Special thanks go to Joyce, who beta'd this chapter. I did not take all her suggestios though. Any problems you have are my fault alone. Also thanks to RainforestGoddess for some pointers.
-
Sunnydale
Nothingness made the pain go away. Ever since he'd gotten his soul back, every second of every night had been filled with the agony his victims suffered. Yet there were times when the pain was gone. When there was nothing. Maybe if he forced himself to hear nothing, see nothing and feel nothing, he could be nothing and the hurting would stop.
"Think it's that easy, do you?"
Ignore the Dark Man, ignore him. He's not real anyway. No heartbeat. Why was he even thinking? Stop, stop. Thinking is not nothing.
"You want oblivion? Very well..."
And the Dark Man sang an old song, a familiar song. No, he mustn't listen. Be nothing.
And then there was nothing...
-
In his hand was the golden gleam of his sword. Running away from him were hundreds of people, afraid of death, Death on a Horse. That horse was straining under him to get into the fray. He let it go and gave chase to the runners. It didn't take him long to catch up with the stragglers, but every time he took a stab at one of them, they vanished into thin air.
He rode on. Even when he caught up with the main column, not one of them was substantial enough to stain his blade. From behind he heard Kronos laughing at him.
This was getting ridiculous. He was the equal if not the superior of Kronos in every respect, and he would not be laughed at. There was still one man who had managed to stay ahead of his horse. Now he'd caught up with this last refugee. This time, his blade penetrated the ribcage of his victim from behind, and as he withdrew the sword, the body flipped. He stared into his own dead eyes.
Kronos drew level beside him, and put his hand on Methos' shoulder, still smiling broadly.
"Adam? Wake up, Old Man."
Huh?
He blinked, and when he opened his eyes he was getting a very skewed perspective of a laptop keyboard. Slightly higher up was a hand holding a glass of beer.
"I guess I'd better make this a coffee, right?"
Terrific. Not only had he fallen asleep at the computer, but he was having pretentious dreams as well. He might almost believe he was getting old. He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes before looking up at Joe.
"No thanks, the beer's fine."
"Not much luck finding anything over the Net?"
"Eh," Methos looked at the screen. 'Your search - rjNBrSKn:ls - did not match any documents. No pages were found containing "rjnbrskn".' Not much help there. Not that any of his actual search terms had yielded anything more useful.
"No, not really. There are people out there with some very disturbing fantasies, but that's all I could find. Our scarred 'friends' don't seem to register on the world news. The meteor shower in LA is soaking up all the attention. If you go looking at the local news items, you see a lot of fires and the like popping up, but no word of the perpetrators. There are some strange things that almost seem to fit if you go sniffing around on the occult forums, but those are mostly populated with crazies. And the stories they're spreading are even crazier... I don't think I'm getting anywhere. But what about you? Any luck finding some Watchers that haven't been attacked yet?
"Not all that many, all things considered. And those that have survived are cut off from all their resources. They couldn't help me."
"So we're really stuck."
"Yep."
"Great."
-
Sunnydale
"Spike."
Was it her? Had she really come back to him? Or was his mind playing tricks on him again?
"Spike? Look at me."
Had to be tricks. She wouldn't come back. He wasn't worth it. Only if he could help. Couldn't help now. Seeing things again. No point in looking up. She'd be there, all pretty and radiant, and not real.
"I don't think he's rational right now, Buffy."
Carpenter! Whatever his mind had thrown up before, the Slayer's boy had never been part of it. If the boy was here, this must be real. He looked up. Yes, there she was, not looking pretty and radiant but tired and just a little nervous. Xander Harris was two feet behind her, heart racing, and a stake in his hand not quite ready for use. Not too eager to be here either.
"No, he's okay. Right, Spike?" Buffy's tone had the forced cheerfulness that he'd heard her use in front of her friends so often last year. Back then it had been a way of hiding her despair. What could she be desperate about now? He lowered his head once, to indicate that he was indeed listening.
"We found you a place to stay. You can get out of this basement now."
Where would he go? Would she accept him near her again? Of course not. He wasn't good enough for that. She'd made that clear enough by not accepting him when he'd told her about the soul. So why should she now? "Don't believe you. Nowhere to stay but here."
"Don't you start that again. We've found you a place. You'll be a lot better off there. You know that this basement is driving you crazy. So get out. We're offering you the chance. Take it."
No forced cheer now. This was the Slayer in full do-as-I-say mode. So he did as she said. He got up, ignoring the hand Harris offered to help him, and followed them to the car.
-
Paris
It might not be particularly cold for the time of the year, but the December evening was chilly all the same. Still, it was a blessing to be out in the fresh air after being cooped up at Le Blues behind a computer for several days. When after all that time no new attacks had happened, Methos had felt quite safe enough to take a walk. He needed to be alone to think things through, because the logic of the case was pretty much nonexistent. There had not even been any ruckus from the Paris police over the bodies of their assailants he had disposed of. Surely someone would have dredged one of them up from the Seine by now. Besides that, something had been bothering him in his sleep. Not for a thousand years had his dreams and nightmares about the Horsemen been as vivid as they had been the past few weeks. Even though he was dead, Kronos was haunting him again.
