoting was my roommate. And she sucked at it. I was always stepping on her god-damn wet towels. But you couldn't have paid me enough to live with anyone else." She took in a long, hitching breath. "Stay strong where you're going, babe."
Petra took the candle next. "Laoting loved to tell American jokes, but only one of them was ever funny, mostly because she messed it up every. damn. time." A wave of laughter rolled toward her, followed by a shout: "The singing blowjob!"
And on it went. The candle burned down and another had to be relit, and another, and another. Jo took it once, for Neesha. She breathed in deep, feeling all the girls' eyes on her. "Neesha was going to teach me the names of the Hindu asuras. She knew every single one, and a different dance for all of them." She passed the candle back to Faith, the flame at the top trembling a little. Faith met her eyes above it and held her gaze for the space of a few breaths, then nodded, once.
It lasted well into the morning, and by the end Jo, who'd already been coming down off the fight in Faith's room, felt like she'd been steamrolled. It looked like everyone else had run the same emotional gamut, so many bleary eyes and worn faces, but there was a feeling of peace in it, as though the weight that had been bearing down on them all was gone. People could smile, hug each other, laugh. She saw Faith chatting with a small group, arm slung around Mimi's shoulders, and the sight of it made Jo inexplicably giddy.
She was following the crush toward the stairs, intent on her bed, when she spotted Angel in the opening to one of the downstairs corridors, sheltered from the sun.
She went over to him. "You didn't speak."
"No, I didn't."
He had a faraway look in his eyes, and after that confrontation with Faith, she wondered what he was thinking of, or who. But when he didn't seem to be forthcoming with an explanation, she offered, "Things are going good with the research. Willow and Andrew kept geeking out today about stuff that's way over my head. I think they're actually going to try and write a spell themselves."
"It'll probably work, too. Willow's very good."
Jo bit her lip. "They say whatever we end up with, it'll be much bigger than the last one. We'll probably have to take a bigger force this time. Like, almost everybody."
"I think we would have done that anyway. And I wouldn't miss it, either."
"You're going to fight with us?" She didn't know why, but the thought of him fighting sent bolts of both fear and happiness through her. "Are you, are you well enough for that?"
"Yeah." Angel straightened. "Yeah, I'm well enough. Go get some sleep. We've got plenty of time for battle planning."
*
Three days later, Willow and Andrew began writing the spell.
Jo hadn't been able to contribute much. She could read through an exorcism as well as any other hunter, and by now she knew her way around the books and could even manage basic translations of Latin and demonic Latin, albeit with much reliance on Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's carefully compiled translation matrices. But magical theory was beyond her. She listened to the other two arguing across their panels, taking notes in her journal like she knew what they were talking about, but really, she subscribed more to Faith's perspective: when the slayer stuck her head in the office one day and got an earful of bickering, she'd snapped, "No one gives a shit about the goddamn square root of Hecate! Get something done, already!"
Willow tried to explain what they were doing to Jo. "It's funny, 'cuz I never really paid attention in Hebrew school. I mean, I learned Hebrew, but anyone could do that. But I didn't realize that the old Jewish mystics were actually kinda warlock-y. To them, God was the original spellcaster. He used the letters of his own name in the Hebrew alphabet to write the world into existence. Coolest thing ever, huh?"
"Get to the point, Rosenberg," Andrew sighed. "Can't you see the glassy lack of focus in her eyes?"
"I'm paying attention!" Jo protested.
"Fine!" Willow said. "Okay, the point is, we can apply those same principles to this -- I mean, I actually got the idea from Wesley's old Watcher diaries, which you so rock for scanning those over to us, so I can't really take credit. But he was working on this theory after the Quortoth thing, this idea that you could manipulate the barriers between dimensions by manipulating the demonic runes that constituted their names. Kind of like writing them into existence all over again."
Jo thought she was following so far. "But I thought this was an opening to hell? What's hell's name, other than, uh...hell?"
"Well," Andrew prissed, "technically there is no one dimension which conforms to the Islamo-Christian conception of Hell. There are in fact many different hell dimensions catalogued in the Watcher databases, each uniquely classifiable by characteristics such as climate, species populated by, accessibility to our dimension, spells required to achieve that accessibility, et cetera."
Willow met Jo's eyes from her panel, shaped her right pointer and thumb into a gun, and pointed it at her own temple.
"I saw that, Rosenberg! Continuing on. Quortoth was such a dimension. The dimension opened by Acathla, to which Buffy sent Angel, was another. As is yours. The demons you encountered at Devil's Gate -- you know, those scaly black ones with the red eyes a la He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? -- well, after a long and thorough search, I think I can confidently classify them as Cardjen dragons, native to the Cycthus dimension." He paused. "AlsoWillowcorroboratedmyfindings."
"So," Jo said, "you've got the name of the dimension and you think you know how to do a spell to fix the barrier. What else do we need?"
"Just time, basically," said Willow. "We have to make sure what we come up with will do the job. 'Cuz, it's not like we can run lab tests on it or anything--"
"Objection," Andrew said. "If we can write a spell to stop a leak we can most certainly write one to create a leak."
"Um, except, kind of dangerous to be creating openings to hell just for spell practice?"
"I suppose you'd know. Technically you're the only one of us who's actually been an evil big bad."
"Wow, great case of selective amnesia there for someone who was one third of a wannabe big bad trio and had an evil older brother!"
Jo rolled her eyes as they started arguing again, and went back to scribbling in her journal. Quortoth = hell dimension. And Angel told me he was imprisoned in one for a hundred years (which he elects not to count in his age). I don't think he ever knew its name. And I doubt my father and John ever knew what they were dealing with: a leak to another world, named Cycthus, containing dragons.
She went in search of Faith to summarize their progress, and found her in the upstairs ballroom supervising training drills. She walked up to where Faith was standing at the side of the room, observing the ranks of girls moving in tandem: one group practicing kicks and punches, another going through the fluid circles of tai chi, another split into pairs for sword practice. Shouts and grunts and clanging metal reverberated through the large space, mixed with the voices of squad leaders counting out rhythms and fight positions, bringing order to the chaos.
Jo watched, thinking of her sparring session with Faith, thinking of the grassy yard behind the Roadhouse, shooting down a row of glass bottles and tin cans, one by one.
She hadn't spoken to Faith since the day of the memorial service. "Training looks like it's going good," she offered.
Faith shrugged. "It'd look better if demons fought fair."
"Still better than nothing, right?"
Faith looked at Jo finally. "Something on your mind, blondie?"
So much for making nice with praise. "I thought I'd give you an update on the spell."
"Okay, let's talk," Faith said, and led her out of the ballroom, down the hall, to her suite of rooms.
She gestured toward the armchair, but when Jo remained standing by the door, she flopped down into it herself, all boneless easy sprawl -- a deceptive pose, as if she couldn't explode into violence at a moment's provocation.
"Great," she said, when Jo told her Willow's news. "The sooner those two geeks get it done, the sooner we can get this over with."
Jo ventured, "You're expecting the worst, aren't you?"
"Yeah, wonder why."
Jo didn't have a response for that. Despite the lightness she had seen in Faith immediately after the memorial, despite her consistent and in-command demeanor in front of the other girls, it was clear Faith still wasn't over it. Even just the way she was sitting there, present but not quite present, drawn into herself like a star inside an event horizon -- it was an almost palpable change from the Faith who had snapped at her for being stupid the first time they'd ever met.
Jo kept hovering by the door, trying to work up the courage to say something.
"Well, if you're gonna stay--" Faith stood and went over to the small refrigerator against the wall, of the type Jo's freshman year roommate had owned, "-- then I oughta be a good hostess."
"No, it's not like, I just, uh--"
"Sit, blondie. I don't actually drink that much, since I got a mom who basically drank herself to death and I like to think I can learn from other peoples' examples. Plus I get my kicks just fine from other stuff. But it's not bad with company."
She passed Jo a tall glass of pure unmixed Armadale, the kind Ellen Harvelle liked to take out whenever a hunter'd had a particularly special kill, poured one for herself, and then brought the whole bottle over. Jo knocked back a swallow that went down clean and sharp and cold.
Faith folded herself into the lone armchair and motioned Jo to the end of the bed. Jo sat and, feeling like she needed to say something, said, "I don't drink that much myself."
"Thought your mom ran a bar."
"Yeah, that's why. Saw too many stupid drunk hunters throwing barstools around and trashing the place when I was growing up. Kind of took the cool factor out of it."
"Substitute 'drunk hunters' with old lady Lehane and you got the picture of my childhood." Faith peered at her. "I bet your mom's the complete opposite, huh?"
"She ain't all hearts and flowers either."
"Whatever." Faith tilted her head. "She know what you're doing out here?"
"Not yet."
"What, you don't like your mom?"
"I like her just fine."
Faith appeared to think about that. "So this ritual," she said. "You gonna be donating blood again?"
"Willow says not."
"Yeah, well, the way magic works, that just means it'll take something else from you instead."
"It'd be worth it."
Faith just took another swallow from her glass.
They drank in increasingly more companionable silence. Jo tried to pace herself -- she knew from seeing the other girls drink that she'd be under the table in no time if she tried to keep up with Faith's slayer tolerance. Of course, that concern seemed to get less important the closer she got to the bottom of her glass.
"So when this is over," Faith said, her voice slow and deliberate in the way of one aware of imminent intoxication, "you heading back to Jenkins Falls, Nebraska? Gonna tell your mom how you avenged your dad's sainted memory and all?"
Jo evaluated the landscape before answering, didn't see anything dangerous in Faith's expression, and said, "I wouldn't go just to see her. Maybe if there was an interesting case. See, 'cuz I follow the cases, see."
Faith managed to pour a little more into Jo's glass, clinking loudly, only spilling a little. "I was in Nebraska once." She said the word like she was either spitting on it or thought it was the most awesome word ever, Jo couldn't really tell.
"Really."
"Yep. Not for long, just passed through on my way to Cali. Killed some vamps. Told you before, they're all the same."
"Maybe," Jo said doubtfully. "I got reliable sources who schooled me different, though."
"Well, you got your five senses, too. Trust those first."
Jo couldn't debate the logic of that. "You know, I wish I coulda known about you guys before. I wish my dad coulda known. Maybe he woulda known to stay away from that place. Then he wouldn'a died. But then," she frowned, "then I wouldn'a come here either. Probably."
"Maybe if you knew about us and we knew about you, we'd'a just made you cannon fodder."
