A Slayer's Tale

--

"He was in my home, Rupert!" Elizabeth said, pacing back and forth
in the upper office of her home. She was still visibly shaken from
the experience that she had been through. "He knew my name and
everything about me!"

Rupert rose from his seat and caught Elizabeth by the shoulders, to
calm her. The myriad of thoughts in his head was swirling like a
tornado, but his first instinct was to calm Elizabeth into a place
where he could speak to her rationally.

"Listen to me." He said, guiding her gently to a chair next to Faith,
who only sat staring at the floor, too nervous to say a word. "At a
time like this, what we need to do is think about what actually
happened."

The girls just sat and looked at him.

"Did you say that he mentioned some sort of Order?" he said calmly

Elizabeth looked up, taking a deep breath. "Yes. He said that
the `Order' had offered us something special. But he was so
horrible, Rupert! How could that be?"

"Of course..all demons will try to entice anyone that they can. I
would think that, since you are the Slayer.." he corrected
himself. "..since BOTH of you are Slayers..it would be to his
advantage to try enticing you to his court."

Rupert himself, was more than a little unnerved. He had been trained
to handle hard situations, but this was something he had never been
taught. How was he to handle the frazzled emotional state of the
girl whom he had come to think of as a daughter? Not something
covered in the Watchers' Handbook, most certainly.

He hated seeing Elizabeth like this. True enough, she had been
shaken before. After a battle with an especially powerful adversary,
he had seen her nervous and relieved. But nothing she had ever faced
had left this amount of terror in her. He resolved to do whatever he
could to help her, and that meant research.

"Umm..girls." they both looked up at him. "Perhaps it would be best
if you both went to the Constable's office and talked to Mr.
Forsythe. He is the Council's contact there. Find out what he knows
of the disappearances and the murder. Obviously they are connected,
as the demon chose to approach you personally."

He thumbed through the volume that lay open on his desk.

"I'll do what I can researching what you've already told me." He
told them as they left their chairs. Then he set to work, looking up
anything that resembled `demonic orders'.

As they left the room, Faith could not help but think back to what
the horrible thing had told Elizabeth. That she was a slave.
Elizabeth had so much skill and cunning, why was she being ordered
around? Rupert may be a nice man, but he had no power over her.
Save those that were implied by being a `Watcher'. This `Council' he
served must be even worse.

But Faith knew that it was for the best to help, and she was helping
Elizabeth anyway. Not some Council.

--

The walls shook, and Constable Forsythe's breath quickened in suprise
as he dropped the box. He sprang from his chair, looking right,
left, then out his window trying to ascertain what was happening.
However, from what he could see of the outside world, things were
calm and life was proceeding as usual.

At some point in his labor of working the puzzle, the bell had begun
to ring. In the back of his mind, he imagined the sound coming from
the street outside. But now, he knew better. The sound of the bell
had originally come from somewhere that was very far away, yet now
suddenly very close.

Forsythe sat in awe, as the room took on a bluish hue. Though no
source of light was evident, the room began to glow with it. The
candle on his desk began to flicker in time with the sound of the
bell that rung with banal regularity. It dimmed and brightened, then
dimmed again with the pulse of the ringing of the bell's tempest,
burning its brightest on each chime.

That was all he could make of the scene as the walls began to take on
a liquid lucidity, parting and reforming before him. The bare boards
of the wall flayed, for a moment losing their solidity and spreading
apart to reveal the source of the blue glow. The pair of demons
entered the room.

Then the wall was solid again, and the bell was silent.

Forsythe sat, or more precisely fell, back into his chair. He wanted
to cry out, but his vocal chords would not seem to respond to his
pleadings. He only stared, wide-eyed, at the pair who now stood
before him. His candle flickered out, this time with no hope of re-
igniting. The only light that was present was the fluorescent glow
that the demonic entities put off from their bodies.

He surveyed the two beings that now shared the room with him, in a
quiet stupor. There was only anguished horror as his eyes found
purchase on one then the other creature.

The first, larger being was undoubtedly male. The horrible
scarifications that crisscrossed it's muscular torso and face,
bringing yet another gasp from Forsythe's lips. The chains that
passed through both flesh and bone pulled tight by even the slightest
movement, drawing more blood to run down its powerfully built upper
body. The face..dear God the face that was stretched and placated
into a grotesque visage of pain. The being was truly a roadmap of
ritual disfigurement.

