The Ravages Of Hell

FIC: Ravages Of Hell (10/?)

Angel looked around, noting the flickering neon lights, gleaming buildings, and flash sedans. “Moscow’s changed since I was last here.”

“When was that?”

Angel glanced at his son shivering in his fur coat beside him. “1880,” he replied. As Angelus. He, Darla, and Drusilla had cut a bloody swathe through the snow-swept capital. The demon inside him roared at the memory, he forced it back down.

“Was it cold then?” he nodded. His son snorted. “Not that much change then.”

Angel chuckled as he continued to look around, noting the falling snow, draping the city in a white blanket. He was grateful that he didn’t feel the cold but wished he could breathe in the crisp air. “Where do we go from here?”

That sounded suspiciously like a line from a really bad song. He glanced behind to the Groosalug. “Oleg Petrov is a businessman owning an auction house, a museum, and an art gallery. His less reputable businesses include a pole-dancing club that he hangs out at every night. He is also Russia’s premiere occultist, so we’re going to go see him.” Which was why he’d left the vociferously complaining Gwen at home, he didn’t need her jumping on a table to show off.

“At his club?” he nodded. Connor beamed. “Have I told you how much I love the fact you’re my father?” Angel shook his head. It appeared the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree.

* * *

“Xander, can I have a word?”

Xander looked up from his inspection of his newly-purchased Prague street map and towards his room door. “Sure Wood.” After a second the door swung open and the muscular African-American strode in. “I’ve been going through the plans,” Xander babbled, nervousness at being put in charge of this mission instead of Wood filling him. “I figure we have Oz change in downtown Prague, create a disturbance there, draw the cops away from us. Meanwhile we’ll have broken into this laundry that cleans uniforms for the hotel -.”

“That’s great Xander,” the former principal interrupted. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Xander’s stomach hollowed. “What’s happened? Has Buff-.”

“No, no,” Wood shook his head. “It’s not about her.” Xander relaxed, tension leaving his shoulders. “It’s about Faith.”

“Oh yeah,” Xander stared at his fellow Watcher. “The Order get her?”

“No,” the black man took a breath. “I heard about your argument with Faith. You were out of line.”

His nervousness replaced by a familiar, slow-burning anger, Xander clenched his jaw. “Sticking up for your girl-friend is all very noble, but this is none of your business.”

“She’s not my girl-friend, we’re just friends.”

Xander laughed. “First off, Faith doesn’t have friends, just people he screws. And if you’re trying to impress your way back into her bed, there’s easier ways. Buying her a brewski will do it.”

Wood stiffened. “She’s changed. She cares about you, about all of you.”

Again Xander laughed. “Whatever. Let me make myself clear. A girl died because of this conspiracy to protect the weak one,” the bitterness in his throat was almost choking. “Well that’s it, I’m out. I’m sick of being treated as useless. This is the last mission and I’m only doing this for the innocents. Once this is over, I’m taking the money Anya left me and disappearing.”

Wood gaped at him. “Harris, you’re making a big mistake.”

Xander turned back to the map, as far as he was concerned the conversation was over. “Do you want to see where I am with the plan?”

* * *

“Ya ready Ken?”

“Ready?” the shorter Slayer exited her hotel room wearing a black sarong over a g-string and matching black bikini top that matched her outfit. “Where are we going?”

Faith grinned at her new friend. “Stop drooling.” She chuckled at her fellow warrior’s playful glare. “I figure we go down to the beach. That way you can check out the honeys and I can check out the studs.”

“Works for me,” Kennedy chuckled. “Check out the studs huh? You don’t know what you’re missing.”

Faith raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take that chance.”

* * *

“They’ve gone.”

Her companion looked at her. “Are we going to let them get away with this?”

She laughed at her best friend’s comment. It was so like her. “No we’re not.”

Her friend grinned. “Good answer.”