Jo found that oddly hilarious. She snickered. "You know something? I'm so intimidated by you."
Faith laughed. "Yeah, you should be." Then, "Wait, why?"
Jo dropped her voice to a whisper. "We call you the drill sergeant."
"Please, blondie, I gave myself that name."
"Oh." Strangely disappointed, Jo sipped her vodka. She could barely feel the burn now which, yep, meant she should stop.
She took another sip.
"So," Faith said, "you'd really just take some other case once you're finished here. Like, even if it was all the way across the country in Titfucker, Arkansas."
"I go where the job takes me. I'm non-discrim-- non-discrimatory."
"But I mean, izzer something wrong with your job here?"
And then the thing in Jo's head that had been dangling all through the conversation, as well as every time she'd ever spoken to or thought about Faith or bitched about her overprotectiveness or just bitched about her bitchery, fell down and clicked into place. She was lonely. Had been lonely a long time, in fact. Jo suddenly felt sober as anything, as the thoughts crystallized: Faith and Angel were two of a kind, only unlike him Faith hadn't lived two hundred and eighty years of people leaving and dying. Absence and loss were closer and more constant companions to Angel than any human or vampire could be. No, Jo thought, Faith was more like her mom, who'd only had enough of absence and loss to know how to dread them.
Jo uncrossed her legs and put her feet carefully, very carefully, down on the floor. "I won't go anywhere if," she said, "people didn't want me to."
"Hmm."
"Have people been saying things?"
"Maybe," Faith said. "Not to me personally, I mean."
It was ridiculous how giddy that made her. She'd blame it on the vodka later, for unguarding the both of them, but now she said, "You and my mom are like the same person, you know that?"
"How's that?"
"You both," Jo waved her empty glass around, "you both can't stand the idea of me leaving."
"First of all, I wouldn't care if you took a leap off my balcony right now. Because a) I've done that before, and b) I just wouldn't. Second of all, you think I'm your mom?"
Jo paused, remembering what Shandee had said about Faith and her mom complex, and how she'd just been curious, just casually curious, that was all. "No," she said now. "I really don't." And she got up off the bed, propped her hands on the arms of Faith's chair, and leaned down.
In the middle of it she remembered something important: she had never, actually, kissed a girl on the mouth before. Nor had she ever, actually, thought about kissing this one. Or at least, not in any conscious fashion. It had just been something her body began before her brain quite caught up with it. There wasn't even any art to the kiss: just two slightly parted mouths moving together, tasting slightly of vodka, softer than anything she'd ever experienced.
Her belly began to feel warm and queasy in a way completely unrelated to being drunk, and she pulled away fast, almost stumbling. Faith just sat there and looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes surrounded by greenish-purple bruising that had still healed faster than the black eye she'd given Jo. Her lips were red and wet.
"Uh," Jo said, "sorry, I -- are you, are you straight? Because I am. I mean I--"
"Chill, blondie." Faith sounded amused, her voice a little scratchy. "You're not the first girl here to try and put the moves on me when Angel wouldn't put out."
"I never--!" Jo sputtered.
"Don't worry about it. You look like you'd be fun, but I wouldn't de-virginize one of the few girls here who'll actually cop to it." She paused. "Not while you're hammered, anyway."
Jo felt her cheeks burn, took a breath, got her composure back. "O-kay. I think I'm just, gonna call it a night."
"Yeah, sounds about right."
"Thanks for the drink."
"Thanks for the share." Faith smiled, teasing, and the sly look in her eyes did something to Jo, snapped closed that one last connection between brain and body she'd been missing before just now, before she'd just completely gone and made an ass of herself. Well. Interesting. And a far cry from Dean Winchester.
She tried to look dignified as she exited, but banging her shoulder on the doorjamb probably wasn't the best way to do it.
*
"See, this is why I don't drink," Shandee said. "'Cuz the next morning in the harsh light of day? You just look like a fool."
"You're not even old enough to drink," Jo groaned. After some fumbling with the laptop, she managed to figure out how to lower the brightness settings. So much better.
"What's physical age? I have the emotional maturity to choose not to."
"Do you want me to drop this laptop on your head?"
Shandee grinned. "Yo, you totally just regressed to like age eight. So as the senior person in this office now, I order you to get to work."
"Was doing that before you came in and distracted me," Jo muttered.
"Okay, so get back to work then," Shandee said. "Besides, I can tell when someone's plotting my death. See you, blondie."
Jo grimaced. She'd never quite been able to ask Faith to stop calling her that, reasons for which had possibly only just become apparent, which meant these days everyone in the hotel -- except Angel, of course -- was doing it. And speak of two devils. She could hear them both now talking to Shandee just outside the door, obviously on their way in. Jo put her head in her hands and groaned.
"Rough night, Jo?" Angel said. He came in and sat in one of the two remaining chairs, his face looking genuinely concerned. Faith, for her part, plopped herself down in the other chair, kicking her boots up onto the desk, smirking a little to herself with her dark red lips.
Did it mean Jo was easy if she had the fleeting thought -- clearly because she was still a little bit drunk -- that she wouldn't actually kick either of them out of bed for eating crackers?
She attempted to focus on the more important crisis at hand. "Willow called," she said. "She and Andrew pulled an all-nighter with the spell. I think only the hundreds of miles separating them prevented them from killing each other, but, the good news is, they made some real progress and they think they'll be ready by Buffy's deadline."
Faith's smirk evaporated. "Okay. So we need to start thinking battle plan."
"Yeah," Jo said. She flipped through her journal. "I've got notes on the kinds of things we could possibly expect there, but they're pretty sketchy. Vamps, obviously. Those Cardjen dragons. Assorted demons. Maybe spirits of dead children and others who died there by unnatural means."
"I think it'd be safe to assume we should expect anything and everything," Angel said quietly. "Word's probably gotten out that ten slayers died there. That alone would attract any evil thing in a hundred mile radius. And if they're predicting we're gonna go back there and finish the job, they'll all be spoiling for blood."
Faith was looking at him. "We?"
He looked right back. "Yeah, we."
"Okay." She folded her hands in her lap. "So. Considering we're going there for extermination rather than just defense and recon, I say we take a dozen squads."
Jo waited for someone to respond, and then realized she was the only one in the room who would. "That's, uh, that's not even half the division. You sure that's enough?"
She expected Faith to shut her right down, to say it was her damn job to choose the personnel and that was it, decision final. But instead Faith said, "No. Actually. I'm not."
Jo was proud of herself: she didn't even miss a beat. "So then...what if we asked the squad leaders what they thought?"
Silence. Then a slow smile spread over Faith's face. "What, you mean act like this is a democracy or something?"
"Uh, I think technically the term would be oligarchy," Angel murmured.
Jo grinned. "Take it from a failed history major. Either way, you're making forward progress."
They presented the issue to the squad leaders before patrol assignments that night. Jo watched the surprise flicker across the girls' faces when they realized what Faith was asking, that she was asking. It was just as quickly replaced by excitement.
"I don't think we should take anything less than fifteen squads," Melanie said. "And I'd rather we took twenty."
"You're talking about a hundred and eighty slayers," Angel said. "Over two hundred on the outside."
"Yeah, but she's right," said Rachel. "We can't afford to go in there with too few."
Deanna nodded. "Plus at least this way, you still leave a good number to watch the city." The rest of the slayers made noises of agreement.
"Last big battle we only took ten," Faith mused.
"Yeah, but Malibu wasn't an opening to hell," Melanie said.
"Not to mention," Jeanette pointed out, in her slow Georgia drawl, "that was over a year ago. And we had a string of good fights before then. This time around they've been gettin' at more 'n more of us. So they've had a long time thirstin' for our blood."
"Yeah, and what happened last week is just gonna make 'em worse," said Rachel. "I vote we split the difference: take seventeen squads. I bet you and Angel could count for half a squad between yourselves, anyway."
"Them, me and Maria," Petra said, speaking for the first time. She darted her eyes defiantly at Faith. "'Cuz we're going."
"No doubt," Melanie cackled, her quick impish grin mirrored around the rest of the group. "No doubt."
To her credit, Faith didn't react to the statement like it was anything unexpected. She just nodded. "All right. Let's vote by a show of hands. Proposal's for seventeen squads. Blondie, you count the yays and nays."
Jo didn't need to, though. The vote was unanimous, all in favor.
*
She felt restless and charged up and ready to fight after the meeting. When she saw Angel weaponing up next to Shandee, she shouldered her way between them. "So. Where we headed?"
He opened his mouth like he was going to protest, and she opened hers to start arguing, but Shandee just slapped a battleaxe into her hand. "Stick close to me and don't let Faith see you."
She hadn't been out with a squad since Devil's Gate. Hadn't even picked up a weapon. And even before then she'd been more used to shotguns, rock salt cartridges, and above all hunting through knowledge and research: the location of bones, the things that kept spirits haunting the earth, the spells that sent demons to hell. This kind of hunting was different. Their quarry was flesh; they fought hand to hand, strength against strength, and the only research required was whether you wanted blood or dust.
Melanie led them to the old warehouse district, still more populated by blank, empty-looking buildings than legal residences. It looked like a prime vampire breeding ground, perfect for nesting and preying on the homeless, and sure enough, Angel caught the scent of human blood within minutes.
Jo suppressed a shiver at the reminder of his nature, of what he shared with the things they were hunting. Just looking at him, the preternatural way he moved, quicker than a human and pulled by the thing that both gave her life and that he was made to consume -- he was alien, other, a thing that shouldn't be. She was suddenly unsure just what, exactly, separated him from creatures like him.
He seemed to sense her looking at him, and turned to meet her eyes. It was too dark in the sewer tunnel to make out his expression. She tried to smile, to reassure him that all was well. He faced forward again.
Melanie ran a somewhat tighter crew than Petra, the girls moving like a well-oiled machine, easily incorporating Jo and Angel into the unit, communicating with only glances and hand signals, everyone knowing who would take a corner or an entrance first. Jo watched as two girls broke off and easily scaled a network of scaffolding on the side of a building. The quickness and lightness of their progress were as unnatural as Angel, in their own way.
And it struck Jo, understanding it fully for perhaps the first time, how different she was from everyone here. Hunting had always been something she'd understood as best done alone -- hell, she'd had to do it alone, just by virtue of what she had between her legs. She'd only ever worked with others to learn from them, as a means to eventually strike out on her own. And how many times had she said it, defiantly, the words themselves a snatch for independence: hunting's in my blood. Now, among these thirteen people, people who had hunting in their blood in a way she never could, she finally was on her own.
