**Disclaimer: This chapter contains scenes of graphic torture, reader discretion is advised**
Chapter 5
To Serve and Protect
The police readied their weapons to fire,
“This is your last chance,” the amplified voice called out to the bloodied pair, “Surrender. NOW!”
The light from the police helicopter above bathed the street in white light giving the scene a surreal glow. Buffy turned to her brother, putting a hand to her eyes to see him as the choppers light backlit him, blinding her.
“Any suggestions?” she asked, weary and afraid. Dusk nodded,
“Just one,” he rasped quietly, his whole body a combination of numbing dread and pain from wounds too numerous to count. Reaching deeply inside himself he focused on the whirling darkness in the center of his heart, the blood that flowed through him howled in response, slick and hungry. Dusk’s body went chill then numb as he opened his eyes, now pools of swirling darkness. Buffy drew back instinctively as Dusk threw his head back and howled, an eerie, low-pitched sound that rang on and on like a tolling bell for the dead.
And the darkness answered him.
Every streetlight that cast a shadow, every neon light that threw a patch of darkness, even the shadows of the policeman, cast by the colored lights of their own cruisers flooded the area answering the call, they swirled around Dusk lifting him high into the air. Buffy gasped as Dusk's clothes rippled around him, no longer clothe but the non-material of shadow. The darkness lifted him up in a pillar of swirling cold blackness and bringing his hands out before him, Dusk lashed out and the pillar exploded into a wave of darkness washing over the policemen. Their screams were choked off midway as the thick cold tendrils of blackness pushed themselves down their throats choking them, into their eyes blinding them, up their nostrils suffocating them. Blood flowed from jaws as teeth were shattered in violated mouths and nostrils bled from the forcible intrusion.
Buffy watched the scene in horror as the policeman flailed and gurgled.
“Stop it, you’re killing them!” she screamed up at Dusk. Dusk, unheeding, brought his hand forward palm up, figures tensed, the darkness hummed and tightened in response, bones began to crack as he slowly closed his fist.
“ALEC!” Buffy shrieked. Dusk started violently, releasing his hold on the darkness, which fled instantly, free of the shackles of the shadowmancer’s will. He fell to the ground hard as the policemen retched and coughed attempting to deal with the aftermath of such a grotesque violation of their bodies. Buffy limped to her brother and helped him up, his eyelids fluttered and his eyes, now human, were glazed and feverish. He shivered and licked at his lips, cold sweat coating his face.
“Run,” he croaked. Buffy picked him up and rocketed toward an alley as the first of the police officers began to regain their bearings and were clearly in a state of rage. A gunshot followed by a spray of concrete fragments against Buffy’s back informed her of that much as she looked past her shoulder at a good size hole that had manifested just above her in a wall.
Turning down an alley she fled until her lungs burned and her veins pumped battery acid. Her crippled brother’s weight like a cold corpse in her arms,
“Buffy…leave me,” he rasped. Buffy stopped short in shock,
“You can’t be serious,” she gaped at him. Dusk took her hand in his,
“I can hide myself and you need to tell dad what’s happened,” he rasped. Buffy shook her head vehemently.
“Not going to happen,” she growled. The sounds of dogs barking caused them both to look behind them; flashlight beams heralded the imminent arrival of the police.
“You have to go, Buffy. I can’t walk, but I can hide,” he gestured to a pile of refuse near a large puddle and a cyclone wire fence.
“Put me there,” he croaked. Buffy growled under her breath,
“I just can’t leave you here-“
“Do as I say!” Dusk snarled looking up into her eyes, “Please,” he added his face softening as he reached up to touch his sisters’. She took his hand in his, sniffling, “You’ve always been the strong one, Buffy. Just this once, let me be strong.”
Buffy clenched her eyes in denial as hot tears of pain seared down her face, she had heard those words before, when someone else she loved was preparing to die.
She almost didn’t notice it until it was on top of them, a snarling dog, mouth frothing teeth bared and hungry turned around the corner and charged. She threw a hand up to defend her brother, who in turn had snatched up a trash can lid and caught the beast across the head as it lunged for his sister’s throat. The dog yelped in pain and skidded to the pavement where it lay still. Buffy turned shocked eyes to her brother who tossed the now-bloody lid away and wiped away some of the dried blood and filth from his face.
“Go,” he whispered. Buffy swallowed hard and nodded, grabbing a handful of fence she climbed up, over and dropped to the other side as Dusk leaned his head against the cold stone wall. She stuck her hand through the fence and he took it grasping it white-knuckled.
