Part 12
Wesley was confused – something was wrong with this picture. Angel was remarkably composed for a man who had just lost the love of his life, especially considering the fact that he was standing directly in front of her killer.
The vampire’s eyes shifted towards him then, and the puzzled Englishman was witness to the gamut of emotions swarming in those deep brown orbs. Steady resolve was the dominant trait, with implacable anger running a close second, but Wesley saw no grief in that unwavering gaze and that completely mystified him.
“Cordelia?” he forced the name past his split lips, his voice thin and reedy in quality.
“She’s fine,” Angel quickly assured his friend.
“Angelus! You’ve gone and spoiled mine an’ Wesley’s little joke now. How very unsporting of you,” the Orb-possessed slayer pouted, and then began to laugh.
“What joke?” the vampire demanded, his tone hardening as he turned his attention back to his adversary.
“Me an’ watcher-boy have been having so much fun while we’ve been waiting for you to show, haven’t we darlin’?”
The Orb bent down and deliberately pushed the blade of her knife into the ex-watcher’s throat, puncturing the skin and drawing fresh blood to emphasise her point.
“You didn’t kill her,” Wesley stated the obvious, white-hot anger boiling up inside of him.
“No, I didn’t – not yet anyway. Your pathetic reaction to the news of her demise was highly amusing though. You ought to keep an eye on this one, Angelus – I think he has the hots for your mate.”
Angel ignored the Orb’s taunting, and instead got ready to strike at their enemy, his dark eyes darting about the apartment as he assessed the battleground. Wesley was currently being used as a human shield, so the vampire slowly began to walk across the room, forcing the Orb to move round to the side of the chair to keep him within her line of sight.
“What’s the matter, vampire? Cat got your tongue?”
“No – just waiting for you to say something that’s actually worth responding to.”
Having cottoned on to Angel’s tactics, Wesley chose that moment to throw himself backwards, tipping his chair over with a loud crash. The vampire reacted instantly, kicking the slayer hard in the midriff to knock her away from her fallen hostage. The Orb/Faith landed heavily on her backside and slid a short way across the polished wooden floor, before rolling over and springing agilely to her feet. Seizing a makeshift stake from the kitchen counter, she rushed at Angel with her weapon held aloft, a low battle cry erupting from the back of her throat.
The momentum of her charge drove him backwards into a supporting pillar, but the vampire caught her up-raised arm and wrestled the stake from her tightly clenched fingers. The grappling pair crashed into the structure with such force that the plaster cracked and came loose, raining down over them in a shower of dust and white hailstones.
As the apartment shook with the power of the vampire and slayer’s violent skirmish, Wesley ceased his desperate efforts to get loose of his bindings and, using his hands against the floor, painfully levered his chair around to call out to his friend.
“Angel – Faith, she…”
Unfortunately, the rest of the ex-watcher’s words were drowned out by the vampire’s hoarse yell of pain as the Orb drove her knee up into his torso, hitting his stab injury dead-on and opening up the healing wound again. Clutching at his chest, Angel doubled-over, and the Orb took the opportunity to stalk back towards Wesley, determined to shut him up before he gave too much away.
Sensing the Orb’s murderous intent, Faith tensed in preparation to do everything in her – albeit limited – power to save her watcher’s life. Her planned intervention wasn’t necessary though – the Powers That Be’s Champion was not so easily beaten.
Sucking in an unneeded breath, Angel straightened and moved with super-human speed to grab hold of the slayer’s upper arms. Effortlessly lifting the struggling woman off her feet, he tossed her to the other side of the room as if she was nothing more than a rag-doll. She ended up sprawled facedown on the plush sofa, where she lay dazed, stunned into momentary inaction by her crash landing.
“Faith – she’s awake in there. She doesn’t have much control, but she can help you. You just have to tell her when,” Wesley gasped out in a rush, as Angel bent down and ripped the rope bindings away, freeing his friend in one fell swoop.
The vampire nodded in understanding, and then helped him to his feet, “Go – get out of here.”
“But…”
“Wes, don’t argue, just go!” Angel ordered, pushing the ex-watcher towards the door as he turned back to confront the Orb.
Brushing the messy tangles of long hair out of her red glowing eyes, the enraged brunette rolled onto her back as the vampire cautiously approached.
“Is that all you got, Angelus?” she goaded, hooking her booted feet under the rim of the glass-topped coffee table that stood in front of the couch. “Time to get in the game, vampire.”
With that, the possessed slayer kicked the table up into Angel’s face, shattering the glass-top and sending shards of broken glass flying in all directions. As he lifted his hands to protect his eyes from the sharp missiles, she launched herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist and slamming him into the opposite wall.