"HAH!" one of the lookouts on the rooftop shouted, alerting them to vamps approaching, and the sound of her voice calling out above them yanked Jo right back to Devil's Gate, to Erin and Christy and Maria screaming from the walls of the ravine.
"Don't freeze up, blondie," Shandee said beside her, alert as a predator. "Them or you going home tonight."
Jo breathed. "Don't worry, I don't need reminding."
Shandee had explained to her a while back that most of the city's vamps, in response to all the patrolling slayer squads, had taken to running in large gangs rather than ragtag handfuls. Bigger numbers meant better odds for survival, so long as the bloodsuckers could keep together without infighting.
But the squad plus Jo and Angel were fourteen fighters, more than a match for any group of vamps they might come across. The look of fear that rippled through the gang when they saw Angel standing next to Melanie, tall and black and smirking, confirmed it.
"Angelus!" one of the vampires gasped. "But -- you're supposed to be dead!"
"Rumors, exaggerated, you know the deal," Angel quipped. "Did you miss me?"
The vamps muttered amongst themselves, but one stepped forward. "I'm just happy to give the streetcleaners something to sweep up tomorrow."
"Yeah," Shandee snorted, "you. Get some better comeback lines."
The vampire's grin exposed sharp fangs. "Heard you girls got spanked last week. It's all over the city. Too bad we missed it."
"Oh, honey," Shandee said sweetly. "Don't worry. We'll give you a spanking for free."
And then it began.
Jo got in and helped where she could, but everything she'd been thinking was true: she wasn't as strong, wasn't as fast, couldn't swing a broadsword over her head the way Angel did, couldn't match blows with two vamps at once like Shandee. But she could aim a stake at a heart, bring her axe down on a hamstring or an exposed neck, stay alive and not dead.
They ran into some demons on their way out of the area, obviously drawn by the fighting. When that was over, Melanie took one look at Jo, clothes torn and lip split and bloody, and said, "Why don't you take Angel back to the Hyperion? He should be taking it easy on his first night out."
Angel didn't look much better than she did, truth be told, but the transparent attempt still stung a bit. Jo rolled her eyes. "Nice try. See you in the morning."
He was practically thrumming with excitement the whole way back, talking at a fast clip about the demons, their unpronounceable names rattling off his tongue as easily as he'd fought them, barely noticing how the fight had worsened his limp. She'd never seen him so...well, alive. Once they got to the hotel, she tamped down the braided threads of envy and worry and hustled him up to the infirmary, leaving their gunky weapons behind.
"So what's the story with Jamie?" Jo said, when the other girl had finished checking them out. "She's always in here. They don't take shifts in the infirmary?"
"You didn't know? Jamie doesn't fight."
"What, is she injured too?"
Angel shrugged. "There are girls who just don't. Some don't even bother joining -- they'd rather live their own lives. Jamie came to the hotel because she had nowhere else to go, so they gave her something she thought she could do."
Thinking about her earlier realizations, she said, "Jesus, if I had her powers I couldn't imagine just sitting around here doing nothing--" She stopped and snuck a look at him through the heat suddenly suffusing her face. To her frustration, a crowbar did not magically appear to help unwedge her foot from her mouth.
But Angel appeared unruffled. "Powers alone don't make a slayer. You've got to want the job, too. You know that better than most."
She guessed she did. "But what would have happened," she wondered aloud, "if there was still only one of them at a time, and Jamie was the one? How would they have made her fight if she didn't want to?"
"She wouldn't have been the first girl to follow her own will. But she also wouldn't have been the first to put her will aside, once she understood how much she was needed."
The absurd image of Dean and Sam Winchester fighting alongside an army of girls flashed through her brain. She smiled a little and said, "Well, I don't know about need, but I could have used a few slayers when I was hunting by myself. Other hunters, too," she added, echoing the thoughts she'd drunkenly voiced to Faith. "I can think of a few situations."
"You've handled things pretty well up until now. You're still here, aren't you?"
Not all of us, she wanted to say, thinking of her father, of more than one father. Wanted to say, but didn't.
*
When they were finished getting themselves bandaged, Angel went to feed and clean the weapons, and she wandered into the office, still coming down from the high of the fight. There was an hour yet to go before dawn, and the empty shell of the hotel lobby seemed to reverberate with its own silence.
She called Willow, ostensibly to check on the spell's progress, really just to have another voice to interrupt the quiet. "Can't talk long," Willow said, "we had a major breakthrough just a couple hours ago. I'm making Andrew figure out the grammar -- who knew closing a leak from hell required future imperfect tense combined with inchoative aspect? I mean, really! Except it turns out we have to do it from scratch, because when we started we were drafting in demonic Latin in the pre-Rotharian form, even though I told him it lacks the grammatical subtleties introduced by the Holfarin demon priests, not like it isn't all right there in Wesley's diaries, 'cuz at least he recognized the creative benefits of not being all, classical demonic languages only! But noooo, Andrew just had to be the wannabe Watcher--"
"So, when do you think it'll be ready?" Jo interrupted.
"Oh, um. I think if we work straight through, we can have it done by afternoon tea. Minus fine tuning, of course."
"Wow," Jo said. "That's -- that's technically today." Her mouth went suddenly dry. "Damn."
"Yeah." Willow furrowed her brow. "Jo, don't take this the wrong way or anything? But I'm kinda thinking you shouldn't do this alone. It's a pretty heavy ritual, even for someone experienced in magic. I mean, the amount of power alone that would be flowing through you, that's not something to take lightly."
"Angel's got the most experience out of all of us, but I'm thinking we're gonna need him to fight."
"Hmm," Willow said. "Well, don't worry. I'm sure Andrew and I will think of something. Or I will, and he'll nitpick it until we finally work it out."
A noise from out in the lobby caught Jo's attention. "Sorry, gotta go."
It was Faith stumbling in with Squad 8, all of them looking like they'd gone ten rounds with a bulldozer. "Get up to the infirmary," Faith ordered. "Kim and Deanna, you help Jamie with the others."
Jo watched the two uninjured slayers guiding the others toward the elevator. "What happened?"
"Got jumped by a band of demons near the Hollywood Bowl." Faith grimaced, twisting around and lowering the wide strap of her tanktop to peer at a nasty gash on her shoulder. "Pretty cocky, running near the rich and famous."
"But everyone's okay."
"We lost Jenna B. and Tamara out of Squad 4," Faith said, like she was reporting the weather. She made for the fridge behind the counter. "Did anybody else call?"
Jo paused, absorbing the news. "I haven't heard it ring. Here, let me get that." She took the towel of ice from Faith's hands, twisted it closed, and pressed it to the wound. Faith hissed but didn't jerk away.
"They're riled up just like we thought," Faith said. "Coming after us hard. Mel said they ran into a Curloth demon after you and Angel split. Told her the whole damn underworld's been having a weeklong party."
"Willow thinks they'll be ready with the spell tomorrow."
"About fucking time," Faith muttered.
Jo edged around to get a look at a cut on her hairline. The movement made Faith sit back a bit and look up -- their eyes met, and Faith looked away just as quickly, but not before Jo saw what she was hiding beneath all the toughness. The silence in the lobby rose up around them like a wave.
Gently, Jo lifted blood-matted hair from the wound. "This one looks pretty shallow," she said. "Why don't you go upstairs and let Jamie look at the other one?"
"It'll heal. First I gotta call Buffy." She started to move past her, but Jo got a hand on her other shoulder and pushed her into a chair. Surprise and annoyance flickered over Faith's face. "Get off me, blondie. I'm okay."
"C'mon, if you were okay I wouldn't have just been able to do that."
Faith smacked both of Jo's arms away; her elbow banged into the edge of the counter, hard, and she dropped the towel. Ice scattered on the floor. "Surprising me's a pretty stupid move. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"
"What, you gonna beat me up now? If you're not gonna go upstairs, sit here and wait until I at least get a bandage on that."
She turned and hunted under the counter for the first aid kit, hiding the trembling in her hands, listening for the sound of Faith getting up anyway. But Faith remained where she was, and by the time Jo found the kit she had enough of a handle on herself to rip open packets of ointment and gauze and alcohol wipes without dropping them.
"Hold your hair up," she said, and Faith did, exposing her neck. The warm glow from the lamp nearby caught the jagged circles of two scars, slanting below her jaw. It looked like -- Jo reached out, before she knew she was going to, and touched the silvery marks with her finger. "A vamp bit you."
Faith turned her head a bit, but kept her eyes focused on the office doorway. "Long time ago."
There was a story in those three words; there was a story behind everything the people in this hotel said to her. Jo kept bandaging and waited to see if Faith would tell it. But she remained silent, keeping her own counsel. Some things never changed.
Jo unwrapped another alcohol wipe and swabbed the wound on Faith's head. The medicinal scent was overpowering the bloodsmell now, but her fingers were redstained, dried blood beneath her nails. She unwrapped a butterfly bandage and placed it gently over the cut. "You hurt anywhere else I should know about?"
Faith shook her head. "Nope. Think you're done here."
"You're welcome," Jo said, glaring at her.
And she meant to step away and start cleaning up, because she was suddenly pretty damn pissed, and she doubted Faith was going to be very accommodating of that, given her own mood. But here they were again, and was it only last night that she'd been standing in front of Faith, leaning a kiss into her? Twenty-four hours. It felt like years ago.
"Guess you're not done," Faith said, glaring right back. But true to her word she didn't make any moves, so it was up to Jo, then, to recapitulate their earlier encounter, to pull Faith up as easy as she'd pushed her down, and kiss her again.
This time neither of them were drunk. Jo felt everything: the unexpected softness of Faith's mouth, her hair tangling around Jo's fingers, the press of her breasts as she moved closer. The cut in Jo's lip split open a bit and she tasted blood -- she thought Faith would stop, but instead she just kissed Jo harder, her tongue sweeping inside Jo's mouth. Faith's sudden hands on her hips were strong and warm, and her thumbs stroking the bare skin above Jo's waistband made her shiver even as a hot throbbing began between her legs. "I swear to God," Jo said, tilting her head back as Faith kissed her neck, "if you make me stop this time--"
"What, you gonna beat me up?"
"Yeah," Jo gasped. "Just might."
She was serious, goddammit, but Faith pulled away like she'd just said the complete opposite thing. "I still need to call B. And the others are gonna be back any minute now. Sun's coming up."
Jo gaped at her. "You're kidding, right?"
