Not mine, except for story, Hypnos, and at least one view of Cordy in her nightgown.
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Part Six
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Mr. Trick walked around the perimeter of the football field. Every once in a while one of them would look up at him and say, "That's right, vampire, look all you want, but don't touch." Same words, same tone, just different voices. The effect was damned eerie, and Trick, now, he KNEW eerie, and it wasn't noplace in Indiana.
At one point he stopped and asked of no one in particular, "Hey! Hypnos! Curiosity only. What's this thing do?"
The Slayer herself came walking up to him and said, "Nothing you need to worry about, my vampire friend . . . my spells don't affect the undead."
Trick began a protest and the Slayer broke in with, "She still has her Slaying abilities. Did you know that, vampire? These people have all the skills asleep that they did awake." Noticing the not esepcially subtle veiled threat, the vampire broke off and walked away. After a second, the Slayer nodded her head and went back to moving mounds of Earth. Trick walked up to the Mayor, who was sitting next to nervous nelly Deputy Mayor Allan Finch in the upper half of the stadium.
"Any problems?" The mayor asked.
"None I can see. The Slayer's as hard at work as everyone else, and no one else around seems inclined to get in the way of the sleepwalking army here. Reports are a few people peering out windows and that's about it."
"What about that other Slayer?"
"Out of town. Girl takes irresponsibility to a WHOLE new level."
"Well, then," Finch said, smiling nervously. "Maybe this time around things will go smoothly."
"Don't count your magical symbols before they're completed," Trick answered. "One thing I've learned about dear sweet old Sunnydale is that there's ALWAYS a possibilty of something going wrong."
"Well, yes," Mayor Wilkins answered. "But then, that's why you're here, isn't it, Trick?"
"Flunky to the stars, that's me." Then Trick changed his tone. "Pure curiosity, here: What's that symbol gonna do?"
"Don't really know for sure," the Mayor answered pleasantly. "I believe it's a method Hypnos is going to use to gain greater power over the sleepwalkers, but he didn't share any more than that. Why do you ask?"
"I don't think you have a need to know," Finch piped up.
"And I don't believe you have a need to live," Trick said irritably. "I just want to know if it's going to cause me any future grief, that's all." Finch cowered.
"Don't you think I'd tell you if it would?" Mayor Wilkins asked, leaning around Trick to look at the field. "Look at her," he said irrelevantly, pointing to the Slayer patting down a mound of dirt. "Doing the work of ten of them. What a wonder she'd be in the construction business."
"A regular human bulldozer," Trick said. "Look, your Honor. I think you're one of those people who doesn't even let his right wrist know what his right hand's doing. No, I don't think you'd tell me."
"Smart vampire," the Mayor said. "But in this case I really don't know anything more. You could always ask Hypnos . . ."
From the Mayor's tone Trick could tell that he was fully aware of the vampire's earlier attempts. So he just stopped talking, bowed formally, and walked back the stadium steps, where he quietly spread the word among his people:
Anything REALLY out of the ordinary happens, grab a snack and head for the hills. One thing Trick had learned was when to cut his losses.
* * *
Xander knew full well that the image of Cordy he'd long held -- that she was a shallow, spoiled bitch who was only interested in herself . . . was way wrong. But still, seeing her sleepwalking towards the football stadium, all of his mental revising went sailing off into the night.
"That, that . . . Giles TOLD her not to fall asleep!" Xander bellowed. He was literally unable to say more, he was so furious. His rage at Cordelia was so intense right at that moment that he barely registered Angel's hand over his mouth until the vampire whispered to him.
"We might be in better shape if you DIDN'T go out of your way to tell the enemy where we were."He still couldn't talk, and he wasn't in shape to do anything more creative or violent, so he just sat there and ground his teeth together in between short, sharp breaths. Looking down at him, Angel admitted, "It's not like I don't basically share your opinion at the moment." Then, eyes darting back and forth, the vampire dashed out and grabbed Cordelia from the crowd, then carried her unresisting form back to where the duo was hiding.
