Fic: Convergent Slayers (8/?)

[ladyvyxen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Eighth Part of a First Attempt At BuffyFic. *stretch*
Comments/Sapphic Poetry/Etc. to: ladyvyxen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

#INCLUDE <Disclaimer.txt>

Anne-Lise blinked. "Fudgy-choco-fic?"

--

Angel brooded over Tara. Brooding was something he was expert at. 
Since his breakup with Buffy he'd spent a lot of time trying to atone 
for his sins. He'd even hired Cordelia, and there couldn't possibly 
be any greater act of masochism. Yet despite his travellings, he'd 
always come back to watch over his beloved as she moved on ever 
further away from him.
As he often did when faced with a problem he couldn't solve he 
tried to commit his feelings to paper. Diary of a vampire; Wouldn't 
that be precious to a Watcher? It sounded like the sort of thing that 
ignorant moron Anne Rice would write. He'd met some vampires in New 
Orleans in his glory days. One of them, he knew, operated a Novotel. 
Never stay in room sixteen in that place.
"From the fading day," he wrote, "on the winter's wind, she came 
back to me on singed and tattered wings, seeking a warming light to 
dance within. She yearned for heat yet feared my flame. She'd known 
such pain; her heart had lived in outer darkness, locked in ice, 
hating and needing, longing for surrender. But she sensed, somehow, 
my light would never burn her. I was not the fiery sun of August full 
of raging heat and withered souls, but the warmth of early summer; 
loving, comforting, passion without cruelty, full of the wholeness of 
life. And to this warmth she came before the dying of her wings."
He re-read his words, then screwed up the paper and let it feed the 
fire. Romantic moron, he chided himself. Do the right thing then 
leave. After all, isn't that my idiom?

*

The two Slayers had their martial-arts pillow-fighting competition 
interrupted by a knock on the door. Buffy rolled her eyes. "Maybe we 
should lose the door and put in a human-sized catflap," she pouted.
"You could just not answer it," Willow suggested.
"You're right," Buffy perked up. "This is me not answering the 
door." She belted Willow with her pillow. "And this is me caving," 
she sighed as the door was knocked again. She opened the door to 
Angel.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
"Sure!" Willow invited. Buffy nodded.
Angel's roving eye took in the charcoal circle, scuffed spooky sand 
and miscellaneous feathers drifting to the floor. "Protection spell?" 
he ventured.
"Nope." Buffy shrugged. "We were just doing a whole bunch of drugs." 
Willow giggled.
"Oh," Angel gave them a dubious glance. "I need to talk to you both 
about Tara." He shut the door behind him.

*

Cordelia looked over her shoulder and caught sight of her tails. 
Two Daihatsu Fourtrak TDXs. In open space no match for her 4.2 Litre 
Toyota Amazon, but this wasn't open space. Far from it, the streets 
of Sunnydale were no match for any weak-willed driver. She 
downshifted to third and accelerated hard, speeding past the 
Sunnydale Mall with the Daihatsus following closely in her wake. Wide-
eyed pedestrians jumped clear missing her bumper by scant inches, yet 
she didn't even bat an eyelid. She just stared straight ahead, grim 
determination etched into her features.
She looked behind her once more but could make out nothing of the 
Daihatsu's drivers. Their windscreens had been blacked out as if the 
occupants had a problem with sunlight. The kind of problem that 
involved spontaneous combustion.
"I'm not paid enough," she muttered. "But does he care? No, he just 
goes gallivanting off to rescue his precious..." She span the wheel 
and took a sharp bend at forty. "Buffy!"

