Hear No Evil

More! Whee!

Chapter Seven

Faith was shivering and couldn't stop. She wanted to cover her ears, but her hands were shaking too hard to control them. She was burning with fever, lines of fire scalding her arms, her legs, her stomach. The flames screamed through her mind--but she had no mind left. It was gone. There was only a thousand thoughts, a million voices, and one of those voices was loudest and closest and it was laughing at her with gentle good humour.

My Faithy…such a silly little girl… The Mayor shook his head with amused exasperation. Never going to learn, hmm?

She was on the floor in his office, curled around herself protectively, shaking and crying and hurting. She'd meant to come here. She remembered that much--not how she'd gotten here, though. It came back slowly. The sewers…she'd found a vamp that worked for the Mayor, one of the few smart enough to bring her to City Hall instead of feeding on her and asking questions later. The emptiness inside his head had scared her, because she didn't know what he was going to do and there was no way she could have fought him. But he'd known enough to be even more scared of the Boss if the rogue Slayer suffered from accidental blood loss.

"Now, what have you been up to, lately, Faith?" The Mayor was crouched beside her, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together loosely. He tilted his head, a small smile on his face. There was nothing but black anger in his mind, an incoherent rage that clawed at her. He was going to kill her. Slowly. She could see the plans forming in his mind, the tortures turned over and chosen like a neat and orderly To Do list. She wanted to scream, but she didn't even have strength enough for that, and she only moaned.

"I told you to watch the Slayer and her friends…not to get all chummy with them. And what have they done to you? Not such good friends after all…but then, I thought you knew that." The little whore has turned traitor on me. And to think I was going to let her live gloriously at my side after my Ascension. We're well into the Hundred Days; I can't afford to have anything go wrong before the Box of Gavrok arrives. Whatever has happened to her is probably some plan cooked up to test me for weaknesses. That's the thing about invincibility, though…there are none.

"Boss…" Faith said, forcing her words out from under the weight of thoughts that blanketed her mind. "Those fuckers…did something to me. You gotta help me."

As if she didn't spend the night with Buffy Summers. She thinks she can fool me. I guess I'll just have to teach her otherwise. "What did they do to you, Faithy? Hmm?"

"Don't know. Tried to kill me. It hurts…" That much was true--horribly, excruciatingly true.

I might as well let her suffer. It's quite amusing, really; if I cancel my three o'clock, I could watch her die. I should try to figure out what she's up to first, though. Work before play. "And what do you think I can do for you, Firecracker?"

It felt like her brain was going to start leaking out of her ears at any moment. Faith gathered together the last shreds of her sanity, the reason she was here. She had to hold on. She could feel B coming, coming to rescue her--her mind cold with purpose and doubt. The Mayor's mind was still closer, though, and Faith latched on to it. She forced one hand out to touch him, her fingers flopping against his foot. Their connection grew stronger at once. His mind was quick and sharp, cutting away at her lies like a knife, working out why she was here. There was only a moment left, one last chance.

"Tell me about the Ascension," she whispered.

"What?" he asked. On the surface of his mind, she heard the question, How does she know about the Ascension? But deeper, in the hidden parts of himself, she saw more: gigantic skittering spiders emerging from an iron chest, the Box of Gavrok; the candles and the rites performed from the swirling script in the Books of Ascension that she'd stolen for him; and last, the round shadow eating the disc of the sun in a total eclipse just as he burst out of his skin. He was becoming a true demon, a gigantic snake, towering above fleeing parents and students. Behind him a flapping banner read "Congratulations Class of 1999", and she heard him reciting the rough draft of his commencement address.

That was his plan.

The doors to his office burst open. B stood there, a stake in one hand, a huge semi-automatic assault rifle strapped over the opposite shoulder. The Mayor stood quickly, kicking away Faith's hand, and his mind was lost in the babbling confusion of voices around her.

B moved forward, keeping one cautious eye on him. She knelt beside Faith and lifted her head. "Here," she whispered, holding out a flask filled with a thick blue liquid. "Drink this."