“Don’t forget about me,” he whispered. Buffy nodded,
“We’re coming back for you,” she replied hoarsely. The sounds of the approaching police were getting louder.
“Go!” Dusk yelled and with a last look of burning pain, Buffy fled leaving her brother behind.
Dusk watched her until she turned the corner and was out of sight before sagging against the wall, finally allowing the pain and fear he had been feeling all night to show. His hands shook as he rubbed himself, vainly attempting to banish the cold fear that lingered now in his heart; he’d almost killed those men…and he’d enjoyed it.
He heard it then, a high-pitched peal of laughter. Dusk whirled around,
“Who’s there?” he demanded. The laughter subsided slightly but the tone was one of unmistakably malicious amusement.
“Oh you know me, Alec. You just won’t admit it yet,” Dusk saw a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye, he whirled around but his now crippled body betrayed him and he fell hard to the ground, his head coming to rest by the large puddle, whose surface swirled with the polluted rainbow of toxic chemicals,
“But don’t worry, Alec. You will,” Dusk looked down at the pool of water from the corner of his eye, only to see a huge shape rise up from behind him. With a cry, he lashed out his arm, a sword appearing to replace his hand.
There was nothing.
“Drop the knife!” A voice demanded, Dusk turned and was blinded by an onslaught of bright beams emitting from several flashlights. Dusk looked up the sword attached to his arm, the only thing in the alley which did not reflect any of the light and brought it down to banish it.
He never heard the shot, only felt a hard impact in his shoulder, a loud CRACK and suddenly he was lying on his back, bleeding profusely from his shoulder. Dusk opened and closed his mouth in shock like a beached fish. Figures swam in and out of view. A hand descended, a weapon, a flash of pain, bones broke, more pain, more hands, more weapons. Dusk couldn’t make sense of any of it. Dimly he felt the blows rain upon him, a final blow came across his face, a flash of white, a spray of blood and then blessed darkness, followed by a lingering whisper.
“You will know me…Alec.”
Buffy watched in horror as the police first shot, then beat Alec savagely with their clubs. Her resolve had broken and she had turned back when she heard him cry out and arrived just in time to watch her brother’s assault. Biting her lip she banished the tears she felt coming. There would be no more tears.
There would now only be revenge.
“They picked the wrong family to screw with,” Buffy growled, the fires of hell burning in her eyes as she watched the police heft her brothers gory body up and out of the alley.
Buffy hobbled down the labyrinthine alleyways, colliding into trashcans and tripping over mangy cats that shrieked and hissed at her. She cringed at all the noise and hoped that those pursuing her would not hear it and attack her.
Like they had Alec.
Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and dragged her now-broken nails against her palm, drawing blood, focusing on the pain instead of the grief. The sky opened up and a cold, foul-smelling rain drizzled down upon her. She lifted her face to it, hoping the rain would cool and cleanse her, but the polluted water merely streaked the blood and filth further down her face and body, offering a cold, clammy touch instead of comfort.
She rested against a rusted dumpster, swatting away a clutch of cockroaches and sagging against the soiled metal. Buffy brought her hands up and down her arms to staff off the cold that seeped deep into her. She was tired, desperately so. The Nightmare Realm had punished her more brutally than any other experience she could remember. Coupled with Alec’s bizarre assault on the police, their flight and her brother’s subsequent beating and capture had left her an exhausted ruin. She ran a shaking hand through her soiled hair, tearing and ripping at the snarls and tangles there, the pain was trivial in comparison and was barely felt through her fatigue and the cacophony of other injuries she had suffered. With a sigh, she reached up grabbing hold of the rim of the dumpster, doing her best to ignore the wet, rotted feel of the metal.
The club came down hard on her already injured arm eliciting a scream of pain from the girl. Buffy landed hard on the slick pavement. Look up in shock at the policeman that had somehow managed to sneak up on her. The man grinned grotesquely,
“Do yourself a favor, missy, stay down,” he chortled. In some part of Buffy’s agonized mind, she noted that the man still wore the trademark “law-enforcement” sunglasses even though it was long since night.