"Not even a little bit. This job pauses for no woman." But the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "Go upstairs, blondie. I'll be there when I'm done."
Jo got off the desk which, when had she gotten on it? -- and walked away on rubbery legs. She didn't look back, but she didn't need to, to know Faith was watching her.
Because Ellen Harvelle didn't raise a stupid girl, Jo went straight up to Faith's room. She got into the shower and turned the water as hot as her cuts and scrapes could stand it, lathering up with Faith's soap and shampoo, the same plain, no-nonsense brands she'd found in her own bathroom her first morning in the Hyperion. When she got out of the shower, she found that the medicine cabinet held only a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush like the kind the dentist gave you for free, and an unmarked tub of scentless lotion. Somehow that seemed both fitting and comforting, that Faith kept things so simple, but still, as she stared at herself in the slowly de-fogging mirror, she could feel her heart beating a little faster, her hands trembling a bit. She was in another woman's space, naked, eyes closed, vulnerable. She had no idea what was going to happen next.
She wrapped herself in a towel, debated whether to pull her clothes back on despite the rips and bloodstains, and then went hunting through Faith's dresser. T-shirt, trackpants. She toweled her hair as dry as she could get it, then stretched out on the bed above the covers, muscles grateful to be horizontal, brain humming blissfully at the feel of the pillow. Her eyes drifted shut.
It was the mattress dipping to one side that woke her. She rolled over and saw Faith sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, still mostly wet from her own shower. She was attempting to re-bandage her shoulder. The gray-lavender light in the room told Jo it was still early morning.
"Here," she said, and sat up behind Faith, taking the bandage and tape and re-doing her earlier work. She paused and yawned in the middle of it, still sleep-blurry.
"You should go back to sleep," Faith said, her voice low even though they were the only two people in the room. "You need it for healing."
"I got enough. What did Buffy say?"
"Said we got work to do. We're going in tonight."
"You weren't kidding about the job never stopping."
"Nope."
Finished with her work, Jo traced her fingers along the top hem of Faith's towel, just beneath the bandage. "I'm sorry about Jenna and Tamara."
"Yeah, well, there'll be more tomorrow morning."
Jo lifted her hand. "You want me to go?"
For a moment, she thought Faith wasn't going to answer her. Then: "Stay if you want."
Jo took a moment to just kneel there, admiring the nape of Faith's neck and the line of her back, and then she brushed aside the sweep of Faith's dark hair, smooth and still heavy and cool from moisture, and pressed a kiss to her jaw. She smelled clean and fresh, just the way Jo did.
Faith let her kiss her way toward her mouth, leaning her head back for better access, bringing her hand up to cradle Jo's neck for support. The strangeness of kissing Faith from such an angle and the freakiness of kissing her at all were balanced by the measure of control Jo felt, the power, like their positions made her the strong one, leaning over Faith and taking what she wanted.
Faith slid her hands down Jo's arms, twined their fingers together, and brought Jo's hands up to cup her breasts through the towel. God, that was weird, thrilling and weird, the familiar curved shape of them yet how they were still so different from her own. She eased the towel loose, letting it fall open so she could test the softness of Faith's skin, the way her nipples puckered and dragged on her moist palms.
Faith moaned a little when Jo flicked her thumbs gently, and the sound of it went straight down through Jo. She kissed harder, her breath going ragged, rearing up on her knees so she was almost draped over Faith now, her hair falling down to brush against her knuckles.
Then Faith broke the kiss and flipped them both over, quick slayer strength, towel sliding off to the floor as she hooked her fingers in the waistband of Jo's pants and pulled them down. Jo got the T-shirt off herself, shivering a bit from the sudden chill and her own self-consciousness.
"Cold feet?" Faith smoothed her hands along Jo's thighs, wicked eyebrow raised.
"Not even a little bit," Jo parroted, and then gasped as Faith pushed her legs apart, dipped her head and took one long lick between them.
Furtive fingering was about as far as Jo'd ever gotten down there. She propped herself up on her elbows, shivering again as Faith looked up and met her eyes, held her gaze the whole time even as her tongue and fingers drove Jo crazy, like she was daring Jo to call the whole thing off. Like she fucking could.
It rose and rose and her hips jerked, and then she had to break their staring match, had to throw her head back and arch and writhe, and Faith looped her strong arms around Jo's thighs and buried her face between them, hands holding her down and -- "Ohshit, oh god, god -- unh," Jo babbled, and came like a thunderclap.
Faith crawled up her body while she was still aftershocking and kissed her thoroughly, pushing Jo's taste inside her mouth with her tongue. "Get up, blondie," she said against Jo's mouth, and pulled her up so they were kneeling in front of each other. She guided Jo's hand between her own legs and rubbed Jo's fingers through the slick, and Jo'd had plenty of practice with this, at least, albeit at a rather different angle. She gathered what was left of her conscious thought and found Faith's clit and gave her what she needed until Faith shuddered against her, breasts rubbing deliciously against Jo's.
She was leaning against Faith, her forehead resting on her uninjured shoulder, contemplating whether she could fall asleep still kneeling. Faith's hands were smoothing over Jo's back in wide circles. "Had enough yet?" Her voice had that slightly hoarse edge of amusement to it.
"Bitch, I could go all day," Jo groaned.
"That's what I like to hear." Faith swept her hands over Jo's ass, caught her beneath her thighs, and lifted her up.
"Ahh -- god, what--" She wrapped arms and legs around Faith, pure instinct. Faith walked on her knees until she had Jo against the headboard, holding her up like Jo weighed less than a feather, cold hard wood pressing into Jo's back, Faith's smooth belly pressing between Jo's legs where she was still wet and quivering. "Holy shit--" Jo managed, before Faith covered her mouth with her own.
Faith pulled out of the kiss just long enough to stick her thumb between her own lips, her other hand moving to grip Jo's ass and hold her in place. She pulled her thumb out with a slippery pop and brought it down to Jo's clit, circling. "Like that?" she breathed, her dark eyes watching Jo. "You better tell me, or I might stop."
"Yes, okay, yes, Jesus." Jo arched her back, knocked her head against the wall, spread her arms out along the top of the headboard for purchase even though Faith was propping her up, easy as a pillow. "Don't you goddamn stop."
"Nice little virgin like you, what happened to asking politely?"
Jo thrust her hips, making the headboard bang the wall. "Don't you goddamn stop, please."
Faith smirked at her. "Like you were saying, we got all day."
*
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
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*
Things were tense around the Hyperion for the next day or so, if tense meant feeling like you'd jump right out of your skin if someone looked at you funny, or like the walls might explode, leaving them all a pile of ash and rubble on Wilshire Boulevard, if someone said the wrong thing. Jo divided most of her time between the office and the infirmary, between research and nursing, talking spells and spell theory with Willow and Andrew and feeling like an absolute fraud because what the fuck did she know about magic?, talking Maria and Petra through their infirmary time and never once feeling like she could bring up the ten girls. Not after she'd tried to say to them, "Look, I just wanted to tell you I'm so sor--" and Maria set her jaw and Petra croaked, "Shut up, bitch, just shut up. No one in this whole damn hotel needs to say anything like that, okay?"
So instead they talked around the subject, about how Faith was being even more drill sergeant than ever, how Angel was letting her because he never could tell Faith no, how Shandee had gone on patrol again with her squad and singlehandedly brought down a Nagorsa demon with a grenade and a machete. She gave them silly quizzes out of glossy old copies of Cosmo, answer (a) (b) or (c) to the question If your man had a close female friend, how would you deal with your jealousy? She dialed the international calling card for Maria and held the handset to her ear when she wanted to talk to her parents.
And finally, she told them about her dad.
"That's rough," Petra said. "But you know your mom was just protecting you."
"I know." Jo drew her knees up to her chest. She hadn't been sure how they would take it. "But still."
"But nothing. I wish my parents had bothered to show me that kinda concern. Maybe then I wouldn't have followed a band called Skulls Kill Willy out here when I was sixteen."
Maria laughed. "You didn't."
"What, are you the only two people here who haven't heard that story?"
Jo smiled with them, but said, "You're not angry I didn't say anything before?"
"I'm not gonna lie," Petra said. "We're not some hivemind, you know, we don't all think the same. Some people might be pissed you didn't tell the whole story, yeah. But the Big Four across the pond would have stomped the idea before we went if they didn't think it was worth it -- so you got the mandate from on high, Jo. This was something we had to do."
Maria didn't quite meet her eyes, which Jo told herself she could take, she hadn't expected to get off scot-free, after all. But then Maria said, "My brother was killed by a vampire. When I got my powers, my parents were so happy, they wanted me to come here. They even donated my university money to the organization."
"What?" said Petra. "You never told me that about your parents."
Maria shrugged. "Manuel was the oldest. They had a lot of plans for him."
"My mother had plans for me, too," Jo said. "Funny how we ended up in the same place."
She didn't mean to have Angel there holding her hand when she went up to Faith's room to make confession, but he was already there when Jo arrived, occupying an armchair while Faith sat on the floor whittling a stake. And just the thought of him leaving them alone together...Jo figured she could admit that Faith made her nervous. A little nervous.
"I have to tell you something," she said, shutting the door behind her. Her breath didn't quite catch up with her speech, though, making her sound like someone had just thwapped her in the gut. Good start.
Faith didn't look up from her whittling. "This important, blondie?"
"Might be. It's about why you first found me at Devil's Gate."
Faith put down the stake, but not the knife, and finally raised her eyes to Jo's.
Jo took a breath. "My father was killed there when I was ten. He was hunting and things went wrong, and he got killed. And so I came out here with this idea that I'd clean the place up. Finish the job, I guess. Make his death right."
She waited approximately the length of a lifetime for Faith to respond. When she did, her voice was quite calm. "And you saw an army of supergirls and thought we'd do the job for you."
"No--"
"And now you feel guilty. And you want to get it off your chest."
"No, I didn't mean to fool you into doing anything. But I was pretty much hiding it from you when I should have been completely open, and I'm sorry for that. It's just when I first got here, I didn't know if I could trust anybody."
"You didn't think maybe when we were getting ready to go out and risk our lives for you, you didn't think that might be a good clue?"
"Faith," Angel said.
Faith threw the knife down and got to her feet. "No, don't even. I know exactly what she wants, she wants someone to tell her it isn't her fault that Neesha died, it isn't her fault Ulan died, or Erin or Christy or Laoting -- no, she just--" she'd been addressing Angel, but now she turned a furious glare on Jo, "--she just wants to unload her shit on us and then walk away feeling like a brave little hunter again, like just because she's not one of us, her actions don't affect us. And I'm not gonna let her fucking do that."
