Kathy's Revenge

Chapter 21
Faiths POV

Ten more minutes and the hell bus will be history, no more driving, no more Andrew whining to stop every ten miles to go for a piss.

“It’s all your fault Faith, you were the one screaming, if you hadn’t have done that then Jen wouldn’t have heard and then she wouldn’t have told Xander and Andrew about it.”

“It was you who was making me scream Will, all your fault.” This playful banter has been going on since we got on the bus three hours ago.

“Oh, shh… I can’t help it if I’m good.” With that comment she sticks her tongue out at me.

“Yeah and the magic tongue helps your argument.” I say smirking at her in the rear view mirror.

“I have a magic tongue?” She asks in a very pep squad, perky way.

I roll my eyes at her. “You know you’re good so stop fishing for compliments.”

With that she smiles at me and goes to the back of the bus to sit with Xander.

The ten minutes pass surprisingly fast and soon we are in a Wal-mart car park, disembarking the hell bus. We all split up, some going for munchies and others for the bathroom.

The local phone book, all tatty and worn is hanging from the phone in the small booth. I pull it onto my knee and start to flick through looking for some kind of hotel for all of us to stop in until Giles arrives to pick somewhere to live, not to mention pay for it.

I flick through the hotel section, not exactly sure if I am the right person for the job, I was perfectly happy living in that shit hole back in Sunny D when I first arrived. Somehow I don’t think the girls would appreciate it very much if I made them stay somewhere like that.

Willow joins me as I leaf through the pages. “What do you think?” I say holding up the book to her whilst pointing at one of the ads.

“Sounds okay, we should go check it out before we make everyone move all their stuff.”

I glance around me after writing down the address. “Anyone who wants to come can do, if not we will meet you all back here in about an hour.”

Most of the girls decide to tag along, probably for the walk more than anything, personally if I never set foot on a bus again it will be way too soon.

We all walk through the city centre to find our bearings. After only a few minutes of walking we find what we are looking for. A large building looking more like an apartment block than a hotel. Outside looks kinda shabby but hell if anyone knows not to judge a book by its cover, its me.

Checking in an hour and a half later was a fucker, since pretty much none of us have any ID or anything and a lot of the potentials are minors, of course it was Willow with her mind control stuff that sorted all that out. My little Jedi knight… I have been spending way too much time with Xander.

Hours pass in which we all head separate ways to look around the city, we all meet up again for dinner. Dinner passes without any incident, well as long as you don’t call eating a whole restaurant out of all its food an incident.

The night is still young as we all leave the restaurant. “Hey Faith.” I stop walking as Jen catches up with me. “Mind if we go take a look around at night? You know, when we will be working, find all the hot spots and stuff.”

I look at Willow and we both share a smile. “Not a bad idea J.” I say clapping her on the shoulder. We wander, around the whole neighbourhood, starting out in the nice end and working our way to the not so nice end.

Nothing much is going on, this place doesn’t feel much like a hell mouth, I don’t know, maybe it’s cause of what happened in Sunny D and all the things that go bump in the night are in hiding. We have walked through three different graveyards and only one vampire has showed, Jen staked it and we haven’t seen anything since.

As we approach yet another graveyard I feel something, something demonic in the vicinity. Finally some action, been waiting to get my slayage on for way too long now.

We follow the sound of grunts at a run, can’t have anyone dying on our first night in town, not exactly the rep we want.

We stop about fifty feet from the action to survey the scene before us. I count ten vamps.

Something comes flying over to us and stops just in front of my feet.

“Bloody wanker!” It says getting up from the floor. Okay, better make that eleven vamps.

He turns to me and looks puzzled, not as much as I am but the bleach blonde vamp seems confused.

“Faith, Willow, Xander! How the hell are you guys?” He says totally ignoring the carnage going on behind him. It seems to me that there are three good guys fighting, I got some kinda vibe coming off the one of them… holy shit! It can’t be.

We all spring into action, I grab myself three. You should be proud I’ve gone days without a good fight. One of them, the one with a bad shirt on comes towards me thinking he’s going to get himself an easy meal. Instead he gets a broken nose as the heel of my hand smashes into it. Needless to say this sends him reeling back slightly. He won’t be a problem for a little while.

The other two I find myself fighting decide to play it smart and double up on me, One grabbing me from behind, trying to hold me in place. This kinda backfires as I use him as an anchor to lift up my two feet and smash the one in front of me in the chest with my booted feet. I feel, more than hear his ribs crack.

I plant my feet back onto the ground and crash the back of my head into the vampire’s nose making him release me. I grab his arms and throw him over my shoulder making him land on his back on the floor. I reach into my jacket and pull out a stake. In less than moments he’s dust in the wind.

I look up for my other two victims. Only to find Jen and another ex-potential. Holding stakes surrounded by a cloud of dust. “I don’t think this hell mouth will be big enough for the both of us.”

After a minute or two all the vamps are gone and we are all left standing facing each other.

“What the fuck is happening? What the hell are you guys doing here?” I ask looking around at Spike and Wolf boy.

“And may I just add a big huh?” Willow asks pointing at Spike.

“My sentiments exactly.” Xander adds also pointing at the vamp.

“Okay guys, how about we go and sit down and talk about all this?” Asks Wolf boy leading the way. We all fall in step behind him and walk in silence, questions running through everyone’s minds until we finally arrive at a large Victorian style house on the outskirts of town.

My head can’t seem to function properly, I look around and find most everyone with freaked out bewildered looks on their faces.

We all follow through the hallway into a large living room area, which is littered with comfy looking couches, chairs and a lot of books.

“Nice collection here Oz, this would put the G-Man to shame.” Xander states looking at the cover of a few of the books on the large coffee table.

All of us sit, and don’t say anything for a while until I pipe up with the inevitable question, which is on everyone’s minds. “Thought you were dead Spike?”

He grins at me for a second and nods. “Well luv, I was for a bit… seems that someone up there likes me. I don’t really get it myself, you will have to ask Rachel here about all the particulars.” He motions to the tall woman sitting next to Oz, she has white blonde hair and weird sort of haunting light blue eyes that say ‘I am so not from this world’.

“Well, you see. Spike would have gone to hell because he was a vampire right?” She pauses for a second her voice is a sort of light floaty kind of style with a strange lilt of Irish. “Anyway, the big guys up there…” She motions to the sky. “…Didn’t think that he deserved to go to hell, problem is that he couldn’t go up either. Only way to stop him going to hell was to bring him back… they basically removed the demon in him and sent him back to earth.” What is it with all the foreigners?

“So, Spikes human?” Willow asks raising an eyebrow at Spike.

“Sort of, still got me strength and all that though. But no more blood lust… but I do get some wicked cravings for rare cooked steak…” He seems to wonder off in his mind when he says this, but he soon snaps out of it. “So… where’s Buffy, the little bit and Giles?”