The man raised his club up again, and Buffy growled swinging out a leg sweep catching the man behind the kneecap and causing his legs to fold up from under him. Buffy surged upward, running solely on rage and adrenaline and smashed an elbow into the man’s throat. He gagged as his head fell in reflex. Buffy grabbed the man and slammed a fist hard into his gut. A loud WHOOSH signaled that the now gasping mans lungs had deflated. Buffy followed up the combination with a punishing backhand breaking his jaw and sending his sunglasses flying away from his bleeding face in pieces. Buffy turned to look and her blood turned to ice,
The man’s eyes were lined with jaundice yellow, tinged with the red of madness. No sanity lurked in them and they were now filled with an unthinking rage. He screamed, an odd sound to hear from a psychotic man with a broken jaw and lashed out with his hand, now filled with some kind of device. Twin wires shot out and pierced the young slayer followed by a brain-melting blast of paralyzing electricity. Buffy couldn’t even scream as the muscles in her jaw locked up and her body collapsed. The insane man cackled as the continued to pump dose after dose of high-voltage agony into her torn body. Buffy jerked and whimpered as she felt her life begin to slip away from her.
The policeman had time to blink as a bestial roar filled the air then he was flying through the air and his last memory before unconsciousness took was a close up of a brick wall rushing up to meet him.
Strong hands lifted Buffy up gingerly. She felt cool hands clean her face and shield it from the rain.
“Buffy,” a strong voice called from somewhere. The voice promised safety and protection. She opened her eyes weakly,
“Angel,” she croaked. Angel held her to him kissing her hair as Buffy sobbed in relief. Angel hefted Buffy up into his arms and took off down the alley. Buffy rested against him, shaking and cold, but for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she felt safe.
Which was quickly shattered when a huge SWAT APC burst through the brick wall in front of them like it was wet tissue paper and barreled down towards them. Angel wasted no time and with a heft, leapt high into the air landing on a second story fire escape and began to charge up the side of the black iron latticework. He quickly reached the top of the fire escape and realized he was trapped now at five stories up. He searched frantically for an alternative as the massive vehicle below rumbled towards them.
“Hold on to me,” he whispered harshly to Buffy, who only nodded as Angel braced his legs and launched himself over the edge of the rail cradling Buffy. He flew through the space separating two buildings and smashed apart the rusted metal rail of another fire escape. His feet almost shot out from under him when they made contact with the rain slicked metal. There was a terrifying moment of vertigo as he felt himself beginning to fall backwards down five stories, before he lashed out with his hand catching a piece of metal. His hand was sliced open and he gasped in pain but he held firm and dragged himself and Buffy back onto safety. Checking on Buffy, ensuring that she was all right, he was astonished to see her smiling weakly up at him,
“Nice one, Tarzan,” she whispered. Angel cracked a smile and kissed her on the forehead gently before charging up the stairs, arriving to the roof.
Angel paused a moment to peer down over the side of the building, they were now a good nine stories up in the air. The massive tank-machine was milling upon beneath them. Angel smiled as he imagined the frustration of the people operating it.
And with a roar of sound and an explosion of light, a helicopter burst up over the edge of the roof, blinding and deafening them. No words of warning were given as someone within the flying machine opened up on them with an automatic weapon. Angel dashed along the rooftop, his feet being nipped at by high caliber weapon fire as the helicopter bent low and followed, nose nearly scraping the roof as the whirling blades sliced closer to the fleeing pair.
As Angel reached the edge there was no hesitation as he soared through the air and landed hard on the rooftop beyond. He rolled, doing his best to absorb most of the impact, shielding Buffy. He turned his head, his brown eyes blinded by light as the helicopter gave chase. The machine gun opened up again and Angel fled with inhuman speed. The rounds from the weapon chewed up the ceiling spitting hot shrapnel against Angel’s back and legs. He grimaced but continued to keep up a pace that would kill a human staying just ahead of the swirling rotor blades. Angel could feel the droplets of water which the whirling blades splashed at him with each rotation. He reached the edge of this rooftop, leapt, landed on another rolling to his feet and kept going.
he thought to himself as he flew through the city air and rain. He wiped at his face, surprised to find blood there from a near miss with a bullet. Undeterred he dashed forwards, leaping again to cross onto another building. A burst of pain in his knee caused him to stumble and he nearly didn’t make the jump as he realized that he had been shot. He threw his weight forward in mid-air and his momentum carried them both skidding across the rooftop. Buffy fell from his arms and proceeded to bounce across the concrete painfully. Angel crawled over to her, his knee a bloody ruin from a bullet that had caught him mid-air. He covered as much of her body as possible with his own, hoping to absorb as many bullets as his dead body could. The helicopter hovered over them, single spotlight glaring at them balefully like a blinding eye. Angel heard the click-clack of the reloaded weapon. He squeezed his eyes shut, his last thought wondering what in hell had gone wrong.