Sardonically, Xander said, "You were saying something about not letting the enemy know where we were?"
"Calculated risk," Angel shot back. "Hypnos controls all of these people at once, but he doesn't LOOK through all of them at once, and I'd say he's probably more interested in what's going on inside his stadium right now than he is in those straggling in."
"So, now what do we do?" Xander grabbed the edge of the dumpster and forced himself to his feet. "They're in trouble in there!"
"And would you suggest we go charging in blindly? We need Cordelia to solve this, and right now she's not much good for solving anything. So, research boy . . ."
"You're right," Xander admitted. "And I'm hardly in shape to charge with Visa, much less a few thousand sleepwalkers."
As they began to make their way back to the library, Angel with the limp form of Cordelia slung across his shoulders, the vampire couldn't resist a shot: "You're admitting that I'm right?"
"I'm not about to make it a habit, okay?" Although outwardly he was griping, inside Xander was smiling. This was the same kind of banter he and Angel had used, way back before he'd turned into the evil murdering bastard Angelus.
It was a small comfort . . . but it was something to cling onto.
* * *
Dimly, she was aware of being shaken.
This jolted her awake very quickly; she'd been trained for a long time on what to do when an earthquake struck. Why, she'd been first in her class in disaster preparedness five tears running back in elementary school!
Only, as she quickly figured out from the passing scenery, this was no earthquake . .. someone was carrying her!
She began to scream, after which two things happened in rapid succession. First, a hand was placed over her mouth, and second, she was placed on her feet on the . . .
floors of Sunnydale High?
Breaking off screaming, she looked up . . . directly into Angel's eyes. Not at all intimidated, she said, "I don't care if you're one of the good guys again or not, you'd better have a damned good reason for this or . . ."
"Or what?" came an unexpectedly bitter voice from behind Angel. "You'll sue him? Sorry to break the news to you, Cordy, but all your daddy's high- priced lawyers don't mean jack where deadboy here's concerned. Which you'd know if you had more than a few puffs of cotton keeping your ears from slamming into each other." Her jaw dropped to hear Xander speaking to her like that, when HE'D betrayed her!"Sorry if you don't like the way I'm talking to you, Princess Paragon, but I haven't eaten solid food in two days, there's a horde of sleepwalkers building the key to Superman's Fortress of Solitude inside our football stadium, and you, who MIGHT just be the difference between whether we succeed or fail, you go falling merrily off to sleep --"
Fury growing with each nasty comment Xander made, she screamed back at him, "You're one to talk about not doing what you were told to dom falling asleep on Oz like that, falling ALL over Willow like that -- I may not be perfect but I'm a hell of a lot closer than you are!"
Then Angel's calm voice broke through. "Hold on a second."
Her ex added, like he hadn't heard. "Tomorrow maybe I'll feel all guilty again, but right now . . ."
She just had time to spit back, "You'd better start feeling guilty RIGHT now--"
Angel raised his voice. "Xander, SHUT UP." And Xander was quiet! "Cordelia, short version: Your dreams are beginning to come true, and everyone in the town has fallen asleep. Now then, Xander: Didn't you tell me you'd tried to wake everyone up when they fell asleep?"
It WAS tonight, and she had fallen asleep -- but Xander had no call in giving her a hard time for it. He said, "Yeah. Even dumped a soda on Buffy's head, but nothing happened."
"And I saw two people crash into the retaining wall, and they didn't wake up either."
"Your point?" Xander asked, impatiently. She was hardly paying attention . .. no wonder they seemed so annoyed. Even so, no way she could have known it was tonight! Okay, time to pull a Bill Clinton and compartmentalize. The guilt would have to wait until later.
"My point is . . . Cordelia woke up. You never fell asleep. Why?"
"Back to the library?"
"Back to the library. Cordelia, I think you can walk the rest of the way . . ."
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