Lonely Knights (1/?)

["buffythebushkangaroo" <buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The wind swept along the empty footpaths of Sunnydale in the wake 
of the Subaru as it shot past the art gallery at over 140 miles per 
hour. Tyres squealed in protest as the car took bends at high speed. 
The inordinately ineffective Sunnydale police threw aside their 
coffees and prepared to enter hot pursuit when the Cadillac came 
roaring past.

*

Willow sipped happily from her mocha. Her emotions had been in 
turmoil since Tara had left, and Buffy still wasn't speaking to her 
all that much, but nobody could stay miserable with a mocha. She 
decided to make that her new motto. She stepped out of the Espresso 
Pump in time to see the conflagration that had been a Subaru as it 
ploughed into the front of the Magic Shop.
"Anya!" she cried, discarding her cardboard mocha cup and running 
towards the flames.
"Over here," a seriously pissed-off voice exclaimed. "I was taking 
out the trash, out back." She stared at the destruction. "Someone's 
going to pay for this and it won't be me!" She considered. "Possibly 
Giles."
A form emerged from the flames. A young woman, maybe Dawn's age, 
stepped from the fire. Her blackened clothes smouldered and her flesh 
was badly burned. She held a shotgun in her right hand, which she 
pumped. Anya backed away a little.
Suddenly, from down the street, a Cadillac shot toward the girl, 
engine revving wildly as its driver gunned it forward. The woman 
fired twice into the grill and windscreen of the Cadillac, which 
veered into a wall and came spinning madly towards the trio.
"Move it!" The girl ordered with a cry. She had an Engish accent.

*

Willow looked back over her shoulder. There was little left of the 
Cadillac that wasn't either burning or crushed as it span mildly on 
what was once its roof. Metal pinged, and black smoke poured from 
vicious rents in the bodywork.
"Shouldn't we go see if the driver's still alive?" Willow asked 
inanely.
"No!" The woman shouted. "Just run!" She started to pelt towards the 
graveyard.
Willow ran after her, spurred on by the sight of what couldn't 
possibly be a man emerging from the flames, unharmed. Reality crashed 
in on her. "Not the graveyard... Its..." She broke off. The 
phrase 'not safe' could hardly be applied here and now. "Levitum!"
Willow floated down on the other side of the cemetary gate, next to 
a gaping woman who'd cleared the wall in an athletic somersault. 
Anya, squeaking, had aimed for another direction.
"How did you?" The woman shook her head. "Later. Do you know 
anywhere we can hide for awhile? I need to sew my arm."
Willow looked at the blood pouring from a nasty gash in the woman's 
arm. "Spiritis antade opes!" The wound sealed itself, and faded 
slightly. "Follow me," she whispered. "I know somewhere that'll be 
safe... for awhile." She headed into the forest of tombs, the woman 
following shocked yet taciturn behind her.

*

Spike sat on the sofa in his crypt. Dawson's Creek ended, and he 
considered gambling kitties to gain some kernel of information to 
give to Buffy. Hmm... Buffy. Spike lolled and started fantasising 
about the Slayer.
"Oh, Buffy..." he whispered. "I..."
"Spike!" Willow called out.
Spike shot up out of the sofa, then fell over the arm-rest. "Gah!"
"He's here. Quick, come on in and close the door."
Spike stared at the strange markings on the stranger's 
hand. "Bloody hell!" he cried. "No, not in here!"

*

Anya burst into her apartment to find Xander and Buffy on the couch 
watching a Jet Li movie. "Buffy!" she wailed, and reached over to 
grab Buffy's cardigan. Buffy got up and glowered at Anya, who had in 
fact been trying to pull her upright by her boobs.
"Anya," she growled.
"Willow's in trouble. Magic box... car wreck!" Anya said, on the 
verge of coming to pieces.
Xander shot to his feet. "Let's mount up," he exclaimed, still high 
on the virtues of the Eastern martial-arts movie.
Buffy rolled her eyes, but picked up Mr. Pointy from beside her 
chair and slipped it into her jeans.
Xander frowned. "You need a stake to examine a car wreck?"
Buffy shrugged. "Never leave home without one," she replied. "But 
they're a bugger when you sit down in comfy chairs and restaurants."

*

"Get her out of here!" Spike ordered.
Willow stood her ground. "She's in trouble," Willow frowned. "She 
needs help."
"She'll always need help, she's a goddamn Knight!" Spike's neck 
muscles seemed unusually taut. "Look at her hand!"
Willow looked at the woman's hand. Six marks, little stars, arrayed 
in a near-circle on her palm. A seventh star seemed to almost 
complete the circle. As she stared, the displaced mark actually moved 
on the woman's hand, completing the circle. The marks then apeared to 
glow.
The woman stared at Willow. "You're the one," she said in a voice 
of abject misery. "I thought... I thought I'd have more time..." She 
took Willow's hand with her own.
"Oh god, no!" Spike roared and leaped for the pair. Unseen hands 
grabbed him and threw him backwards against the wall, where he 
crumpled to the floor blood issuing from his mouth.
Willow screamed.