And with a wry cry, a ceiling hatch opened and Spike burst out like a peroxide blond explosion, leather duster whipping around him, brandishing a crackling electrical wire.
“JUMP!” He roared at Buffy and Angel as the helicopter began to veer away from this new threat. Spike smashed the cockpit spotlight and jabbed the sparking wire into it as Angel scrambled painfully to his feet and scooping up Buffy he limped to the edge of the roof. A blinding surge of light followed by an explosion knocked Angel and Buffy up and over the edge the roof, smoking as Spike and the helicopter jerked and sizzled.
Angel held Buffy to him as the ground rushed up to meet them both he whispered a prayer to anyone who would hear him that the plan worked.
There was a loud WHOOSH and then suddenly their plummet was jarred to a painful stop in mid-air. For a moment, confusion washed over Angel as he lay face down peering at the city several stories beneath them yet they were no longer falling and had indeed landed on something quite firm, if not immediately visible. Then it dawned on him, he was resting inside the wings of a huge bird made of transparent crystal stone. The creature lifted its head up to examine the pair.
“Marlena sends her regards,” the creature murmured. Angel just nodded tiredly. An explosion of light on the rooftop caught his eye he turned to Spike blasted clean off the roof and plummet to the earth below like a shooting star.
“Spike!” Angel yelled out. Then he saw the helicopter sputtering and smoking begin to fall to earth.
“Hold on,” the bird growled. Angel found purchases in the bird’s stony breast and clung to it desperately as the bird rolled over. The helicopter collided into a series of power lines and the whole thing just went up in an explosion of fire and twisted metal. The bird screeched and gained speed, climbing high into the air to escape the fireball its transparent body tinted by flame causing it to resemble nothing so much as a fiery phoenix lifting high into the night. Angel gritted his teeth until the sound of porcelain cracking filled his ears and held on to Buffy and his grip on the bird with white knuckled tension. The bird folded its wings over the couple as the fire overtook them. Angel gasped in horror, as there was fire in every direction that he could see separated only the bird’s transparent body. With a final screech, the bird exploded up from the fireball and extended its wings, sailing high about the blaze. Angel sighed in relief,
“Angel?” a weak voice whispered. Angel turned to its source,
“Yeah Buffy?”
“Are we underneath a giant diamond bird?”
“Yeah.”
“Are we still on fire?”
Angel shook his head, “No,” he assured her.
Buffy smiled, “Okay, good,”
At which point she promptly fainted. Angel chuckled and kissed her head as the pair soared away into the night.
The first thing that he was aware of was that his teeth were vibrating. The second thing he was aware of was that something was burning.
The third thing that he was aware of was that it was he who was burning.
Spike groaned and opened his eyes, if he’d had working lungs he have coughed, the smell was unbelievable.
“Coming up, extra crispy, side of scorched flesh,” he mumbled and looked around painfully. He was sitting in a broken windshield ten or so stories down from where he had been. The explosion had rocketed him into this car and the impact had managed to snap the cars axis like a twig.
“Hope this guy has insurance,” he muttered as he took stock of his injuries. His hands were a mass of burnt skin his face was a little crispy as well. Eyebrows were a distant memory apparently and his eyelashes had gone with them. His jacket was a fused mess of cloth, leather and bits of skin,
“Damn,” he swore surveying his ruined garment, “Red better be able to magic up some thread and needlework here.” He chuckled despite himself and looked around, then he laughed outright. The helicopter was a flaming ruin, suspended by a few high-tension electrical wires and cooked inside and out.
“Yeah, that’s right. Manchester United one, NYPD zero,” he muttered and hoisted himself out of the windshield grimacing, “Bloody hell I’m going to be picking glass out of my backside for weeks,” Fishing through his pockets, he sighed in relief; his lighter and smokes were still intact. Lighting up, he took a deep drag and exhaled, attempting to swagger away.
“And more, much more than this, I did it my way…” Chuckling the vampire’s singing faded into the air, leaving only the sound of burning metal and oncoming sirens.
Alec could dimly recall the sensation of being dragged, none too gently, by his under arms and deposited into something hard, a chair most likely. A burning light blasted into his face and his eyes opened of their own volition. They vainly tried to focus when a brutal punch across his face helped complete the task. His mouth throbbed and his teeth felt loose as the shadowmancer spat out a glob of blood and looked up past the light into his tormentors.