"I already did," Angel said. "I told her it wasn't her fault. And it isn't. I don't think she needs that from you."
Jo tried to speak. "I just--" Dammit, why couldn't she get the words out? "I'm just trying to be open about this finally."
"Okay, fine, you were open about it. You're done." Faith made for the door. "Now get out."
"Faith," Angel said again. "You don't hold a monopoly on losing people."
She swung back around, dark hair flying, and came charging toward him. "Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Angel?"
He got to his feet as well. Tall and dark and solid, not giving an inch against her, and for the first time Jo had an inkling of the vast wealth of things she didn't know about them, of everything she was missing from their histories, both shared and personal. "It means," Angel said, "you need to deal. Maybe if you were anyone else right now, you could be as selfish and angry as you want. But you're leading this group and you don't have that luxury."
Faith gave a bitter, brittle laugh. "I cannot believe my fucking ears. I am tired of all these people playing grief counselor who are like the fucking encyclopedia for not dealing. Xander, Buffy, Willow for fuck's sake today tried to tell me how to do it. And now you of all people."
"Because we've been through it before. So we messed up in the past -- you can learn from our mistakes."
"Past? The hell's so 'past' about taking three years to heal up from a bad fight, Angel?"
Jo didn't even need to look at him to know that had been the wrong thing to say. The air in the room was suddenly ten degrees cooler, fifty pounds heavier. "Don't go there," he gritted out.
"Oh, I'm going there. 'Cuz it's long past time somebody laid your shit bare. What, just because you let us all crash here and you change some bandages every once in a while you think you're the poster child for how to grieve properly? Just 'cause you're not living on the streets eating rats again doesn't make you well-adjusted, Angel. There's more than one way to quit your life."
Jo chanced a glance at Angel while Faith railed. She'd never seen him so -- he was absolutely seething, thunder in his expression, jaw twitching, fists clenched. "I told you, the Senior Partners didn't just spare me by accident -- they still think they can use me--"
"So you got two great excuses. You want to quit being the big champion and all that other shit? Fine. But don't pretend those are the real reasons."
"And you're going to tell me what those are. Because you just know so much about it."
Abruptly, Faith dropped her combative stance, shoulders falling, resting back on her heels. Even her next words were soft. "I know what you lost, okay? I know exactly who. And I kept my mouth shut for so long because of that. And I'm not trying to say that what I -- what the division lost is the same as Cordy or Wes -- or anyone else. But it's not nothing either. And you should get that about me, instead of telling me what to do."
The tension radiating from Angel didn't fully dissipate, but as Jo watched, it did ease, his face relaxing that crucial minuscule degree which allowed her to breathe again. "Don't I always tell you what to do?"
Faith didn't quite smile, although it was there, in her eyes. "You used to. Haven't done it in a while. Guess I'm just used to being my own person now."
Angel stood there looking at her. "The girls," he said, "they aren't nothing to me."
"Yeah, I know," Faith said, "I know. You don't have to tell me that either."
*
The slayers held a memorial service that night. Candles had been set up around the lobby, the flames swimming in glass holders and the overhead lights dimmed so that all was suffused in an orange glow. The entire division was present, the overflow of girls spilling out into the courtyard and blanketing the stairs and leaning on the upstairs railing, looking down. Jo sat between Hilary and Shandee on the front counter, the only place left.
There was nothing formal about it. For Jo, the rituals would have included salting and burning, which John Winchester had done for her own father when he'd died where the girls had, and which she knew his sons had done for him. It was the way of hunters. But it would be impossible to do without going back for the girls' bones, and not all of the slayers had grown up believing in spirits, or would have understood the act as anything other than desecrating the dead. The group had only one way of saying goodbye, and this was it.
Faith held a long white taper high. "Laoting was a kickass slayer, a great team member. And unlike most of you, she never once gave me any lip."
She passed it to a tall slayer named Felice, whose brown face was already glistening with tears. "Laoting was my roommate. And she sucked at it. I was always stepping on her god-damn wet towels. But you couldn't have paid me enough to live with anyone else." She took in a long, hitching breath. "Stay strong where you're going, babe."
Petra took the candle next. "Laoting loved to tell American jokes, but only one of them was ever funny, mostly because she messed it up every. damn. time." A wave of laughter rolled toward her, followed by a shout: "The singing blowjob!"
And on it went. The candle burned down and another had to be relit, and another, and another. Jo took it once, for Neesha. She breathed in deep, feeling all the girls' eyes on her. "Neesha was going to teach me the names of the Hindu asuras. She knew every single one, and a different dance for all of them." She passed the candle back to Faith, the flame at the top trembling a little. Faith met her eyes above it and held her gaze for the space of a few breaths, then nodded, once.
It lasted well into the morning, and by the end Jo, who'd already been coming down off the fight in Faith's room, felt like she'd been steamrolled. It looked like everyone else had run the same emotional gamut, so many bleary eyes and worn faces, but there was a feeling of peace in it, as though the weight that had been bearing down on them all was gone. People could smile, hug each other, laugh. She saw Faith chatting with a small group, arm slung around Mimi's shoulders, and the sight of it made Jo inexplicably giddy.
She was following the crush toward the stairs, intent on her bed, when she spotted Angel in the opening to one of the downstairs corridors, sheltered from the sun.
She went over to him. "You didn't speak."
"No, I didn't."
He had a faraway look in his eyes, and after that confrontation with Faith, she wondered what he was thinking of, or who. But when he didn't seem to be forthcoming with an explanation, she offered, "Things are going good with the research. Willow and Andrew kept geeking out today about stuff that's way over my head. I think they're actually going to try and write a spell themselves."
"It'll probably work, too. Willow's very good."
Jo bit her lip. "They say whatever we end up with, it'll be much bigger than the last one. We'll probably have to take a bigger force this time. Like, almost everybody."
"I think we would have done that anyway. And I wouldn't miss it, either."
"You're going to fight with us?" She didn't know why, but the thought of him fighting sent bolts of both fear and happiness through her. "Are you, are you well enough for that?"
"Yeah." Angel straightened. "Yeah, I'm well enough. Go get some sleep. We've got plenty of time for battle planning."
*
Three days later, Willow and Andrew began writing the spell.
Jo hadn't been able to contribute much. She could read through an exorcism as well as any other hunter, and by now she knew her way around the books and could even manage basic translations of Latin and demonic Latin, albeit with much reliance on Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's carefully compiled translation matrices. But magical theory was beyond her. She listened to the other two arguing across their panels, taking notes in her journal like she knew what they were talking about, but really, she subscribed more to Faith's perspective: when the slayer stuck her head in the office one day and got an earful of bickering, she'd snapped, "No one gives a shit about the goddamn square root of Hecate! Get something done, already!"
Willow tried to explain what they were doing to Jo. "It's funny, 'cuz I never really paid attention in Hebrew school. I mean, I learned Hebrew, but anyone could do that. But I didn't realize that the old Jewish mystics were actually kinda warlock-y. To them, God was the original spellcaster. He used the letters of his own name in the Hebrew alphabet to write the world into existence. Coolest thing ever, huh?"
"Get to the point, Rosenberg," Andrew sighed. "Can't you see the glassy lack of focus in her eyes?"
"I'm paying attention!" Jo protested.
"Fine!" Willow said. "Okay, the point is, we can apply those same principles to this -- I mean, I actually got the idea from Wesley's old Watcher diaries, which you so rock for scanning those over to us, so I can't really take credit. But he was working on this theory after the Quortoth thing, this idea that you could manipulate the barriers between dimensions by manipulating the demonic runes that constituted their names. Kind of like writing them into existence all over again."
Jo thought she was following so far. "But I thought this was an opening to hell? What's hell's name, other than, uh...hell?"
"Well," Andrew prissed, "technically there is no one dimension which conforms to the Islamo-Christian conception of Hell. There are in fact many different hell dimensions catalogued in the Watcher databases, each uniquely classifiable by characteristics such as climate, species populated by, accessibility to our dimension, spells required to achieve that accessibility, et cetera."
Willow met Jo's eyes from her panel, shaped her right pointer and thumb into a gun, and pointed it at her own temple.
"I saw that, Rosenberg! Continuing on. Quortoth was such a dimension. The dimension opened by Acathla, to which Buffy sent Angel, was another. As is yours. The demons you encountered at Devil's Gate -- you know, those scaly black ones with the red eyes a la He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? -- well, after a long and thorough search, I think I can confidently classify them as Cardjen dragons, native to the Cycthus dimension." He paused. "AlsoWillowcorroboratedmyfindings."
"So," Jo said, "you've got the name of the dimension and you think you know how to do a spell to fix the barrier. What else do we need?"
"Just time, basically," said Willow. "We have to make sure what we come up with will do the job. 'Cuz, it's not like we can run lab tests on it or anything--"
"Objection," Andrew said. "If we can write a spell to stop a leak we can most certainly write one to create a leak."
"Um, except, kind of dangerous to be creating openings to hell just for spell practice?"
"I suppose you'd know. Technically you're the only one of us who's actually been an evil big bad."
"Wow, great case of selective amnesia there for someone who was one third of a wannabe big bad trio and had an evil older brother!"
Jo rolled her eyes as they started arguing again, and went back to scribbling in her journal. Quortoth = hell dimension. And Angel told me he was imprisoned in one for a hundred years (which he elects not to count in his age). I don't think he ever knew its name. And I doubt my father and John ever knew what they were dealing with: a leak to another world, named Cycthus, containing dragons.
She went in search of Faith to summarize their progress, and found her in the upstairs ballroom supervising training drills. She walked up to where Faith was standing at the side of the room, observing the ranks of girls moving in tandem: one group practicing kicks and punches, another going through the fluid circles of tai chi, another split into pairs for sword practice. Shouts and grunts and clanging metal reverberated through the large space, mixed with the voices of squad leaders counting out rhythms and fight positions, bringing order to the chaos.
Jo watched, thinking of her sparring session with Faith, thinking of the grassy yard behind the Roadhouse, shooting down a row of glass bottles and tin cans, one by one.
She hadn't spoken to Faith since the day of the memorial service. "Training looks like it's going good," she offered.
Faith shrugged. "It'd look better if demons fought fair."
"Still better than nothing, right?"