* * *

“Yo! Nice pecs big guy!” Faith hollered at a coffee-skinned hunk of a man. Man, the Copacabana had to be the best place in the whole goddamn world. Weather warm enough to allow you to wear nothing but swimwear at night, wicked carnival music, and, Faith’s smirk widened, a shit-load of speedo-wearing studs.

“You think you could do that?” Kennedy nodded to their right.

Faith looked over to see a bearded, pot-bellied man was juggling dangerously sharp meat-cleavers. “Five?” she snorted. “I could do seven.”

“Oh yeah,” Kennedy grinned. “I could do eight.”

“Is that right?” Faith laughed. This was kinda like the competitive friendship she’d hoped for when she’d discovered there was another Slayer. “That sounds like a challenge to me.” Faith glanced at her companion. “You wanna?” Kennedy’s widening smirk was all the answer she needed.

Still chuckling, Faith swaggered towards the beach entertainer intending to charm his blades off him. “Shit!” Her eyes widened when the juggler suddenly began flinging knives at her and Ken. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kennedy dive away from the cleaver flung at her.

Faith chose to take a more direct approach. Snatching the cleaver flung at her out of the air, she threw it back at her assailant. “You lose something?”

The knife imbedded itself in their attacker’s throat. His eyes widening in shock, the knife thrower reached up to pull out the dagger even as blood pumped out of the wound. As his hands grabbed hold of the blade’s hilt, he fell to his knees, his eyes now dimming with impending death. A half-second later, he fell face-first into the sand, his blood staining the beach.

“What was that about?”

Faith glanced at her shaken companion. “Order assassins,” Faith guessed. She glanced around, noting the gathering crowd and the approaching sounds of sirens. “We best get out of -. What the fuck!” She grunted as she hit the ground, spitting out the white sand that had got into her mouth, twisting her head to glare at her fellow brunette led on her. “Jesus, Ken, I’m know I’m easy, but not even a dinner or a movie first?”

Kennedy opened her mouth but before her fellow Slayer had chance to comment, the starlit night was filled with the sound of gunfire and the surrounding beach-goers began convulsing wildly, blood vomiting from their bodies as they fell to the ground. Faith tore her eyes from the dying innocents to see a trio of motor-cycling thugs heading towards them, their uzis spitting death. “Oh crap.”

* * *

Toyko, Japan.

Buffy stared around the sprawling metropolis around her, taking in the towering buildings, the flashing neon signs, the continual screech of traffic, and the teeming crowds, she couldn’t believe there was so many people in such a small space. “This is amazing,” she breathed. LA, London, and Rome, all paled into insignificance next to Toyko. “What are we going to do first? I bet the clubs-.”

“We have to get to the Council base,” the Immortal reminded her.

Buffy nodded, deflated, being a Slayer was no fun. “Let’s get on with it.”

* * *

Angel led his companions past the trio of bouncers at the club’s entrance and down the stairs inside, his vampire hearing allowing him to hear and wince at the cover band haphazardly performing Beatles songs inside the club; this was going to be murder on his ears. He was half-way down the club’s spiral stairwell when a wave of stifling heat hit him with an almost physical force. All at once he was pleased he didn’t have to breathe, contradicting his earlier thought, the combination of sweat and smoke choking most of the oxygen out of the underground club.

The clientele was predictably made up of a majority of over-weight and middle-aged businessmen, their faces glistening with sweat and expressions leering as they ogled girls young enough to be their daughters and, in some cases, grand-daughters. The bar was stocked with a variety of cheap but excessively priced liquor, stuff that appeared just as likely to blind the drinker as get him drunk. But then it wasn’t the booze that got the customers flocking in. That was the dancers.

There was something for every taste – short, tall, buxom, lithe, white, black, yellow, red-head, blonde, and brunette. All were in various states of undress of the usual male fantasy costumes.

