Thralls

Title: Thralls, chapter 13
Disclaimer: I do not own these guys...well only the OC's and the bunny, please...


"Buffy!" Riley yelled at her, fighting to get upright and out from under Xander who fell back onto him. "Buffy, don't. Don't do this. I'm begging you."

She had that light in her eyes, the one that meant she wasn't thinking, or listening, wasn't doing anything but reacting. She was going to do something very bad. He saw her focus narrow down, to just the vampire in front of her. He pushed Xander up off of himself. "No! Move, Xander!"

"My Ghod." Rupert Giles murmured, his stunned face lifted from the cross he had shoved against the vampire's chest, looking into Angel's human face. "It isn't doing anything. You aren't being harmed. It isn't even uncomfortable. Buffy....get back." The slayer showed no sign of having heard him. He knotted his hand in her shirt, tugged against her resistance.

Riley managed to get to the edge of the bed and fell off of it onto the floor, rolling a few feet, then Graham had a handful of the back of his waistband lifting him up off the floor. "No. Don't do it." He yelled at his former girl-friend. "Graham, stop her, she is going to...."

"What's the matter, Ri?" Buffy glared at the man she had loved. She sneered. "Afraid your *lover* is going to be beat up? Afraid he isn't going to be able to fuck you?" The word was not easy to her lips, Buffy didn't swear well.

Angel did the worst possible thing then, he laughed. In her face. Then made things worse yet. His accent, usually hidden, smoothed away by his years in America, was in full evidence as he leaned down towards her. "I can guarantee, dear girl, that won't be a problem. All that lovely, creamy skin is a hell of a motivator. We can both attest to what a fine piece of ass is Mr. Finn."

"Fine, so crosses don't work." Buffy's face twisted, drawing up into a mask of infuriated determination, undiluted hatred. "Say hello to Mr. Pointy. See if that works for you."

She reached back, seized the stake from her back pocket, and drove it up into Angel's solar plexus, ramming it into his chest, into his heart, deep, lodging it against his spine. One quick, smooth, perfect arc of deadly movement. The force so powerful it lifted the vampire off of the ground for a split second. He let out a grunt. Angel looked down as his feet hit the floor on the way down.

He let out an exclamation of shock, surprised he was seeing it, normally a vampire never saw the stake that killed him, he dropped to his knees, his face a mask of surprise.

He looked at it, the thick splinter of wood sticking out of him. It was death. True death. Crumbling into nothing time. "I didn't think you'd have the balls to do it." He rasped. He raised his hand, tapped the shaft, only a few inches remaining outside of it's sheath in his body. Didn't try to remove it. His eyes were dark, velvet brown, soft with wonder, his lips parted.

Xander screamed, a wounded sound, an animal howl. His hands were clawing at his chest. Tearing. He sprang off the bed, at them all. Giles let out a shout and backed up fast, holding his cross out in front of himself like a sword. He fell over Gunn and Wesley, his fingers losing their grip on Buffy's shirt. The three men landed in a heap.

Buffy dropped down next to Angel, on her knees, voice high pitched with panic. "Oh Angel. Angel. No. No. I didn't mean it, no, you can't die. I'm sorry, I take it all back, please don't die." Her hands shook over his chest, trembled around the stake, fluttering uselessly. He looked at it. Looked at the hole it made. Looked at her small, delicate white fingers and hands. Funny, wasn't it, that all the slayers had been such small women

"Pull it out." He said. "Pull it out." She scrambled back from him on all fours, realizing...he wasn't ash, dust, cinders on the floor. He was still solid, speaking. With a wooden stake in his heart. He wasn't dead.

"No. NO." She said, yelled. "No!"

"You missed." Giles said, as Riley arrived at Angel's side. The older watcher was trembling as he reached out and held his slayer. "I can't believe it. Buffy, you missed."

"She did not miss, Rupert." Wesley said, pushing his crooked glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he untangled his limbs.

Gunn was already back to his feet, axe braced in both hands. He pushed at Wesley with his foot. "Let's listen to the man this time, Wes. Time to get out." Still, Gunn wasn't all that surprised when no one listened to him. Cordelia surged past him. Going in the wrong direction.

Doyle was one step slower than Cordelia, who was bent down over the kneeling vampire. Riley elbowed the woman roughly away, into Doyle's ready and waiting arms. The demon whirled her around, marching her in the direction of the hall. "Princess, you are going to be the death of us all. Saints preserve us.... Just stay back, will you?!"