The Mayor watched impassively as B helped her drink the stuff. It tasted awful, and she nearly choked, but from the moment she felt it on her tongue, all the voices started fading away. She closed her eyes, feeling hot tears of relief trailing down her cheeks. The pain was going, thank God.

And the Mayor still hadn't moved. "If you think you can just walk out the front door again," he said to B, "you're sorely mistaken. For a young lady with your history with the police, I'm pretty sure carrying a weapon like that is a felony."

"You're probably right," B said, standing to face him. "And yet--strangely unworried."

"Your little trick failed," the Mayor said.

B looked confused, but he didn't stop there, only asked, "Did you meet my guards on your way here?"

"You mean your pet vampires?" B twirled her stake between her fingers, then put it back in her pocket. "Little tip--you might want to call the maid in to vacuum."

The Mayor nodded reflectively. "And it's so difficult finding good help these days. I'm not the sort of employer who can place want ads in the local papers. And the dental plans are atrocious. Well, there's nothing for it; I'll just have to kill you myself."

"I can't wait to see you try," B said. She lifted the gun and aimed it at his heart.

"You think you can stop me with that?" the Mayor asked, chuckling. "Dear girl, I hate to be the one to disappoint you, but there is the small matter of my invincibility to overcome."

B glanced at Faith. "Maybe I can't kill you, but I'm betting I sure as hell can make you back up a step or two."

"And then what? You rescue my little Faithy and live happily ever after?" The Mayor shrugged and calmly walked behind his desk. He sat down and leaned back in his chair, smiling easily at B. "Are you sure that's what she really wants?"

B looked at Faith again, and Faith remembered the doubt she'd felt in her mind as she was on her way here. Faith had promised not to come back to the Mayor, and here she was not even a day later. But B didn't understand…and Faith couldn't tell her why, not if she wanted the two of them to get out of here alive. She knew the Mayor's plans now, and he'd do anything to stop her--if he knew. Their only hope was in hiding the fact that she'd been able to read minds from him until they were safely gone.

"Ah, ah!" the Mayor said. "Don't let her try to convince you. After all, I think she's played us both today, don't you? Promised us her loyalty only to turn around and stab us in the back."

"B…" Faith said, pushing herself into a sitting position. "Shoot the bastard. It won't kill him, but it'll hurt like a son of a bitch."

"What makes you think you can trust her?" the Mayor asked. "Please don't tell me this is all the result of true love. I'm quite sure Faithy doesn't know the meaning of those words."

B glared at him. "But I do," she said, and started firing.

The bullets ripped through his body, each one jerking him back, until his chair nearly tipped over. He frowned, mildly irritated, as he struggled to stand up and the assault repeatedly shoved him back. The ragged holes burst through his chest and stomach, exploding chunks of his flesh away. There was no blood. Faith scrambled to her feet and headed for the door. She still felt sick and dizzy, but she could feel her power pouring back. Maybe they had a chance--but the Mayor's wounds started closing immediately, skin and muscles knitting together seamlessly. B kept up the barrage until the rifle's magazine was empty, then backed towards the door after Faith. Before she'd reached the door, the Mayor was on his feet and rushing her.

A buzz came from the phone on his desk. They both stopped, B with the new clip of bullets nearly ready to shove in place, the Mayor half way across his office. "Mr. Mayor?" came the voice from the intercom. "There's a crowd of reporters here to see you. They're all demanding that you comment on the incident at the high school this afternoon. Something about a murderous lunch lady trying to poison the students?"

"Oh, dear," B said, faking her concern. "You mean, somebody actually phoned the papers about something bad happening in Sunnydale? I guess that doesn't happen too often."

"You--" The Mayor shook his head, grinning, but it was more snarl than smile. His suit flapped around him, torn and scorched with powder burns. "You're a clever one, aren't you?"

B didn't answer. She took the rifle's strap off her shoulder and tossed the weapon to the floor in front of him. She took Faith's hand and led her out into the hall. Turning, she gave the Mayor her sweetest smile, and said, "Have fun at the press conference."

And she and Faith walked straight out the front doors.

*

To be continued.