Faith looked at Jo finally. "Something on your mind, blondie?"
So much for making nice with praise. "I thought I'd give you an update on the spell."
"Okay, let's talk," Faith said, and led her out of the ballroom, down the hall, to her suite of rooms.
She gestured toward the armchair, but when Jo remained standing by the door, she flopped down into it herself, all boneless easy sprawl -- a deceptive pose, as if she couldn't explode into violence at a moment's provocation.
"Great," she said, when Jo told her Willow's news. "The sooner those two geeks get it done, the sooner we can get this over with."
Jo ventured, "You're expecting the worst, aren't you?"
"Yeah, wonder why."
Jo didn't have a response for that. Despite the lightness she had seen in Faith immediately after the memorial, despite her consistent and in-command demeanor in front of the other girls, it was clear Faith still wasn't over it. Even just the way she was sitting there, present but not quite present, drawn into herself like a star inside an event horizon -- it was an almost palpable change from the Faith who had snapped at her for being stupid the first time they'd ever met.
Jo kept hovering by the door, trying to work up the courage to say something.
"Well, if you're gonna stay--" Faith stood and went over to the small refrigerator against the wall, of the type Jo's freshman year roommate had owned, "-- then I oughta be a good hostess."
"No, it's not like, I just, uh--"
"Sit, blondie. I don't actually drink that much, since I got a mom who basically drank herself to death and I like to think I can learn from other peoples' examples. Plus I get my kicks just fine from other stuff. But it's not bad with company."
She passed Jo a tall glass of pure unmixed Armadale, the kind Ellen Harvelle liked to take out whenever a hunter'd had a particularly special kill, poured one for herself, and then brought the whole bottle over. Jo knocked back a swallow that went down clean and sharp and cold.
Faith folded herself into the lone armchair and motioned Jo to the end of the bed. Jo sat and, feeling like she needed to say something, said, "I don't drink that much myself."
"Thought your mom ran a bar."
"Yeah, that's why. Saw too many stupid drunk hunters throwing barstools around and trashing the place when I was growing up. Kind of took the cool factor out of it."
"Substitute 'drunk hunters' with old lady Lehane and you got the picture of my childhood." Faith peered at her. "I bet your mom's the complete opposite, huh?"
"She ain't all hearts and flowers either."
"Whatever." Faith tilted her head. "She know what you're doing out here?"
"Not yet."
"What, you don't like your mom?"
"I like her just fine."
Faith appeared to think about that. "So this ritual," she said. "You gonna be donating blood again?"
"Willow says not."
"Yeah, well, the way magic works, that just means it'll take something else from you instead."
"It'd be worth it."
Faith just took another swallow from her glass.
They drank in increasingly more companionable silence. Jo tried to pace herself -- she knew from seeing the other girls drink that she'd be under the table in no time if she tried to keep up with Faith's slayer tolerance. Of course, that concern seemed to get less important the closer she got to the bottom of her glass.
"So when this is over," Faith said, her voice slow and deliberate in the way of one aware of imminent intoxication, "you heading back to Jenkins Falls, Nebraska? Gonna tell your mom how you avenged your dad's sainted memory and all?"
Jo evaluated the landscape before answering, didn't see anything dangerous in Faith's expression, and said, "I wouldn't go just to see her. Maybe if there was an interesting case. See, 'cuz I follow the cases, see."
Faith managed to pour a little more into Jo's glass, clinking loudly, only spilling a little. "I was in Nebraska once." She said the word like she was either spitting on it or thought it was the most awesome word ever, Jo couldn't really tell.
"Really."
"Yep. Not for long, just passed through on my way to Cali. Killed some vamps. Told you before, they're all the same."
"Maybe," Jo said doubtfully. "I got reliable sources who schooled me different, though."
"Well, you got your five senses, too. Trust those first."
Jo couldn't debate the logic of that. "You know, I wish I coulda known about you guys before. I wish my dad coulda known. Maybe he woulda known to stay away from that place. Then he wouldn'a died. But then," she frowned, "then I wouldn'a come here either. Probably."
"Maybe if you knew about us and we knew about you, we'd'a just made you cannon fodder."
Jo found that oddly hilarious. She snickered. "You know something? I'm so intimidated by you."
Faith laughed. "Yeah, you should be." Then, "Wait, why?"
Jo dropped her voice to a whisper. "We call you the drill sergeant."
"Please, blondie, I gave myself that name."
"Oh." Strangely disappointed, Jo sipped her vodka. She could barely feel the burn now which, yep, meant she should stop.
She took another sip.
"So," Faith said, "you'd really just take some other case once you're finished here. Like, even if it was all the way across the country in Titfucker, Arkansas."
"I go where the job takes me. I'm non-discrim-- non-discrimatory."
"But I mean, izzer something wrong with your job here?"
And then the thing in Jo's head that had been dangling all through the conversation, as well as every time she'd ever spoken to or thought about Faith or bitched about her overprotectiveness or just bitched about her bitchery, fell down and clicked into place. She was lonely. Had been lonely a long time, in fact. Jo suddenly felt sober as anything, as the thoughts crystallized: Faith and Angel were two of a kind, only unlike him Faith hadn't lived two hundred and eighty years of people leaving and dying. Absence and loss were closer and more constant companions to Angel than any human or vampire could be. No, Jo thought, Faith was more like her mom, who'd only had enough of absence and loss to know how to dread them.
Jo uncrossed her legs and put her feet carefully, very carefully, down on the floor. "I won't go anywhere if," she said, "people didn't want me to."
"Hmm."
"Have people been saying things?"
"Maybe," Faith said. "Not to me personally, I mean."
It was ridiculous how giddy that made her. She'd blame it on the vodka later, for unguarding the both of them, but now she said, "You and my mom are like the same person, you know that?"
"How's that?"
"You both," Jo waved her empty glass around, "you both can't stand the idea of me leaving."
"First of all, I wouldn't care if you took a leap off my balcony right now. Because a) I've done that before, and b) I just wouldn't. Second of all, you think I'm your mom?"
Jo paused, remembering what Shandee had said about Faith and her mom complex, and how she'd just been curious, just casually curious, that was all. "No," she said now. "I really don't." And she got up off the bed, propped her hands on the arms of Faith's chair, and leaned down.
In the middle of it she remembered something important: she had never, actually, kissed a girl on the mouth before. Nor had she ever, actually, thought about kissing this one. Or at least, not in any conscious fashion. It had just been something her body began before her brain quite caught up with it. There wasn't even any art to the kiss: just two slightly parted mouths moving together, tasting slightly of vodka, softer than anything she'd ever experienced.
Her belly began to feel warm and queasy in a way completely unrelated to being drunk, and she pulled away fast, almost stumbling. Faith just sat there and looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes surrounded by greenish-purple bruising that had still healed faster than the black eye she'd given Jo. Her lips were red and wet.
"Uh," Jo said, "sorry, I -- are you, are you straight? Because I am. I mean I--"
"Chill, blondie." Faith sounded amused, her voice a little scratchy. "You're not the first girl here to try and put the moves on me when Angel wouldn't put out."
"I never--!" Jo sputtered.
"Don't worry about it. You look like you'd be fun, but I wouldn't de-virginize one of the few girls here who'll actually cop to it." She paused. "Not while you're hammered, anyway."
Jo felt her cheeks burn, took a breath, got her composure back. "O-kay. I think I'm just, gonna call it a night."
"Yeah, sounds about right."
"Thanks for the drink."
"Thanks for the share." Faith smiled, teasing, and the sly look in her eyes did something to Jo, snapped closed that one last connection between brain and body she'd been missing before just now, before she'd just completely gone and made an ass of herself. Well. Interesting. And a far cry from Dean Winchester.
She tried to look dignified as she exited, but banging her shoulder on the doorjamb probably wasn't the best way to do it.
*
"See, this is why I don't drink," Shandee said. "'Cuz the next morning in the harsh light of day? You just look like a fool."
"You're not even old enough to drink," Jo groaned. After some fumbling with the laptop, she managed to figure out how to lower the brightness settings. So much better.
"What's physical age? I have the emotional maturity to choose not to."
"Do you want me to drop this laptop on your head?"
Shandee grinned. "Yo, you totally just regressed to like age eight. So as the senior person in this office now, I order you to get to work."
"Was doing that before you came in and distracted me," Jo muttered.
"Okay, so get back to work then," Shandee said. "Besides, I can tell when someone's plotting my death. See you, blondie."
Jo grimaced. She'd never quite been able to ask Faith to stop calling her that, reasons for which had possibly only just become apparent, which meant these days everyone in the hotel -- except Angel, of course -- was doing it. And speak of two devils. She could hear them both now talking to Shandee just outside the door, obviously on their way in. Jo put her head in her hands and groaned.
"Rough night, Jo?" Angel said. He came in and sat in one of the two remaining chairs, his face looking genuinely concerned. Faith, for her part, plopped herself down in the other chair, kicking her boots up onto the desk, smirking a little to herself with her dark red lips.
Did it mean Jo was easy if she had the fleeting thought -- clearly because she was still a little bit drunk -- that she wouldn't actually kick either of them out of bed for eating crackers?
She attempted to focus on the more important crisis at hand. "Willow called," she said. "She and Andrew pulled an all-nighter with the spell. I think only the hundreds of miles separating them prevented them from killing each other, but, the good news is, they made some real progress and they think they'll be ready by Buffy's deadline."
Faith's smirk evaporated. "Okay. So we need to start thinking battle plan."
"Yeah," Jo said. She flipped through her journal. "I've got notes on the kinds of things we could possibly expect there, but they're pretty sketchy. Vamps, obviously. Those Cardjen dragons. Assorted demons. Maybe spirits of dead children and others who died there by unnatural means."
"I think it'd be safe to assume we should expect anything and everything," Angel said quietly. "Word's probably gotten out that ten slayers died there. That alone would attract any evil thing in a hundred mile radius. And if they're predicting we're gonna go back there and finish the job, they'll all be spoiling for blood."
Faith was looking at him. "We?"
He looked right back. "Yeah, we."
"Okay." She folded her hands in her lap. "So. Considering we're going there for extermination rather than just defense and recon, I say we take a dozen squads."
Jo waited for someone to respond, and then realized she was the only one in the room who would. "That's, uh, that's not even half the division. You sure that's enough?"
She expected Faith to shut her right down, to say it was her damn job to choose the personnel and that was it, decision final. But instead Faith said, "No. Actually. I'm not."