*

"There's no sign of Willow," Buffy murmured as she surveyed the 
damage from behind the police line.
"She went over the wall into the cemetary the last I saw of her," 
Anya stated. "She and that strange ninja woman. What?" Buffy and 
Xander were both staring at her.
Buffy crossed her arms. "Now would be a good time to tell us what 
you actually saw?"
Anya stared disconsolately at the ruins of the shop front. "It 
might only be superficial damage," she sighed. "There was a car, it 
smashed into the shop. Some woman got out and fired a shotgun at 
another car, which hit the wall over there. Then the woman said to 
run, and we all ran."
"Did you indeed?" The police officer standing behind Anya 
asked. "Come and tell me more."
Buffy considered, judged the distance to the cemetary wall, and 
legged it.

*

Spike looked up, blearily. Willow was on the floor, groaning, and 
the woman stood over her with a knife and a strange golden object.
"Don't..." Spike tried to get to his feet. "There's another way..."
The woman sliced through her wrist spraying blood over Willow's 
semi-conscious form. She opened the top of the object she was 
carrying, and poured her life blood into the it. Then she used the 
object to make a trail of blood around the crypt's doorway. A bright 
flash filled the air as a shield of energy sprang into being. The 
woman slumped to her knees, yet managed to top up the object with 
more of her blood, then pressed it into Willow's hand.
"This is the key," she said. "You should know what it is by now, 
what its for." Tears sprang into her eyes as she fell backwards, 
lying on her back on the floor. Willow crawled beside her as the 
woman breathed, shallowly.
"Goodbye, Cassandra." Willow whispered. She looked down at her own 
hand. Seven marks, little stars, were clustered in disarray on her 
palm.

*

Buffy pelted between the headstones and tombs heading for Spike's 
Crypt. She knew that Willow might head there if she needed some 
immediate backup. She stumbled to a halt as she hit the open doorway. 
Some barrier tingled against her skin, then vanished. She fell 
through and landed on the floor at Spike's feet.
"Graceful as always, Slayer!" Spike cheerfully helped her up. "I'm 
glad you're here. We need to leave."
"Leave?" Buffy blinked and saw Willow kneeling next to a very pale 
and possibly dead woman. "Leave for where?"
"England." Spike looked around his crypt considering what to 
take. "We need Giles, and we need him now. Or Willow could die."
Buffy frowned. "Explain as we go," she conceded. "And it'd better 
be good. Or you'll get the window seat."

*

Buffy held Willow close as she tried not to tumble about on the 
back seat of the taxi. Willow seemed to be in sort of a coma. Buffy 
worried, but Spike said this was normal when a Knight was chosen. She 
still didn't understand exactly what was going on, only that heavy 
magics were involved and Giles was the expert. Hence the mad taxi 
ride to beat the coming of dawn. Dawn! She needed a phone as soon as 
they reached the airport.
Wilow dreamed. Of the forging of the universe, and the creation of 
the worlds. But in the emptiness of that eternal night, something 
else lived, something else breathed, something else... Which hated 
the life that trespassed within its dark domains. And a voice 
resonated, 'Let there be light!'
Willow dreamed. Of the seven great keys that were cast throughout 
all creation. Entrusted to the guardians, the Knights. The keys that 
could unmake creation and end, once and for all, the trespass of life.
Willow dreamed. Christ stared down at her as she stood at the foot 
of the cross. Night began to fall, and now the demons came. Vampires, 
many vampires, held back by unseen forces yet circling nonetheless. 
Christ stared down at her and suddenly she knew what she had to do. 
Blood dripped down from a wound in his side, a wound made by the 
cruelty and mercy of a Roman's spear. She took out the key, the key 
she knew not how to protect, and into the key fell drops of Christ's 
blood. She stared at the key in her palm, and a flash of light made 
patterns upon her palm. Seven marks in disarray.
Willow dreamed. The demons came for her time and again. The blood 
from the key, she discovered when her life had almost been lost, hurt 
the demons. And if splashed about a doorway, created a shield that 
held demons at bay. And so she ran...
Willow dreamed. She was someone else, many times. She lived, she 
ran, and she died. And near each death she found another, and filled 
the key yet again with her own blood, topping up the blood that had 
once been Christ's with the blood of the Knight.
Willow snapped awake, and in total clarity, she screamed.

*

End Part 1.