One of them was morbidly obese and cleaning his knuckles with a soiled white handkerchief, the other was razor blade thin with a hawkish face and piercing dark eyes. Alec felt a chill, he didn’t know which one was more terrifying, the fat man whose eyes informed all that he was clearly insane, or the thin man who’s eyes said that he clearly wasn’t.
The air tasted thick and pasty, like sweat and unwashed men. An extra layer of cigarette smoke gelled up inside Alec’s mouth and he coughed at the rancid taste of the air. The smell was roughly in the same ballpark, sweat, rotting food, stale beer…and something else, something almost tantalizing. Alec’s eyes went wide and his blood went from chilled to ice, a sudden flashback to the house from Hell in the Nightmare Realm exploding in his mind like a diamond bullet shot into his forehead.
Violence. It was the scent of bestial, unthinking, violence.
“Killed a Rabbi, did you, kid,” the fat man asked, chuckling, jowls jiggling obscenely. Dusk glared up at him. The man must not have appreciated it because he crashed another blow across Dusk’s face, the young man dimly felt the bones in his nose bend then crack then shatter as his vision filled with red. Alec coughed hard as the thin man smirked,
“I don’t believe he appreciated that, Edward, now say you’re sorry,” the thin man instructed. Dusk looked up at him, his words confirming Dusk’s suspicions, the thin man wasn’t insane.
Which meant that he was purely evil.
Further hypothesis had to wait as the fat man wrapped his hand around Dusk shattered nose and began to twist. The sound of cartilage cracking filled the room as Dusk bit his lip until it bleed to keep from screaming, tears filling his eyes.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” the fat man chortled, breathing stale onions and sweat into Dusk’s face. He released the younger man, who gasped and choked spitting up blood. The fat man grimaced,
“Christ. Friggin’ disgusting, I’m telling you,” he sneered. Dusk held up a hand in supplication,
“I don’t suppose a phone call would be a possibility,” he commented dryly. Dusk got a grim satisfaction in watching the fat man’s red face turn even redder as his eyebrows shot up to disappear in the greasy wrinkles of his forehead. The man stomped over to a telephone resting on a small desk, tore it out of the wall and proceeded to smash Dusk upside the head with it.
Bright white light exploded in Alec’s head as he fell to the floor hard, his mind swimming with what was probably a concussion. He tried hard to clear it, trying to make sense of the situation as his father would,
Dimly wondered if his treatment constituted police brutality or if they had transcended into cruel and unusual torture.
A swift kick in the stomach banished any further musings as Dusk folded up, or tried to as best he could, his crippled legs unresponsive.
“Get up, you freakin’ sicko!” the fat man roared down at him. Dusk chuckled despite himself, which only further enraged the man,
“Oh, you think that’s funny, do ya punk?” he sneered before bringing a size eleven shoe down on Dusk’s head. Alec’s hand bounced off the concrete floor, at this point he was seeing two of everything and working on three. He rolled over onto his back and as the shoe came down again, Dusk lashed out with a hand correctly guessing which shoe was real and which was a hallucination brought upon by his multiple injuries. He twisted and shoved hard and with a wildebeest-like bellow of rage, the man went down with a colossal THUD. Dusk snorted quietly and mentally gave himself a point.
Five greasy digits appeared on the desk as the fat man hauled himself up, the desk creaking in protest.
Alec thought wryly, then he began to worry as the fat man grinned, looking completely insane.
“Assaulting an officer of the law is a felony, you know,” he informed the brutalized man. Dusk just nodded,
“Yeah, so is police brutality and physical torture, I hear,” he replied. He looked over at the thin man who was casually watching, apparently enjoying the show quite a bit.
“Oh, you think you’re funny, do ya punk?” the fat man snarled. Dusk looked up at him through swollen eyes and grinned,
"That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to watch my ‘Dirty Harry’ movies again,” Alec turned to the thin man and managed a wink through his swollen eyes, “I’m a big Eastwood fan,” he turned back to Eddie, “ ‘Course hearing a two-bit pretender like you butcher it is really more painful than the beating,” he quipped lightly, determined to do his best to make things miserable for his captors. He vainly searched for even a tiny patch of darkness in the room to use against his tormentors but the force of the light had banished any hopes of salvation.
