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Part Eight
Angel looked at Ethan Rayne and his pistol disbelievingly. “Kind of a new look for you, isn’t it?” he commented, walking forward. “And you have to know that that won’t bother me.”
“You think not?” Ethan asked. “Here’s one of the bullets, old boy. Catch …” and the sorcerer tossed something to Angel. Angel smoothly caught it … and then dropped it as though it were on fire.
Xander leaned over to pick it up … “A cross. Smart move.” Angel turned to glare at him, still shaking his hand. “I didn’t say I liked the timing all that much. Speaking of which,” he said to Ethan, “This is a pretty direct approach for such a craven coward. And what’s with the gun, anyway? Not your style.”
“My dear Mr. Harris, you wound me by calling me craven. Coward I am entirely comfortable with, but my cowardice is a rational and intelligent cowardice, hardly the stuff of lackwits and ne’er-do-wells … such as yourself. And as for the gun? No one would have guessed that I would ever carry a gun. It doesn’t fit my character. But as I am ever a devoted and loyal servant of chaos, it behooves me every now and again to be unpredictable …” he paused. “While these bullets won’t kill you, Angel … they WILL hurt. You know, I didn’t even expect to find you here. I was rather hoping for Ripper …”
“Sorry to spoil your carefully-laid plans,” Oz said, deadpan.
“I’m certain,” Ethan answered with an equal insincerity. “Now, the question is, what to do with the three of you?” He paused. “Well, I suppose I could try what that android did to Mrs. Summers, but I don’t suppose you’d cooperate with being clouted over the head, would you?”
Angel growled softly. For a few seconds that appeared to be the only response; then Xander said loudly, “Android? Android? You son of a bitch, you revived Ted, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Ethan nodded his head, a bit shocked by the severity of Xander’s reaction. “If she’s hurt, I’ll —”
“You’ll what?” Ethan said, recovering his composure.
In a far calmer and colder voice than Angel had ever heard come from his mouth, Xander said, “I will break every bone in your body, wait for you to heal, and then repeat the procedure.”
“And while you’re waiting for your bones to heal,” Angel added, “I’ll get together a horde of rats and let them chew on your extremities for a while.”
Finally, quietly, Oz said, “And then I’ll get mad.”
“Typical American macho posturing,” Ethan said.
“Macho. Typical from me. Right.” Oz said.
“I can’t take you all with me in my car,” Ethan mused. “I have it.” He reached forward and fiddled with the rare books cage door, eventually opening it. “All of you, inside.”
No one moved.
“I WILL use this,” Ethan said. “With regret, I assure you — I have no great taste for blood. But I cannot afford to have you cause my employer any havoc by running interference for the Slayer.”
“Hey, Ethan,” Xander said. “There’s someone right behind you.”
The chaos-worshipper snorted and continued to motion for the three to enter the cage. “The next time you try a trick out of old motion pictures, Mr. Harris, might I suggest a less threadbare example?”
“He’s telling the truth,” said the person standing directly behind Ethan Rayne. The sorcerer spun and was met with a fist to the face …
… from a panting, dirty, and thoroughly pissed-off Joyce Summers.
Ethan, not being the sturdiest of individuals, crumpled to the floor, and the gun went flying across the room. Oz caught it and flipped the safety on, then stuck it in his jacket pocket. Surprisingly, of Xander and Angel, Xander got to Ethan first, and stopped him from rising by punching him in the stomach. The sorcerer sagged to the floor, gasping for breath. “Next … time … just kick my stones. It’ll save … time and energy.”
“You’re lucky Xander got there first,” Angel said as he hauled Ethan to his feet. “I wouldn’t have been nearly so gentle.”
After hitting Ethan, Xander had moved over to help Joyce Summers into the room, where she sat down wearily into a chair. Thank goodness, she seemed more bruised than seriously injured, though Ted’s face was due some serious redecorating.
“So what do we do with him?” Angel asked the crowd.
“I liked what you were doing …” Joyce said. Then she chuckled humorlessly. “Sorry. But after you’ve been kidnapped and dragged across town you’re not exactly in a forgiving mood.”
“No one’s blaming you, Mrs. Summers,” Oz said.
“Why don’t we just throw him in the cage?” Xander said. “Save him for Giles?”
“Spellbooks. Ethan Rayne. See why I consider this not such a good idea?” Oz commented.
“Point taken,” Angel said.
“But every time he comes here, he always seems to take off while we’re not looking.” This from Xander. “I know! Pound him into a bloody pulp and dump him by the hospital’s Emergency Room.”
“Has its good points.” Oz said.
“I leaned that way from the beginning,” Joyce Summers commented. “But won’t we get in trouble if we’re caught?”
“In THIS town?” Xander laughed. “The Sunnydale Police Department has trouble arresting jaywalkers.”