And then there was the band. Angel couldn’t help but growl. In the time it had taken them to enter the club, the Beatle-suited band had segued into ‘Help’. He’d heard the Fab Four play in ’64 & 65, and this group weren’t even close. He was tempted to jump onto the stage and do the musical world a favour and jump on the stage, and kill them. He was reasonably sure that given their bass player it wouldn’t be counted as a sin.

Forcing such thoughts aside, he looked around for a quieter table. Seeing an unused table in a shadowy corner, he nodded towards it. “We’ll sit over there,” he decided.

“I want to sit over there.”

Angel looked in the direction his son was drooling, towards a busty brunette stood on top of a table stripping out of a nurse’s uniform. “Business not pleasure remember,” he reproved while at the same time marvelling at the girl who looked like a heavenly cross between Cordelia and Faith.

“All work and no play makes Connor a dull Connor,” his son replied.

“It is like the Pylean Pleasure Pits,” Groo disapproved.

“Great.” Angel rolled his eyes. “I’m stuck here with a monk and a hormone-driven teen. I hate my unlife.” Grabbing hold of a passing waitress’ wrist, he flashed her Liam’s winning smile. “Excuse me,” he said haltingly, his Russian more than a little rusty. “But I could speak to Mr. Petrov?” He passed the waitress three one hundred dollar bills.

The waitress’s eyes widened at the money. “Da,” she nodded before snatching the money and rushing off.

After a few minutes a fat man with corpulent lips and a comb-over that failed to disguise his thinning hair, the suit that struggled to contain his hefty frame expensive but perhaps five years out of date. “Let me do the talking,” Angel instructed.

Connor rolled his eyes. “Why? ‘Cause it’s not like Russian’s my second language.”

* * *

“Are you alright?”

“Mr. Harris,” Katrina hid a smile as she glanced over her shoulder to see an uncomfortable expression on the one-eyed man’s face. But what else did one call a living legend?

Two years ago she’d been just another one of Prague’s street kids, living hand to mouth and on her wits. And the Choosing had occurred and she’d been strong, far stronger than full-grown men, with skills she’d never known before. After two months an Englishman by the name of Robson had arrived with a blonde American called Lockley and taken her to England.

Some of the Slayers hated and resented the Calling but Katrina loved it, loved the escape it gave her from her old life, and the new purpose it gave her. As a result she’d learnt everything there was to know about the Scoobies. Her hero was Faith Lehane, a woman with a similar background to her, but to be teamed with the man who’d split the Slayer line and stopped Willow was a dream come true. It didn’t hurt he was easy on the eye either.

Taking a breath, Katrina nimbly climbed up the side of the three storey building they were breaking into, the combination of her enhanced strength and agility making a normally onerous task easy. Once she reached the top, she leaned over and signally to the man waiting in the shadows. “I’ll just be a couple of minutes,” she hissed.

* * *

“Great,” Xander muttered at the Slayer’s shout. The lithe blonde with enchanting blue eyes was a great girl, but he worried about her strange eagerness to impress him. It was admirable but it could get her or others hurt.

Unfortunately, Katrina was the only one of the three Czech Slayers who knew Prague and the only one who had breaking and entry experience, making her the best qualified for the job. His musings were interrupted by the back door being eased open to reveal the tall silhouette of the blonde gesturing him inside.

Xander hurried inside the commercial building. “You get yours and the other girls’ uniforms,” he whispered. He stopped when a worrying thought hit him. “You know all their sizes right?”

“You mean you don’t?” Katrina’s ocean blue eyes filled with amusement. “I’m devastated. A woman expects a man to know these things.”

Xander’s single eye rolled. “I learnt long ago that buying women’s clothes is something no man should do.” He wondered how she could joke when all he could think about was what if all those films about East European prisons were true. Maybe he was getting old.

“What will you be doing while I’m stealing uniforms?” the blonde Czech queried as she led him through the shadowy corridors.

“Stealing furs.”

