Re: Lonely Knights (1/?)

[Kaz <kardeb97@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wow!

This was great! I really liked it! :)

~Kaz


--- buffythebushkangaroo
<buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 


=====
Don't knock on Death's door. Ring the bell and run away- he hates that.

~ Anonymous

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