“Well, then … we’re doing it this way,” Angel said, striking Ethan on the back of the skull. The sorcerer collapsed to the library floor, no one making any special effort to catch him before he struck. “Giles has to have some rope around here somewhere …”
Five minutes later, the group of four walked out to the parking lot, explaining the entire situation to a surprisingly resilient Joyce Summers as they went.
“So, wait,” Joyce said. “You mean to tell me that Buffy invited everyone in the know to her little conference … and forgot about me? I’m just going to have to have a talk with her when she gets home. Speaking of which … could I get a ride home before you all go off looking for Buffy?”
“Willow,” Oz, Xander and Angel said at the same time. Sharing an odd look, Xander finally broke out with, “Willow was just kidnapped by an ancient demon goddess who wants to get her powers back. Buffy and the G-man are fully capable of taking care of themselves. Not that Willow can’t take care of herself under most circumstances —”
“Xander, you’re babbling again,” Oz said.
“Hey! Do I criticize you when you … when you … well, when you do absolutely nothing?”
“I would be happy to give you a ride home, Mrs. Summers,” Oz said.
When they got to Oz’s van Angel tossed Ethan into the back. The vampire wasn’t too careful about where the man landed this time either.
* * *
Stashing the head — even the normally blind-to-the-world people of Sunnydale would take notice of someone lugging a head through a hotel, and she couldn’t kill everyone who saw what was going on, no matter how fun the concept was. Mass murder was kinda noticeable …
… well, except when the whole town was the victim. Man! Would that rock or what? Come the Ascension, she wouldn’t be doing any of this drudgework.
’Course, she didn’t know what she WOULD be doing, but that was way too far ahead. Long-term thinking made Faith’s head hurt.
Anyway, honey worked as well as violence sometimes. The person at the front desk couldn’t have been more than 23, and had probably never had a date in high school, or since, either. A little flash of the cleavage, a little bending over in her tight leather pants — NOTHING got a man to stop thinking faster than tight leather pants — and she had the room number of her “Uncle” Ethan.
“Thanks,” she told the guy as she walked over towards the elevators, slowly. “I’ll be back down. Who knows. Maybe when I get back down here, you and me could have a little fun.” His eyes never left her butt until the elevator doors closed.
B had her pegged all wrong. Power was power.
Okay, quick check, right floor, right room, door closed … hmm. Kicking it open kinda might wake the neighbors, or piss ’em off. Damn. Faith just did NOT work well in a crowded setting — least, not a crowded setting where she wasn’t planning to kill everyone in the vicinity. Spying was just not her gig.
She touched the door — pretty solid. False sense of security, though; a vampire could get through it, no prob. Aha. She had it … One quick blow with the base of the palm on the lock and the door shot open. The only sound was of the door hitting the wall on its way in.
Faith slammed the door behind her and charged in. Surprise and speed were her main weapons here. She went into the second room of the suite and had just enough time to catch a quick glimpse of a small, thin woman around 40 before she was suddenly smashed into the wall by a blue energy.
Shaking her head — and immediately being sorry, it had hit the wall pretty hard — Faith looked around. The woman was the only one in the room.
“Lucky for me,” the woman said, “that Ethan Rayne allowed me to defend myself. Lucky for you that he won’t let me do anything more. So: Who the hell are you and what are you doing busting into my hotel room? On a rescue mission?” She pointed to a rat sleeping in a shoebox. Right. That was Amy the witch, which made this …
Oh shit. She’d just busted in on Catherine the Great.
* * *
Willow slowly walked into the warehouse, Anya right behind her.
“We had no idea that you were part of this,” Willow said, conversationally.
“I am,” Anya answered bluntly. “You still owe me a spell of return, Willow Rosenberg. I want my necklace back, and I want to be a goddess again.” At Willow’s silence, Anya continued, “Do you know what it’s like? For a thousand years, I had the power to bring scorning men their just desserts. Then someone who doesn’t even freaking exist anymore breaks my necklace and now, here I am, stuck in the body of a twelfth grader!”
“What a horror,” Willow said unsympathetically.
“So you DO understand!” Anya said, not catching the irony. “Right now, I’m torn between all of these complicated thoughts of revenge, and, and … and worrying that the prom is only three weeks away and I don’t have a date yet. I’ve never even had to stay in form for more than a day before, much less for five MONTHS, and I’m getting tired of it. I want the power again … and I want you to get it for me.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”
“Why not? There are other witches in this town.”
“So you joined this little clique just to force me at gunpoint to cast a spell? If you know me, you’d know I, I tend not to respond well under pressure.”
“Joined the clique? Willow, I FORMED this clique.” As Willow’s jaw dropped, Anya continued. “Yes, that’s right. All of this havoc all over town was all about me being able to take you away without any of your friends interrupting. NOW do you see how determined I am to get back to being who I was?”