Jo was proud of herself: she didn't even miss a beat. "So then...what if we asked the squad leaders what they thought?"
Silence. Then a slow smile spread over Faith's face. "What, you mean act like this is a democracy or something?"
"Uh, I think technically the term would be oligarchy," Angel murmured.
Jo grinned. "Take it from a failed history major. Either way, you're making forward progress."
They presented the issue to the squad leaders before patrol assignments that night. Jo watched the surprise flicker across the girls' faces when they realized what Faith was asking, that she was asking. It was just as quickly replaced by excitement.
"I don't think we should take anything less than fifteen squads," Melanie said. "And I'd rather we took twenty."
"You're talking about a hundred and eighty slayers," Angel said. "Over two hundred on the outside."
"Yeah, but she's right," said Rachel. "We can't afford to go in there with too few."
Deanna nodded. "Plus at least this way, you still leave a good number to watch the city." The rest of the slayers made noises of agreement.
"Last big battle we only took ten," Faith mused.
"Yeah, but Malibu wasn't an opening to hell," Melanie said.
"Not to mention," Jeanette pointed out, in her slow Georgia drawl, "that was over a year ago. And we had a string of good fights before then. This time around they've been gettin' at more 'n more of us. So they've had a long time thirstin' for our blood."
"Yeah, and what happened last week is just gonna make 'em worse," said Rachel. "I vote we split the difference: take seventeen squads. I bet you and Angel could count for half a squad between yourselves, anyway."
"Them, me and Maria," Petra said, speaking for the first time. She darted her eyes defiantly at Faith. "'Cuz we're going."
"No doubt," Melanie cackled, her quick impish grin mirrored around the rest of the group. "No doubt."
To her credit, Faith didn't react to the statement like it was anything unexpected. She just nodded. "All right. Let's vote by a show of hands. Proposal's for seventeen squads. Blondie, you count the yays and nays."
Jo didn't need to, though. The vote was unanimous, all in favor.
*
She felt restless and charged up and ready to fight after the meeting. When she saw Angel weaponing up next to Shandee, she shouldered her way between them. "So. Where we headed?"
He opened his mouth like he was going to protest, and she opened hers to start arguing, but Shandee just slapped a battleaxe into her hand. "Stick close to me and don't let Faith see you."
She hadn't been out with a squad since Devil's Gate. Hadn't even picked up a weapon. And even before then she'd been more used to shotguns, rock salt cartridges, and above all hunting through knowledge and research: the location of bones, the things that kept spirits haunting the earth, the spells that sent demons to hell. This kind of hunting was different. Their quarry was flesh; they fought hand to hand, strength against strength, and the only research required was whether you wanted blood or dust.
Melanie led them to the old warehouse district, still more populated by blank, empty-looking buildings than legal residences. It looked like a prime vampire breeding ground, perfect for nesting and preying on the homeless, and sure enough, Angel caught the scent of human blood within minutes.
Jo suppressed a shiver at the reminder of his nature, of what he shared with the things they were hunting. Just looking at him, the preternatural way he moved, quicker than a human and pulled by the thing that both gave her life and that he was made to consume -- he was alien, other, a thing that shouldn't be. She was suddenly unsure just what, exactly, separated him from creatures like him.
He seemed to sense her looking at him, and turned to meet her eyes. It was too dark in the sewer tunnel to make out his expression. She tried to smile, to reassure him that all was well. He faced forward again.
Melanie ran a somewhat tighter crew than Petra, the girls moving like a well-oiled machine, easily incorporating Jo and Angel into the unit, communicating with only glances and hand signals, everyone knowing who would take a corner or an entrance first. Jo watched as two girls broke off and easily scaled a network of scaffolding on the side of a building. The quickness and lightness of their progress were as unnatural as Angel, in their own way.
And it struck Jo, understanding it fully for perhaps the first time, how different she was from everyone here. Hunting had always been something she'd understood as best done alone -- hell, she'd had to do it alone, just by virtue of what she had between her legs. She'd only ever worked with others to learn from them, as a means to eventually strike out on her own. And how many times had she said it, defiantly, the words themselves a snatch for independence: hunting's in my blood. Now, among these thirteen people, people who had hunting in their blood in a way she never could, she finally was on her own.
"HAH!" one of the lookouts on the rooftop shouted, alerting them to vamps approaching, and the sound of her voice calling out above them yanked Jo right back to Devil's Gate, to Erin and Christy and Maria screaming from the walls of the ravine.
"Don't freeze up, blondie," Shandee said beside her, alert as a predator. "Them or you going home tonight."
Jo breathed. "Don't worry, I don't need reminding."
Shandee had explained to her a while back that most of the city's vamps, in response to all the patrolling slayer squads, had taken to running in large gangs rather than ragtag handfuls. Bigger numbers meant better odds for survival, so long as the bloodsuckers could keep together without infighting.
But the squad plus Jo and Angel were fourteen fighters, more than a match for any group of vamps they might come across. The look of fear that rippled through the gang when they saw Angel standing next to Melanie, tall and black and smirking, confirmed it.
"Angelus!" one of the vampires gasped. "But -- you're supposed to be dead!"
"Rumors, exaggerated, you know the deal," Angel quipped. "Did you miss me?"
The vamps muttered amongst themselves, but one stepped forward. "I'm just happy to give the streetcleaners something to sweep up tomorrow."
"Yeah," Shandee snorted, "you. Get some better comeback lines."
The vampire's grin exposed sharp fangs. "Heard you girls got spanked last week. It's all over the city. Too bad we missed it."
"Oh, honey," Shandee said sweetly. "Don't worry. We'll give you a spanking for free."
And then it began.
Jo got in and helped where she could, but everything she'd been thinking was true: she wasn't as strong, wasn't as fast, couldn't swing a broadsword over her head the way Angel did, couldn't match blows with two vamps at once like Shandee. But she could aim a stake at a heart, bring her axe down on a hamstring or an exposed neck, stay alive and not dead.
They ran into some demons on their way out of the area, obviously drawn by the fighting. When that was over, Melanie took one look at Jo, clothes torn and lip split and bloody, and said, "Why don't you take Angel back to the Hyperion? He should be taking it easy on his first night out."
Angel didn't look much better than she did, truth be told, but the transparent attempt still stung a bit. Jo rolled her eyes. "Nice try. See you in the morning."
He was practically thrumming with excitement the whole way back, talking at a fast clip about the demons, their unpronounceable names rattling off his tongue as easily as he'd fought them, barely noticing how the fight had worsened his limp. She'd never seen him so...well, alive. Once they got to the hotel, she tamped down the braided threads of envy and worry and hustled him up to the infirmary, leaving their gunky weapons behind.
"So what's the story with Jamie?" Jo said, when the other girl had finished checking them out. "She's always in here. They don't take shifts in the infirmary?"
"You didn't know? Jamie doesn't fight."
"What, is she injured too?"
Angel shrugged. "There are girls who just don't. Some don't even bother joining -- they'd rather live their own lives. Jamie came to the hotel because she had nowhere else to go, so they gave her something she thought she could do."
Thinking about her earlier realizations, she said, "Jesus, if I had her powers I couldn't imagine just sitting around here doing nothing--" She stopped and snuck a look at him through the heat suddenly suffusing her face. To her frustration, a crowbar did not magically appear to help unwedge her foot from her mouth.
But Angel appeared unruffled. "Powers alone don't make a slayer. You've got to want the job, too. You know that better than most."
She guessed she did. "But what would have happened," she wondered aloud, "if there was still only one of them at a time, and Jamie was the one? How would they have made her fight if she didn't want to?"
"She wouldn't have been the first girl to follow her own will. But she also wouldn't have been the first to put her will aside, once she understood how much she was needed."
The absurd image of Dean and Sam Winchester fighting alongside an army of girls flashed through her brain. She smiled a little and said, "Well, I don't know about need, but I could have used a few slayers when I was hunting by myself. Other hunters, too," she added, echoing the thoughts she'd drunkenly voiced to Faith. "I can think of a few situations."
"You've handled things pretty well up until now. You're still here, aren't you?"
Not all of us, she wanted to say, thinking of her father, of more than one father. Wanted to say, but didn't.
*
When they were finished getting themselves bandaged, Angel went to feed and clean the weapons, and she wandered into the office, still coming down from the high of the fight. There was an hour yet to go before dawn, and the empty shell of the hotel lobby seemed to reverberate with its own silence.
She called Willow, ostensibly to check on the spell's progress, really just to have another voice to interrupt the quiet. "Can't talk long," Willow said, "we had a major breakthrough just a couple hours ago. I'm making Andrew figure out the grammar -- who knew closing a leak from hell required future imperfect tense combined with inchoative aspect? I mean, really! Except it turns out we have to do it from scratch, because when we started we were drafting in demonic Latin in the pre-Rotharian form, even though I told him it lacks the grammatical subtleties introduced by the Holfarin demon priests, not like it isn't all right there in Wesley's diaries, 'cuz at least he recognized the creative benefits of not being all, classical demonic languages only! But noooo, Andrew just had to be the wannabe Watcher--"
"So, when do you think it'll be ready?" Jo interrupted.
"Oh, um. I think if we work straight through, we can have it done by afternoon tea. Minus fine tuning, of course."
"Wow," Jo said. "That's -- that's technically today." Her mouth went suddenly dry. "Damn."
"Yeah." Willow furrowed her brow. "Jo, don't take this the wrong way or anything? But I'm kinda thinking you shouldn't do this alone. It's a pretty heavy ritual, even for someone experienced in magic. I mean, the amount of power alone that would be flowing through you, that's not something to take lightly."
"Angel's got the most experience out of all of us, but I'm thinking we're gonna need him to fight."
"Hmm," Willow said. "Well, don't worry. I'm sure Andrew and I will think of something. Or I will, and he'll nitpick it until we finally work it out."
A noise from out in the lobby caught Jo's attention. "Sorry, gotta go."
It was Faith stumbling in with Squad 8, all of them looking like they'd gone ten rounds with a bulldozer. "Get up to the infirmary," Faith ordered. "Kim and Deanna, you help Jamie with the others."
Jo watched the two uninjured slayers guiding the others toward the elevator. "What happened?"
"Got jumped by a band of demons near the Hollywood Bowl." Faith grimaced, twisting around and lowering the wide strap of her tanktop to peer at a nasty gash on her shoulder. "Pretty cocky, running near the rich and famous."
"But everyone's okay."