The sound of steps on the floor drew his attention to the second
figure. Smaller in stature, yet androgynous in appearance. The
clothing it wore, which was sewn both to and through its skin, gave
no indication of the being's gender. The demon, which had once been
the human named Larissa, moved forward letting the human see her more
clearly.

She had seen and experienced much over the past 48 hours. Now, she
was ready to serve at her master's right hand, showing the world the
pleasure of human artwork. But she was untested and overeager.
Acolistes held out his hand to her, motioning for her to stop and
watch.

Forsythe saw not a hint of joy or pain in either of their faces.
Only hunger.

"You summoned." The larger being spoke, its voice hurting his ears
and forcing a wince of pain from him. "Now we are here."

A volley of hook-ended chains shot forward, hooking him around the
face and shoulders and dragging him across the desk. Then the room
flashed, returning to normal. The only trace left of Forsythe's
presence in the room at all, was a single drop of blood that had
fallen upon the investigation file of one Larissa Colmes.

Of course, there on his desk, sat the box.

-


"Yessir. Lady Elizabeth Summerfield." She told her name to the man
at the desk. "I'm here to see Mr. Forsythe."

"Yes Ma'am. Constable Forsythe is at the top of the stairs, third
door on the left." The desk clerk was stammering over himself at the
beauty of the noble and her companion. The blonde and brunette
literally took his breath away as he watched them trail up the stairs
where he had directed them.

Damn, he thought. What I wouldn't give to meet a woman like that.

-

Elizabeth knocked tentatively on the door that had "Constable William
Forsythe" etched expertly across its surface. Third doo the the
left, just as she had been directed. After a few moments with no
response, she knocked again. Harder this time.

Still no response.

Elizabeth reached forward and turned the knob, opening the door into
the office. It was hard to say what struck her first. The feeling
of sublime normalcy, or the overwhelming scent of vanilla. The sweet
scent hit her as soon as the door opened, but it did little to mask
the stench of decay which lay beneath.

Upon further investigation of the room, the two girls found nothing
out of place until they explored the desk itself. Faith had gone
around the desk to look out the window, onto the still street below.
But, upon turning back, she saw the box. It was sitting adamantly
upon the desk, directly on the middle of a large file folder in the
center of the hardwood desk.

"Beth.." she spoke. "I think this might be something."

Faith pointed toward the wood and metallic object that sat upon the
file that was labeled "Larissa". Though she did not want to touch
the thing, she took it in her hand feeling a slight shock at her
hand's contact with it.

Once she had the box in her grasp, she held it up for Elizabeth's
inspection. The blonde's heart skipped a beat at the sight of it.
She also noticed the drop of blood on the folder next to where it had
been sitting.

"He's dead, Beth." Faith said with an eerie finality. "We need to
leave here. Now!"

The intensity that was present in Faith's voice was enough to
convince her to bring her search to a halt and rest upon whatever
Faith had found.

--

"Rupert?" Faith called when she opened the door to his
chambers. "We found something."

The young brunette held, in her hands, the square that Rupert
recognized immediately. His research had proved unsuccessful, until
this point.

He wasll sll searching for some connection, in his books, toward any
demonic order. But when he saw the box his jaw dropped and his heart
skipped. "Oh my God." He gasped, reaching for the item, lip
trembling.

"Rupert?" Elizabeth asked now, seeing her Watcher's reaction. "What
is it?"

"I..I know what you're dealing with, now." He took the box from
Faith and placed it in the center of his desk.

Then moved to the bookcase to retrieve another lesser-used tome.
Bringing it to the table, he cracked it open blowing the dust from it
as he separated the book's ancient pages until he found the right
place. Turning the book around and sliding the book toward the two
girls, they immediately recognized a diagram of the box, which now
sat on Rupert Giles' desk.

"What is it Giles?" Elizabeth asked.

"And what does it do?" Faith followed up.

Taking a deep breath, Rupert knew that he must tell them both
everything. The more they knew, the more likely that they would live
through the assault, which was waiting.

"The demon's name is Acolistes.." Rupert began, a look of abject
horror on his face. "And he is Hell's firstborn."

-


TBC