*

Buffy, Willow, Angel, Xander and Anya sat around the coffee table 
in Giles' place as Giles himself made tea. Tara was the topic of 
conversation, but that soon changed when the phone rang. Giles took 
the call, but passed the phone to a mystified Angel. The other scoobs 
listened in bemused. Angel seemed so cute talking on a phone, almost 
as if it was alien to him.
"Do we have email here?" he asked. Willow perked.
"Yep!" She gave Angel her address, which he related over the phone. 
He hung up.
"That was Kate," he said. "A friend of mine who works for the LAPD. 
She's a detective. Wesley gave her the number."
"You gonna tell us what it was about?" Xander queried. "The suspense 
is killing us."
"It is?" Anya puzzled.
"There's been a number of strange killings," Angel explained. "It 
may be a serial murderer, or it may be... something else. Kate likes 
to get my opinion on possible supernatural stuff." The phone rang 
again, and Angel answered it on impulse. "Oh, hello Wesley. What? 
When?" Angel frowned as he hung up again.
"What now?" Xander asked.
"Cordelia's missing. I'd better get back."
"This is... Oh my!" Willow claimed, as she looked at the images in 
her email. She'd been hovering by Giles' computer as soon as Angel 
had passed on her address.
"What?" Buffy took a look. "Can I be the first to say 'Yuck'?"
Willow nodded. "I've got 'Ick!' covered." The images showed the 
remains of men who'd been sliced apart, possibly by razor-sharp claws.
"Their faces!" Willow said urgently. "Have you seen the marks on 
their faces?"
Xander and Angel crowded round the screen. Giles decided to 
patiently wait his turn.
Willow suddenly felt faint. "You know what these marks mean?"
"Its the work of an over-exuberant tic-tac-toe player," Xander 
suggested, "who likes to hide in dark alleyways with a knife?" Both 
Slayers glared at him. "Shutting up now."
"Four vertical slits, crossed by four horizontal slits." Willow 
murmured.
"Five by five," Cordelia completed as she entered. "Faith's raising 
an army and she's on her way here."
Silence. It didn't last.
"Er," Xander came out of his shock. "Isn't she dead?"
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "You think that'd stop a bitch like her?"
"I'm going to..." Giles stopped. "I'm going to call the Watcher's 
Council. See what they can tell me."
"Faith," Buffy said, stunned. She slumped to the floor.
"Buffy!" Willow ran to her side.

*

The small master faced his acolytes. "Tonight we..." He broke off 
as another newcomer approached. "We really have no security, do we?"
"So," The newcomer grinned, her fangs glistening in the 
candlelight. "Is this where the party is?" More vampires filed in 
behind her.

*

"We're going to need an edge," Buffy mused.
Xander looked up. "Guns."
"Unless you've got a gun that fires pointy wooden bullets, what use 
will a gun be?" Buffy frowned.
"Guns don't kill vampires, but they hurt right?" Xander asked 
waiting for a nod from Angel. "You go packing an automatic, you can 
slow down your target, maybe knock them away from you. Its an edge."
Willow agreed. "Also, we could ask Kyoko for help." At the mention 
of Kyoko Angel stared fixedly at the floor.
"Oh yeah," Xander piped up. "What's the deal between you and her?"
"Long story," Angel replied. "And one we're not going into right 
now."
"Whatever," Buffy nodded to Willow. "You get Kyoko, I'll go with 
Xander for guns."
"What about us?" Cordelia asked. She gestured around at Anya and 
Giles. "What can we do?"
Buffy paused. "Pack weapons. Make sandwiches. Its going to be a 
long night."

*

"This is a covert anti-ballistic vest," Xander explained. "It takes 
type 3A plates which can stop pretty much anything up to a 7.62 
millimetre sniper round." Xander seemed lost in his own little world.
Buffy admired the functional lines of the vest. "Sounds good. Do 
they come in fashionable colours too?"
"Whatcha see is what I've got." Xander handed her his favourite 
Smith and Wesson, and a snub-nosed rifle he identified as a Para-
Ordnance 10+1 Automatic Rifle. Buffy immediately renamed it Mr. Nasty.
"Where'd you get this stuff?" Buffy asked.
"You'd be surprised what they put in the bargain bucket at the 
Circle K," Xander replied. 
Buffy decided not to press the issue in case she got answers. She 
looked down at herself, decked out in combats. "I hate this look," 
she whined. "Can you imagine what Riley would think?"
"Captain Cornflake?" Xander shrugged. "Who cares?"
Buffy pouted. "First I outfight him, then I call him kitteny. Now I 
turn into military girl."
Xander eyed her critically, then grinned. "Yeah, but at least you 
can make this shit look good!"

*

End Part 8.