"We lost Jenna B. and Tamara out of Squad 4," Faith said, like she was reporting the weather. She made for the fridge behind the counter. "Did anybody else call?"
Jo paused, absorbing the news. "I haven't heard it ring. Here, let me get that." She took the towel of ice from Faith's hands, twisted it closed, and pressed it to the wound. Faith hissed but didn't jerk away.
"They're riled up just like we thought," Faith said. "Coming after us hard. Mel said they ran into a Curloth demon after you and Angel split. Told her the whole damn underworld's been having a weeklong party."
"Willow thinks they'll be ready with the spell tomorrow."
"About fucking time," Faith muttered.
Jo edged around to get a look at a cut on her hairline. The movement made Faith sit back a bit and look up -- their eyes met, and Faith looked away just as quickly, but not before Jo saw what she was hiding beneath all the toughness. The silence in the lobby rose up around them like a wave.
Gently, Jo lifted blood-matted hair from the wound. "This one looks pretty shallow," she said. "Why don't you go upstairs and let Jamie look at the other one?"
"It'll heal. First I gotta call Buffy." She started to move past her, but Jo got a hand on her other shoulder and pushed her into a chair. Surprise and annoyance flickered over Faith's face. "Get off me, blondie. I'm okay."
"C'mon, if you were okay I wouldn't have just been able to do that."
Faith smacked both of Jo's arms away; her elbow banged into the edge of the counter, hard, and she dropped the towel. Ice scattered on the floor. "Surprising me's a pretty stupid move. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"
"What, you gonna beat me up now? If you're not gonna go upstairs, sit here and wait until I at least get a bandage on that."
She turned and hunted under the counter for the first aid kit, hiding the trembling in her hands, listening for the sound of Faith getting up anyway. But Faith remained where she was, and by the time Jo found the kit she had enough of a handle on herself to rip open packets of ointment and gauze and alcohol wipes without dropping them.
"Hold your hair up," she said, and Faith did, exposing her neck. The warm glow from the lamp nearby caught the jagged circles of two scars, slanting below her jaw. It looked like -- Jo reached out, before she knew she was going to, and touched the silvery marks with her finger. "A vamp bit you."
Faith turned her head a bit, but kept her eyes focused on the office doorway. "Long time ago."
There was a story in those three words; there was a story behind everything the people in this hotel said to her. Jo kept bandaging and waited to see if Faith would tell it. But she remained silent, keeping her own counsel. Some things never changed.
Jo unwrapped another alcohol wipe and swabbed the wound on Faith's head. The medicinal scent was overpowering the bloodsmell now, but her fingers were redstained, dried blood beneath her nails. She unwrapped a butterfly bandage and placed it gently over the cut. "You hurt anywhere else I should know about?"
Faith shook her head. "Nope. Think you're done here."
"You're welcome," Jo said, glaring at her.
And she meant to step away and start cleaning up, because she was suddenly pretty damn pissed, and she doubted Faith was going to be very accommodating of that, given her own mood. But here they were again, and was it only last night that she'd been standing in front of Faith, leaning a kiss into her? Twenty-four hours. It felt like years ago.
"Guess you're not done," Faith said, glaring right back. But true to her word she didn't make any moves, so it was up to Jo, then, to recapitulate their earlier encounter, to pull Faith up as easy as she'd pushed her down, and kiss her again.
This time neither of them were drunk. Jo felt everything: the unexpected softness of Faith's mouth, her hair tangling around Jo's fingers, the press of her breasts as she moved closer. The cut in Jo's lip split open a bit and she tasted blood -- she thought Faith would stop, but instead she just kissed Jo harder, her tongue sweeping inside Jo's mouth. Faith's sudden hands on her hips were strong and warm, and her thumbs stroking the bare skin above Jo's waistband made her shiver even as a hot throbbing began between her legs. "I swear to God," Jo said, tilting her head back as Faith kissed her neck, "if you make me stop this time--"
"What, you gonna beat me up?"
"Yeah," Jo gasped. "Just might."
She was serious, goddammit, but Faith pulled away like she'd just said the complete opposite thing. "I still need to call B. And the others are gonna be back any minute now. Sun's coming up."
Jo gaped at her. "You're kidding, right?"
"Not even a little bit. This job pauses for no woman." But the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "Go upstairs, blondie. I'll be there when I'm done."
Jo got off the desk which, when had she gotten on it? -- and walked away on rubbery legs. She didn't look back, but she didn't need to, to know Faith was watching her.
Because Ellen Harvelle didn't raise a stupid girl, Jo went straight up to Faith's room. She got into the shower and turned the water as hot as her cuts and scrapes could stand it, lathering up with Faith's soap and shampoo, the same plain, no-nonsense brands she'd found in her own bathroom her first morning in the Hyperion. When she got out of the shower, she found that the medicine cabinet held only a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush like the kind the dentist gave you for free, and an unmarked tub of scentless lotion. Somehow that seemed both fitting and comforting, that Faith kept things so simple, but still, as she stared at herself in the slowly de-fogging mirror, she could feel her heart beating a little faster, her hands trembling a bit. She was in another woman's space, naked, eyes closed, vulnerable. She had no idea what was going to happen next.
She wrapped herself in a towel, debated whether to pull her clothes back on despite the rips and bloodstains, and then went hunting through Faith's dresser. T-shirt, trackpants. She toweled her hair as dry as she could get it, then stretched out on the bed above the covers, muscles grateful to be horizontal, brain humming blissfully at the feel of the pillow. Her eyes drifted shut.
It was the mattress dipping to one side that woke her. She rolled over and saw Faith sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, still mostly wet from her own shower. She was attempting to re-bandage her shoulder. The gray-lavender light in the room told Jo it was still early morning.
"Here," she said, and sat up behind Faith, taking the bandage and tape and re-doing her earlier work. She paused and yawned in the middle of it, still sleep-blurry.
"You should go back to sleep," Faith said, her voice low even though they were the only two people in the room. "You need it for healing."
"I got enough. What did Buffy say?"
"Said we got work to do. We're going in tonight."
"You weren't kidding about the job never stopping."
"Nope."
Finished with her work, Jo traced her fingers along the top hem of Faith's towel, just beneath the bandage. "I'm sorry about Jenna and Tamara."
"Yeah, well, there'll be more tomorrow morning."
Jo lifted her hand. "You want me to go?"
For a moment, she thought Faith wasn't going to answer her. Then: "Stay if you want."
Jo took a moment to just kneel there, admiring the nape of Faith's neck and the line of her back, and then she brushed aside the sweep of Faith's dark hair, smooth and still heavy and cool from moisture, and pressed a kiss to her jaw. She smelled clean and fresh, just the way Jo did.
Faith let her kiss her way toward her mouth, leaning her head back for better access, bringing her hand up to cradle Jo's neck for support. The strangeness of kissing Faith from such an angle and the freakiness of kissing her at all were balanced by the measure of control Jo felt, the power, like their positions made her the strong one, leaning over Faith and taking what she wanted.
Faith slid her hands down Jo's arms, twined their fingers together, and brought Jo's hands up to cup her breasts through the towel. God, that was weird, thrilling and weird, the familiar curved shape of them yet how they were still so different from her own. She eased the towel loose, letting it fall open so she could test the softness of Faith's skin, the way her nipples puckered and dragged on her moist palms.
Faith moaned a little when Jo flicked her thumbs gently, and the sound of it went straight down through Jo. She kissed harder, her breath going ragged, rearing up on her knees so she was almost draped over Faith now, her hair falling down to brush against her knuckles.
Then Faith broke the kiss and flipped them both over, quick slayer strength, towel sliding off to the floor as she hooked her fingers in the waistband of Jo's pants and pulled them down. Jo got the T-shirt off herself, shivering a bit from the sudden chill and her own self-consciousness.
"Cold feet?" Faith smoothed her hands along Jo's thighs, wicked eyebrow raised.
"Not even a little bit," Jo parroted, and then gasped as Faith pushed her legs apart, dipped her head and took one long lick between them.
Furtive fingering was about as far as Jo'd ever gotten down there. She propped herself up on her elbows, shivering again as Faith looked up and met her eyes, held her gaze the whole time even as her tongue and fingers drove Jo crazy, like she was daring Jo to call the whole thing off. Like she fucking could.
It rose and rose and her hips jerked, and then she had to break their staring match, had to throw her head back and arch and writhe, and Faith looped her strong arms around Jo's thighs and buried her face between them, hands holding her down and -- "Ohshit, oh god, god -- unh," Jo babbled, and came like a thunderclap.
Faith crawled up her body while she was still aftershocking and kissed her thoroughly, pushing Jo's taste inside her mouth with her tongue. "Get up, blondie," she said against Jo's mouth, and pulled her up so they were kneeling in front of each other. She guided Jo's hand between her own legs and rubbed Jo's fingers through the slick, and Jo'd had plenty of practice with this, at least, albeit at a rather different angle. She gathered what was left of her conscious thought and found Faith's clit and gave her what she needed until Faith shuddered against her, breasts rubbing deliciously against Jo's.
She was leaning against Faith, her forehead resting on her uninjured shoulder, contemplating whether she could fall asleep still kneeling. Faith's hands were smoothing over Jo's back in wide circles. "Had enough yet?" Her voice had that slightly hoarse edge of amusement to it.
"Bitch, I could go all day," Jo groaned.
"That's what I like to hear." Faith swept her hands over Jo's ass, caught her beneath her thighs, and lifted her up.
"Ahh -- god, what--" She wrapped arms and legs around Faith, pure instinct. Faith walked on her knees until she had Jo against the headboard, holding her up like Jo weighed less than a feather, cold hard wood pressing into Jo's back, Faith's smooth belly pressing between Jo's legs where she was still wet and quivering. "Holy shit--" Jo managed, before Faith covered her mouth with her own.
Faith pulled out of the kiss just long enough to stick her thumb between her own lips, her other hand moving to grip Jo's ass and hold her in place. She pulled her thumb out with a slippery pop and brought it down to Jo's clit, circling. "Like that?" she breathed, her dark eyes watching Jo. "You better tell me, or I might stop."
"Yes, okay, yes, Jesus." Jo arched her back, knocked her head against the wall, spread her arms out along the top of the headboard for purchase even though Faith was propping her up, easy as a pillow. "Don't you goddamn stop."
"Nice little virgin like you, what happened to asking politely?"
Jo thrust her hips, making the headboard bang the wall. "Don't you goddamn stop, please."
Faith smirked at her. "Like you were saying, we got all day."
*
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4