A meaty hand grabbed onto his face holding it on place as Eddie removed a can of mace from his belt. Dusk sighed,
The fan sprayed Dusk’s eyes prying open the swollen tissue to abuse his blood-tinged corneas with the blinding spray. Next it was forced up his shattered nose and sprayed, then down his throat. The man clamped a hand over Dusk’s broken nose and bleeding mouth, grinding bones and suffocating him as Alec swooned from the pain his face on fire, his blood screaming for air.
Angel had lost all sense of time as the bird flew over the cityscape, listening to the beating of the massive stone wings and the gentle whooshing of the wind that followed.
“We have arrived,” the bird rumbled, “The transition to the gypsy kingdom will be difficult for the breathing girl, blood-drinker,” Angel bristled slightly at this but held his tongue, “Do not awaken her,” the creature concluded, leaving little room for argument. Angel tightened his grip on Buffy,
“What do you mean ‘difficult?” Angel asked as the bird began to climb higher into the air, “And why are we climbing?” the vampire continued frustrated, then gaped as the bird turned over onto his back and dove screeching towards the ground,
“And why are we plunging to the earth at ludicrous speed?” he yelled out trying to hear himself over the roar of the wind as the bird folded its wings once again over the pair creating an air-tight cocoon around them and changing himself into a diamond bullet.
The clouds parted revealing a large lake, Angel swallowed hoping desperately that this was all part of some kind of plan and not the bird having a sudden psychotic break and with the sound of a class four tornado touching down into a wading pool the bird shattered the surface of the water dousing three joggers, two homeless men and a peanut vendor in a great deluge of water leaving them in soggy confusion.
The vampire gaped openly at the sight of all the rushing water around him, the bird had been right, even in the cocoon of his wings, those who needed to breathe would be more than a little disconcerted by the claustrophobic feelings involved in being in a water-filled tunnel underground.
Of course the fact that they were traveling at speeds that could suck the air out of a person and their lungs right behind it didn’t help matters.
With a final burst of water and a deafening screech, the bird exploded out of a water pipe and unfurled its wings, dousing the area with water. Angel looked around in surprised recognition; they had exited out into the aqueduct catwalk of the Spaarti tribal lair upon which they had fought the Khulghaani.
Several pairs of heads turned to regard the awesome spectacle of the huge diamond bird its body shining prismatic rainbows caused by the mist of the crashing water as it finished its screeching call and perched onto the stone walk. Angel helped the still-conscious Buffy into the waiting arms of several gypsies who gently laid her down and began to examine her wounds. With a yelp, the soaked vampire fell from perching against the indifferent birds chest, which looked down at him with infinite disdain. A sodden heap, Angel lifted his head to the sound of heavily sardonic clapping.
“Oh yeah, nice one, mate,” Spike commented wryly, smoking a cigarette and chortling his ass off, Angel glared up at him balefully though the elder vampire was glad to see the other intact and unhurt from his fiery plummet,
“You see, Spike, that’s always been your problem. Most people have the decency to die after plummeting to earth in a fiery explosion,” Angel bit out. Spike laughed and clapped his hands, his cigarette dangling between smirking lips,
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I’ve always been bad,” Spike quipped as he helped the soaked Angel to his feet, “Rough commute?” he asked wryly, Angel nodded,
“Lots of flying and diving at high speeds, bad combination. Way to take your time incidentally with that power line? I thought the plan was for you to already be waiting,” Spike’s expression darkened as he casually opened his shirt,
“I got hung up,” he quipped, Angel’s eyes widened. Embedded in Spike’s chest were no less than six slugs like tiny fists of lead protruding from his chest. Spike walked over to the prone Buffy as Angel whistled low turning to face the pair,
“I take it you ran afoul our boys in blue?” Spike snorted as the gypsies that examined Buffy peeled her jacket off slowly. They swore quietly, “Bloody Hell,” Spike whispered thickly,
Buffy’s body was a collection of slashes, bruises and obvious broken bones, all soaked in blood. Spike reared up to Angel,
“Why didn’t you soddin’ tell me she was this hurt?” he roared. Angel looked just as aghast,
“I didn’t know,” he replied.