Grunting as her strong thighs tightened painfully around his ribs, Angel immediately reversed their positions so that it was her back, and not his, that was now against the wall. Vamping out with a low growl, he grabbed her chin between his fingers and deliberately head-butted her in the centre of her forehead. The force of the blow caused the back of the slayer’s skull to strike the solid brick behind her, and her grip on him loosened a little, enabling him to rip himself free from her vice-like hold.
While she regained her footing, the vampire strategically backed away, his stance still poised to counter anything that she might throw at him. The Orb blew a stray strand of Faith’s dark wavy hair off her face as the two circled each other, each waiting for the other to pounce, their predatory eyes locked together in a silent battle of wills.
“You won’t kill me – you can’t,” the Orb stated with an air of supreme confidence.
“And what makes you think that?”
“If you kill me, then it’ll mean ending your precious slayer’s life too. Your soul won’t let you do that.”
“You *really* don’t know me at all, do you? I’ll do what must be done – just like Faith did when she tricked your sorry ass into infecting her seven months ago.”
“You’re bluffing!”
“Just try me, Ravaclesh,” Angel deliberately taunted.
“Come on – I’m waiting,” he added in a condescending tone, crooking his fingers at her in an arrogant come-hither gesture.
Whoa! Way to push those buttons, Angel! Faith observed as a red mist of pure unadulterated rage descended over her and the Orb’s combined mind.
“You can’t take me! No one can take me!”
Screeching like a banshee, the Orb threw a clumsy punch at Angel’s jaw, which he easily dodged before expertly kicking her legs out from under her, toppling her over onto her back. As he reached down to haul her upright, the possessed slayer tucked her knees into her chest, and thrust out hard with her feet, catapulting the vampire over the top of her head and into the glass display cabinet behind her.
Shaking broken glass from his clothing, Angel scrambled to his feet, but stumbled back when the Orb swung a wooden chair at him. The piece of furniture splintered apart as it connected with the solid muscle of his chest, and the vampire roared as the throbbing pain from his stake wound flared up again.
Breathing heavily with the exertion of their fight, the Orb bent and picked up a shattered chair leg from the floor, breaking it in half over her knee. Having created a new weapon for herself, she advanced on Angel, the impromptu stake clutched tightly in her right hand.
“You’re gonna die!” she spat out in fury, her eyes burning hot with the Orb’s red fire.
The vampire quickly grabbed a standard lamp that stood nearby and fended off her attack, shoving the circular base into her abdomen. Knocking the stake out of her hand with a well-aimed kick, he finished off the combination of moves with a spinning kick, which projected her up over the sofa so that she landed, with a dull thud, in front of the double window.
Angel immediately vaulted over the couch after her, determined to keep the upper hand now that he had finally manoeuvred the Orb/Faith into the position that he wanted them in. Oblivious to the vampire’s plans, the possessed slayer flipped her body upright using the heel of her hands, landing lightly on her feet with the nimbleness of a cat.
“Come on!” she encouraged, a hint of psychotic madness creeping into her shrill voice.
“Okay honey – seeing as you asked so nicely,” Angel replied, barrelling into her, his broad shoulders leading the way.
Banding an arm about her waist, he lifted her off the floor, keeping their forward momentum going until they burst out through the window, and plummeted headfirst to the street two storeys below…
A short while earlier…
After Angel had left them to go and confront the Orb, Buffy paced in tight circles in the alleyway outside, her body tense and her slayer senses on high alert. Although she could see the logic in her ex-boyfriend’s two-phased plan of attack, sitting on the sidelines and waiting for something to happen just wasn’t part of her genetic make-up.
As the crash, bang, and wallop sounds of Angel and the Orb’s ferocious duel drifted down from the apartment above, the instinctive need to be in the thick of things niggled constantly at the slayer, and she literally had to force herself to remain where she was.
“Maybe I should go and…”
“No!” Cordelia stepped in front of the on-edge Buffy, barring her path. “Angel said to stay here. If you go charging in there, all guns blazing, you might knock him off balance. That could get both him, and Faith, killed.”
“Cordy’s right, Buffy,” Willow chipped in, placing a calming hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Angel’s plan makes sense. The binding spell will open up a crack in the ground, so we have to force the Orb out of the apartment. We need to end this out here – unless we want that building to cave in on top of us, and everyone inside, of course.”
“I know Will, I know. I just can’t stand this enforced inactivity – it’s driving me crazy. Angel should have let me go up there; he’s still injured from the Gauntlet for god’s sake.”
“Pfft! Like a measly little stab wound has ever stopped him before,” Cordelia commented scathingly, “And, besides, the Orb wants him, not you. Funny – why do I get the impression that’s what’s really bothering you, Little Miss I’m-the-Slayer-so-everyone-must worship-me?”
Buffy’s anger flared at that, but Cordelia pushed past her before a hot-tempered retort could escape her lips.