Angel leaned forward, dropping down to hands and knees. Graham and Riley seized the vampire's arms, keeping him from falling onto the stake and driving it in further. "Fuck!" Angel ground out. "Oh fuck, that hurts."

Xander, Riley and Graham were around him. Riley holding onto his body, straightening him up, while Graham tried to see the stake more clearly. Xander was growling.

"Angel." Riley said, his voice was shaking, he held Angel in tight to his body. Angel let out a groan.

"Master?" Asked Graham. And Riley even in the midst of the disaster, stared at him.

"Get. Out." Xander barked at the others, at the slayer who had tried to kill his mate. His lips peeled back from his abnormally long teeth. He wrapped his fingers around the stake and pulled, dragging it with a dull sucking sound from the vampire's chest. He flung it at Buffy, at Giles. They cringed back from the blood flecked missile. It hit the floor, clattering into the hall. Xander drew back and crouched near the vampire, licking the blood from his hand.

Angel let out a whooshing gasp of air. It whistled through the hole in his chest.

Buffy whispered something. Giles leaned down, to hear it, whispered again, not much louder.

"I didn't miss." She said brokenly. She had gotten him, perfectly square in the heart. And he wasn't dead.

"Whoa, Nelly." Lorne put up both his hands as the door was flung wide before he even had a chance to knock. Fred stood there, hair rumpled, stringy around her white face, eyes huge as saucers. She was letting out little pants of breath. Lorne's crimson-red eyes narrowed. OK. Bad timing he was guessing. Not a good place to be, was his second thought. Why? Refer to point one.....timing.

Fred grabbed Lorne's arm and started to drag him back towards the stairs, before he could back off the stoop and into the relative safety of the street. She was babbling for him to come with her. To....run? No, he didn't think that running willy-nilly anywhere inside the hotel was a good idea. Just a hunch.

He put up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, hang on there, sweetcheeks. What is the big hurry? 'Cause I am definitely picking up that you are in a hurry. And that makes me think I should find out why, before we go any further." His boots made a scree-ing sound on the tile of the entry way as she dragged him into the entryway. Despite himself, Lorne took an instant to be impressed with that feat of strength from tiny Fred.

Fred kept tugging. "Come, on. Hurry!"

"You see that is precisely my point." Lorne said. "There are times when it is very bad to rush. When it is far better to stop and think things through. And thinking things through requires information. Which I need you to give to me, precious. What has you all worked up?"

"Angel." Fred said.

"A good start, but I am going to need more." Lorne encouraged. A loud crash sounded from the third floor of the hotel. Fred jumped, and so did the green demon. He peered upwards, squinting. He rotated his hand in a speed it up motion. "Maybe you could talk a little faster?"

"Cordy! Ghod damn it!" Doyle yelled. "Get moving." Lorne wasn't able to see anything. Fred grabbed him and started pulling again.

"Doyle?" Lorne called out, raising his voice until it boomed out. All those years of singing, he knew how to make his voice carry, fill a room.

"Lorne?" Doyle's head popped up over the railing way, way up there. "Hurry the hell up here!"

"You see, that is all that anyone is telling me. Hurry up. Hurry up. NO one is bothering to tell me why. And that is making me really suspicious. Like maybe if I do know, I am not going to want to 'hurry the hell up' anywhere." The Host grumbled as he took the stairs three at a time.

"For pity's sake, Lorne. Save your breath and get up here," Wesley's head popped up next to Doyle's. The Englishman frowned. "Why aren't you taking the elevator?" He wondered aloud.

"Of for the love...." Lorne wheezed as he started up the second flight.

"I'm just saying..." Wesley held his hands up at shoulder height. A crash sounded behind him again. Wesley ducked. Doyle ducked. And this time there was something Lorne could see.

A slim, blond woman, flying through the air, hair streaming, falling towards him in slow motion. Her clothes fluttering, a graceful descent. Almost poetic. Falling. He had time to thrust out his arms. "Oh shit." Before her body struck him in the gut and they tumbled down together, all the way down the stair case. Thump, ta dump. Stopping at the bottom.

Lorne lay there face up. The strange blond woman on top of him. Fred rushed over, her hand to her mouth, making a distressed moaning sound. His eyelids fluttered. That was a very short skirt she was wearing, he thought absently. He'd have to tell her. Then everything went black.

ne'ichan
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