“Out of the way!” a voice called out. DeGanon shoved his way past everyone to view the battered slayer. He crossed himself and whispered a prayer as he put a hand to her brow, she moaned her eyelids fluttering,
“She has a fever and her wounds are numerous. Her sleep is sickened and filled with wounds from her battle,” DeGanon hoisted the girl up as if she weighed nothing as carried out towards the recovery room, “Where is her brother?” DeGanon demanded as they traveled hurriedly down the hall,
“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know too, traded Red a guarantee on her boy’s safety provided she fix my coat, where is the great idiot?” Spike’s tone betrayed his concern for his friend as Angel shrugged,
“I didn’t see them together, they must have gotten separated after we left them with the Rabbi,” Spike growled in frustration and thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans, puffing madly on his cigarette as DeGanon kicked open a large set of doors to a see of concerned faces,
“Buffy!” Dawn cried out as she rushed to her sister’s battered body, limp and pale as DeGanon laid her down upon a bed.
“Good lord,” Giles whispered, his face turning to ash as he regarded her. Her wounds were both grievous and too numerous to count. Angel turned to Dawn,
“Where are the others?” Dawn tore her eyes from the mangled body of her sister,
“They’re sleeping why-“
“Get them!” Angel ordered. Dawn nodded and hurried away as DeGanon looked up to catch Giles’s eyes,
“We need clean water, bandages and some of the poultice given to us by the Undying One,” he instructed the Watcher. Giles’s nodded and hurried away as DeGanon turned to Spike,
“Help me undress her,” he ordered, Spike look taken aback,
“Hey, now, wait a minute…”
“Spike! Open wounds, filthy clothes, do the math,” Angel barked out. Spike grimaced,
“All right, all right,” Quickly the three of them peeled the gory, filth-encrusted garments from her, Spike and Angel glaring at each other the whole time. DeGanon tossed the disgusting tatters to Angel,
“Burn those,” he instructed then placed a clean sheet across her body just as Dawn came rushing back with Faith, Xander, Anya and Willow,
“Buffy!” Willow cried out in despair seeing her friend’s condition, Xander rushed over to her,
“Buff! Can you hear me? Aw, geez. C’mon, Buffy, snap out of it,” he choked out, pushing her hair out of her face. Anya gently put a hand on his shoulder leading him away,
“She’s going to be fine, she’s Buffy, she’ll be fine…” Xander mumbled to himself over and over mantra-like, Anya could only nod and stroke Xander soothingly as Faith came to the older slayer stricken,
“Buffy…” Faith whispered, her scarred face twisted in misery,” Willow gripped Faith’s hand in hers and squeezed Buffy’s blood-encrusted hand with white-knuckled intensity. Dawn kissed her sister on the forehead, weeping quietly,
“She’ll be okay, won’t she? “ she looked around and saw little hope in the faces, “Won’t she?!” chokingly. Faith sighed,
“D, it looks like someone beat the hell out of her and then carved her up like a turkey, there’s some serious damage, I don’t even think Shadowboy could heal…” Faith’s voice trailed off as the identical thought entered everyone’s mind. Dawn’s face transformed itself from misery and grief to something that was too intense for words,
“Where’s Alec?” she gritted out tightly.
Alec coughed his mouth, so full of blood, it choked him. He’d lost track of time since the beating, there were no windows in the dank concrete room so there was no way to see if this hellish night had transformed into a hellish morning.
he asked himself wryly, chuckling.
Another sharp blow knocked him to the floor again, he didn’t even have the strength to moan anymore, let alone scream. He dimly saw now-familiar brown shoes walk towards him and he toyed with the idea of driving something sharp through the cop’s kneecap, just as he’d toyed with the idea all night. Every time, his blood surged and sang at the prospect of violence and every time, what was left of his cool logic reminded him that he had no way of getting out of here.
Now that he was a cripple.
He choked back the shame, the humiliation of the situation, which hurt more than any of the blows.
A swift kick landed just beneath Alec’s waist. The young man gasped as tears leaked out of his eyes.
“Now, here’s what I can’t understand,” Eddie laughed and flipped over the paralyzed younger man, who looked up at him,
“What’s that, Eddie?” Alec asked him cordially trying to retain some shreds of dignity, his inherited accent helping slightly. Eddie pushed hard with the toe of his shoe on Alec’s shoulder eliciting a groan from the other man,
“How is it that a limey punk like you can take getting your ass kicked so completely on top of getting a round in the shoulder?” Alec cracked a grin,
“Clean living, officer and a healthy respect for the law. You should try it,” Alec grinned as once again, the fat man reared up and took a meaty handful of shirt and skin, pulling out a few chest hairs and smashed Alec atop the desk. Clumsily he tore open Alec’s shirt as the wounded man laughed,
“What? No dinner and movie first?” he cracked dryly as Eddie tore away the shreds of cloth and jerked Alec’s shoulder up to the light, almost tearing the desk lamp out of the wall as he aimed the light at the boy’s flesh, the thin man coming up to peer curiously.