Katrina glanced over her shoulder, her expression incredulous. “While I’m getting us the uniforms to end an ancient evil organisation you’re going into fur smuggling?”

Xander felt the beginnings of a throbbing headache. Slayers! Maybe this was why G-Man had always walked around Sunnydale High with a constipated expression. Although perhaps that had more to do with the English than Buffy. “It’s a cover,” he patiently explained. “Make the police believe it was a robbery for luxury clothing and those hotel uniforms were just taken by mistake.”

“Oh,” Katrina purred. “Brains as well as looks.”

“Oh great,” he muttered. “Horny Slayers. Like I haven’t played that riff before.”

* * *

Rio, Brazil

What are we going to do?” Kennedy demanded, shouting over the sound of screaming and roaring gunfire.

“My guess?” Faith hollered back, her eyes fixed on the advancing trio of bikers. “Die horribly and leave two hideous corpses.”

“You’re a born optimist you know?”

“I know you’re still led on me!” Faith replied.

* * *

Rona yawned. Tailing the renowned hellraiser Faith Lehane through Rio’s streets was disappointingly boring. No wild brawls, kinky sex, or deadly demons. Perhaps her rep was over-blown. “Or perhaps not,” her eyes widened when a knife juggler threw his tools at Faith and Kennedy.

“You saw that right?” Vi queried from beside her.

“I saw it,” Rona confirmed, wincing as the knife thrower fell to the beach, his own knife in his throat. “Guy had to be nuts to take two Slayers on with just knives.”

“No!” Vi shook her head. “Not that. That!”

Rona looked around, opening her mouth to ask what she was missing. And then gunfire erupted, ripping through the crowd surrounding their fellow Slayer. “Oh that!” Pulling her pistol crossbow out of her bag, she charged towards the enfolding situation, sighting it as she ran. Finally satisfied she was in range, she fired at the nearest biker.

The bolt flew true, slamming into the side of the biker’s neck, just below his helmet, sending blood spurting and the biker crashing to the ground, one of his companions following suit, Vi’s bolt likewise jutting out of his neck. Even as she reached for another arrow, the surviving biker turned his gun towards them.

And toppled backwards off his bike when Kennedy rose and threw a knife into his chest. A grin on her face, Rona hurried up to a rising Faith. “Aren’t you glad we followed you?”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed as she brushed the sand off her bikinied body. “I’m dancing for joy.” The older Slayer grimaced as she glanced around the bloodbath. “Let’s bail kiddies.”

“Who were they?” Rona asked as she hurried after the Bostonian beauty.

“Who do ya think?” Faith growled. “The Order. The stupid bastards sent those amateurs after us. I’m insulted.”

* * *

Tokyo

“I am sorry,” Masahiro Muto bowed politely at the immaculately-attired man dressed in the latest fashions, the tiny blonde, and two European model types who’d just turned up on his organisation’s doorsteps. They were human, that much he was sure of, but he was far from sure of their motivations and in these troubled times it didn’t do to take unnecessary risks. “But this isn’t a hotel; it’s just a finishing school for girls-.”

“My apologies esteemed sir,” the foreign man interrupted in flawless, accentless Japanese. “But I’m Franco Rossi.” Muto’s eyes widened at the legendary four centuries old Watcher who upon his Slayer’s death had been cursed by a dark arts mage to live forever knowing his failure. “This is Michelle and Sophia,” the foreigner indicated the two taller girls, “two of Europe’s Slayers. And this is,” the Immortal gestured towards the tiny blonde, “Buffy Summers.”

His eyes widened at being confronted by the most contradictory legend in Council history. On the one hand she was the Slayer who’d killed the Master and Lothos, two of the most powerful vampires in history, and defeated a hell-goddess and the First. On the other, she’d betrayed her Calling by fornicating with Angelus and William the Bloody. Quite the enigma.

After checking their veracity with the empath hidden by the side of the door, he nodded. “Please, come in,” he smiled. “And how may we help you.”