“Oh my God, Wesley!”
As he staggered drunkenly out of the apartment block’s side entrance, the seer crossed to her friend’s side with a small cry of alarm. Every inch of Wesley’s exposed skin appeared to be either cut or bruised, and his torn shirt was soaked through with so much blood that its original pale blue colour was barely evident amidst the patches of red.
“Oh God! What did she do to you?” Cordelia whispered, touching his swollen and lacerated face with gentle fingers.
“I’m fine,” the ex-watcher reassured her, leaning heavily against the wall to stop his weak, jelly-like, legs from buckling under him. “The potion, did you…?”
“Yes, Willow and Lorne made five bottles worth – Angel’s got two, Buffy’s got one, and the rest are in here for safe keeping,” the seer answered, holding up her shoulder bag to indicate the location of the final two bottles of potion.
“Good, good,” Wesley said, nodding in approval. “What about Willow? The spell?”
“All up here, don’t worry,” Willow said, tapping her temple with two curled fingers.
“Everyone get back!”
Buffy shouted out a quick warning, just as the window above shattered and blew outwards, sending a shower of glass cascading down over them.
Angel and Faith hit a dumpster with a deafening crash, and then rolled off the dented metal in unison, both of them coming to their feet in one continuous motion.
“Oo! Now it’s a party! Cool!” the possessed slayer commented sarcastically, casting a quick glance about her before she jumped for a length of drainage pipe, which was sticking out of the wall a metre or so above her head.
Using the metallic pipe as a parallel bar, she circled it once and drove the balls of her feet into Angel’s sternum, sending the vampire flying across the alleyway to smash into the opposite wall. Dismounting her improvised gymnastic apparatus with a perfect somersault, she then twisted around to confront an advancing Buffy.
“You wanna take me on then, slayer-girl? Come on, sweetheart – make my day.”
The petite slayer took the bait and swung a clenched fist at her fellow slayer’s face. The Orb easily blocked the blow with her left forearm, and countered with a punch of her own. That blow glanced off Buffy’s left cheekbone as she twisted her face away to avoid the strike. Pivoting around on one foot, the blonde slayer kicked her opponent in the ribs, causing the Orb to double-over as the air rushed from Faith’s lungs with a whoosh.
While the two slayers continued to trade kicks, punches, and insults; Angel pulled himself to his feet and beckoned Willow over towards him.
“You ready?” he asked her.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” the redheaded witch replied, her eyes wide and apprehensive.
“Okay then – let’s get this done,” the vampire declared, reaching into his inner pocket to retrieve a bottle of the orange-coloured exorcising potion.
Twisting off the cap, he placed his thumb over the neck of the plastic container, and moved into position behind the fiercely battling slayers.
“Buffy,” he called out, holding up and showing her the item in his hand.
The blonde slayer acknowledged him with a slight nod and danced back a few steps, forcing the Orb to close the gap between them. Her blue eyes carefully judging the correct distance, she waited until the possessed slayer came back within range, and then launched herself high into the air, folding her knees up into her chest in a tucked position. Whipping her legs out straight as she back-flipped out of the move, Buffy skilfully kicked the Orb/Faith directly into Angel’s waiting embrace.
The vampire immediately slammed his captive face-first into the side of the building, digging his knee against the small of her back and holding her immobile against the wall with the heavy weight of his muscular body.
“Faith – you have to drink,” he said urgently in the slayer’s ear, as he brought the bottle of orange liquid to the hissing woman’s lips.
You are so going down, bitch! Faith vowed vehemently to her hated body-jacker, once more wresting control of her mental and physical faculties away from the evil stone.
The slayer coughed and spluttered a little as the thick bitter liquid hit the back of her throat, but she determinedly swallowed it all down, ignoring the howls of rage that reverberated around inside her head, as the Orb sensed its grasp on her mind slipping away.
Welcome warmth spread through Faith’s veins as the exorcising potion latched onto the Orb’s nefarious presence in her bloodstream and removed its chilling influence, allowing her body temperature to return to its normal 37 °C. The magical concoction began to react violently with the stone’s liquid essence, sending electrical bolts of energy sizzling through every nerve ending in her body.
Luckily, she didn’t have to endure the shooting pains for very long, because her vision quickly turned to grey and she slipped into unconsciousness, becoming blissfully unaware of what was happening to her.
Angel hurriedly stepped back as Faith began to convulse, her limbs flailing about, and her head jerking on her neck like a puppet on a string. Catching her in his arms as she toppled backwards, he sank to the ground, cradling her head in his lap to prevent her from splitting it open on the hard cobblestones. He gasped as deep lesions suddenly appeared on the slayer’s face and neck, her flesh cracking open in order to expel the unwanted parasite that was infecting her body.