Where there was once a gaping bleeding hole there was now only a lump of angry red flesh showing up flushed and crimson in the florescent light. Eddie gaped at Alec and even the thin man’s eyes widened. Alec met the pair’s shocked glance and weakly put a finger to his lips,
“Shhh…” he rasped his voice trailing off from a hiss to a throaty chuckle.
BAM! Eddie slammed a ham-sized fist into Alec’s stomach causing a burst of blood to spurt out of his lips with such force and splatter Eddie’s face as well as the ceiling.
“What are you?” Eddie cried out clearly losing what little restraint and sanity he had his lips frothing and his gut heaving rapidly in time with his breath, which was in great wheezing with great breaths.
“Wishing for a video camera and a jury with the intelligence of a retarded chimpanzee,” Alec replied, feeling a slight sense of victory, clearly he was holding it together better than his captors.
Another blow landed and Alec felt something break inside and come loose,
The thin man peered frowning at Eddie’s face and Alec felt a slimmer of hope between punches that perhaps the thin man was finally disconcerted by his cohort's psychotic behavior.
The hope died right around when the thin man dabbed lightly at Eddie’s face and came back sniffing his fingers frowning in puzzlement. Alec’s brained was too badly fogged with pain and fatigue to understand the action and he felt the crashing weight of despair weighing down on him threatening to break him.
There was a rap at the door, Alec strained hoping against hope that perhaps not everyone in the station was a psychopath, but Eddie clamped a hand over Alec’s mouth, a difficult proposition as Alec’s badly broken nose and almost shattered jaw had swollen the tissue far beyond its normal size. The thin man answered it and conversed briefly for a few moments before returning.
“The gentlemen from explosives and ordinance have arrived,” Eddie laughed bringing his hand up off of Alec’s mouth,
“Terrific. How was our haul?” The thin man smiled. “And what happened to the guys that came with?”
The smile ran cold. Alec looked at them with as much shock he could manage,
“You killed cops? Your own?” Eddie shrugged casually,
“If you want to make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs, the goodies we got in there will flush out your gypsy buddies like rats,” Alec’s swollen eyes widened a little more and Eddie laughed at his fear and anguish,
“Yeah that’s right, we know all about your little friends down in the pipes,” Eddie beamed at the thin man like a puppy dog begging for a treat, the thin man merely nodded and waved a hand dismissively. Alec’s panicked and pain-fogged brain dimly registered the sheer regal disdain in the thin man’s face and gestures, not something you see in a psychotic civil servant.
Gritting his teeth, trying to ignore the pain that had him swimming in and out of unconsciousness. He tightened his fist, feeling the heat of bloodlust swim up through his body, dark and slick, and with it the cold steel that answer the call, filling the veins of his arm with quicksilver. Three small point of metal began to peek through the skin between his knuckles. Eddie was distracted, the thin man looked bored, the time to strike was now. With a burst of speed and desperation he knocked Eddie’s hand away and with a roar…
…The door came flying open an explosion of blond hair and fury. The thin man went down hard when a brutal chop caught him hard across the temple followed by a sharp knee to the groin that folded him up in an instant. Eddie’s mouth sagged open as he spun around which knocked Alec to the floor, face down upon the concrete,
“Ow,” he commented mildly, muffled by the floor. He turned his head to what was happening and was rewarded greatly.
Eddie was standing up body stiff as a rod and vibrating hard, his mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish, drool spewing out of his mouth as the fat in his face and body jiggled madly. He dropped like a sack of lard revealing a small muscular woman holding something.
“Buffy?” Alec whispered weakly. The woman gently turned him over,
“Jesus Christ,” it didn’t sound like Buffy. She was touching his face and she had put something back onto her belt. She took his pulse, checked his breathing, both weren’t doing really well. Alec coughed and the woman wiped the blood from his mouth to keep him from choking. Her cool touch was like that of an angel and he nearly wept save the fact that he didn’t have the strength.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” the woman told him. Alec couldn’t even acknowledge it. The woman hoisted Alec up, the light shining in her eyes briefly, bringing them into full view. Clearly this was a woman in her late twenties to early thirties.
The beam of light also blinded her and kept her from seeing the thin man rising smoothly to his feet and brandishing a switchblade.
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