The vampire watched in horrified fascination as a stream of minute red particles burst forth from the openings in the slayer’s skin, and began to swirl in a mini-whirlwind above their heads. The rotating dust-cloud emitted a high-pitched whine as the grains coagulated together and reconstituted themselves into the solid form of the Orb of Ravaclesh.
Risking taking his eyes off the hovering stone for a moment, Angel glanced down into Faith’s pale face, and saw that the open and weeping wounds on her body had vanished. The slayer’s eyelids flickered and opened, and she stared up at him, her brown eyes dazed and confused.
“It’s okay – you’re alright,” he whispered reassuringly, brushing her hair out of her eyes and lightly stroking her cheek.
The ruddy glow from the Orb, illuminated the dark alleyway with its dirty red light, and even Angel shivered as the temperature plummeted several degrees in direct response to the evil presence in the air. The stone hung like a miniature fireball above them for a few moments, and then began to float with purpose towards the small group huddled together in the building’s entranceway, obviously searching for another warm body to inhabit.
“Willow!” Angel called out sharply.
“Stop!” the witch demanded, as she leapt out in front of the Orb, her titian hair all aglow with the stone’s crimson fire.
The Orb came to an abrupt standstill in response to Willow’s command and she raised her hands towards it, her palms facing outwards. The air around the stone shimmered with a bluish light and a snarl of rage emanated from the Orb as it fought against the magical restraints that she had imposed upon it.
While the convoluted Latin phrases of the binding spell began to trip off the young witch’s tongue, the rock’s light flickered and waned and a shrill shrieking began to echo around the alleyway, forcing them all to cover their ears to block out the awful sound.
Willow’s slender shoulders heaved with the effort of having to hold the Orb in check behind her hastily erected force field, as she struggled to concentrate on the difficult incantation that she was reciting. However, her confidence grew with every word, and the witch’s voice slowly increased in volume. When her spell finally reached its climax, she raised her face to the night sky and cried out loudly – in English this time – to the heavens above:
“Let the earth be torn asunder, and that which was unlawfully rent from its grasp, be once again returned to its rightful resting place.”
A deep groaning rumble started from somewhere far below, and the ground began to shudder and shake as the resonant sound spiralled to a deafening crescendo. Hooking both arms under Faith’s shoulders, Angel scrambled backwards, as the earth began to crack and buckle upwards, near to where the two of them sat. The jagged fissure widened and extended lengthways until it ran from one side of the backstreet to the other.
In order to prevent the violent earthquake from unbalancing her and breaking her vital concentration, Willow levitated her slim form half a metre off the ground. With her arms held up in supplication towards the angry stone above her head, she blinked and her eyes turned white as the powerful magic flowed through every cell in her body.
Bringing her outstretched arms down to her sides with a swift cutting gesture, the young witch finally let her force-field drop, and the bluish light surrounding the Orb disappeared into the ether. Before the stone had the chance to react however, Willow’s voice rang out loudly, bringing the binding spell to its conclusion.
“I command thee to return from whence thou came. Begone, I command thee. Begone!”
A column of brilliant white light shot up from the fissure in the ground, encapsulating the Orb within its bright radiance, before it retracted back into the earth as rapidly as it had emerged. The crack in street snapped shut with a thunderous boom, and then absolute silence descended like thick woollen blanket over the darkened alleyway.
Her iris’s returning to their natural hue, Willow sank wearily to her knees as she let go of the iron self-control that had been required to keep the potent white magic in check. Hanging her head so that her red hair curtained her face, she drew in deep calming breaths attempting to instil peace back into her drained mind and body.
Angel could feel Faith shaking like a leaf in his arms, so he ran his fingers gently through her hair trying to calm her down. “Ssh – it’s all right, you’re safe now.”
“Oh God!” the slayer suddenly lurched upright, tearing herself out of the concerned vampire’s embrace. Doubling-over on her hands and knees, she vomited the contents of her stomach onto the ground, and then began to sob, wrapping her arms around her head and curling up into a tight ball of anguish.
“Is everyone okay?” Angel called out, as he knelt next to the weeping Faith, softly rubbing her back with long soothing strokes.
The others gathered around as, one by one, they answered in the affirmative.
“Is that it? Is it all over?” Cordelia asked Willow, her hazel eyes questioning.
The exhausted witch gave the anxious seer a faint smile and then gasped out in horror, when Wesley suddenly slumped heavily against her. Buffy and Riley rushed forward to help support the ex-watcher, and together they carefully lowered him to the ground.
Wesley was unconscious, his eyes closed and his face a pasty white colour. Cordelia dropped to her knees beside her friend and took his hand in hers, shocked to find his skin cold and clammy to the touch.
“Wake up Wesley,” she whispered urgently to him, shaking him gently with her free hand. “Come on Wesley. Please – you have to wake up!”