These back alleys were nothing like the bustle of the main avenues. Only the occasional clochard disturbed the quiet. There were two of them in a side alley that opened up onto a slightly larger thoroughfare, ragged coats almost -- no -- *exactly* like the cloaks the assassins had worn.
Right. So they were back, and waiting for him. Stupid of them to position themselves where they could be seen before they could strike, but then these guys had not revealed themselves to be the epitome of intelligence before, either.
One of them responded to the classic tap on the shoulder, and as the cloaked figure turned around, Methos knew he had been right. The scarred face soon became bloodied as his knife did its work.
The other one had time to get his own knife out, but not much more than that. The second body toppled backwards into the street.
That would not do. The Old Man stepped into the street to drag the body back into the alley.
But before he could pick up the limp form, he collided with a running figure.
The runner was a young girl. As their bodies connected, she screamed. After she had taken a closer look at him though, she started to talk to him in rapid and breathless French.
"They're trying to kill me! Help me!"
'They' who?
Ah. About a hundred meters behind her were three more of the cloaked figures, rapidly closing.
And from the other side four more were coming. Just great.
Stick with the old cliches; the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Not always true, but it definitely applied in this case. Maybe the girl could even provide some more information about these mute monks. But he'd have to get her out of trouble first.
"Into this alley. I'll be right behind you."
The two bodies on the ground startled her, but not long. Exhausted as she must have been already, she took off as if her life depended on it. A good example to follow.
-
Sunnydale
Sweet, sweet blood. How could he have put this off so long? The warmth of it coursed through him and invigorated him more than anything else could. This girl deserved the reward.
He bit his own wrist and pressed it against her mouth. The feeling of the blood flowing from him was a completely different form of ecstasy, and a dangerous one as well. Too much would rob him of the strength to bury her, and the first daylight would kill this new vampire. Not enough, and she wouldn't have the strength to do her task.
He took the limp form in his arms and carried her to the place where he had buried so many others already. Waiting for the right time. This one joined the others right quick. The sunrise was getting close.
His hunt for the night done, he walked up to the front door of the house. This house wasn't closed to him. More fool the one who had invited him.
When he had closed the door softly so as to not wake up Xander, Spike almost despaired. It had been another dull night. Buffy had dumped him here, where he was not quite completely unwelcome, and proceeded to completely ignore him. Well, not much changed there. He had never been much more than a plaything to her, perhaps occasionally useful for beating up a slightly more powerful demon. He had to admit that the school basement did seem to aggravate whatever was going on in his head, and so it had probably been a good move to get him out of there. But once here, there was nothing he could do. TV was out during the late hours, because Xander wanted his sleep. Besides, he got enough TV during the day. To sleep was to invite nightmares of him killing so realistic the chip started firing, so he kept awake as much as possible. That left going out as the one possibility for some socializing and entertainment. And even then, not much. It was all so sodding dull that every night ran into the others and left him with nagging headaches. If he were asked what he'd been doing tonight tomorrow, he wouldn't even know exactly.
-
Paris
Pacing on artificial legs was nobody's idea of fun, but Joe was doing it anyway. Methos might have felt safe enough to go out for a walk, but he didn't trust the situation yet. And going out alone under such circumstances was the most stupid course of action possible. Of course, telling that to the Old Man was about as futile as trying to get Mac to not rescue a damsel in distress.
Someone was knocking on the back door. Methos? The Immortal hadn't taken a key, as a minimal precaution if he were to be captured. It took him far too long to get to the door, and the knocking grew more urgent. When he finally managed to open it, Methos was indeed standing there. His back was to the door, shielding a teenaged girl from whatever was out in the street.
"Our 'friends' are back. And they're not just after us this time." The French words sounded strange for a second, but then their meaning penetrated. Methos said a few words to the girl and she slipped inside. The Old Man himself apparently wasn't planning on coming in yet. He was already moving away from the door as he shouted his final instructions.
"Barricade the door. Keep your gun out."
Barricading the doors took half a minute. The girl helped, still panting for breath. When he came back from the vault where he kept the gun, she'd sat down at a table. She was sobbing, and already a small puddle of moisture had formed on the table. He went over to her and tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she shied away from his hand.
"I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. We'll try to keep you safe." Joe couldn't bring himself to omit the word 'try', even though that meant his words probably weren't all that comforting.
The girl's reaction was strange, however. She did stop sobbing and even looked up, but the look on her face was one of deep horror. His well-intentioned words surely hadn't been *that* bad?
"I don't know if you'll be able to." The girl responded in English. She sniffed a few times. "They killed my parents already, and even a stranger that got in their way. The only reason I could get away was that he didn't. He got between me and them and told me to run." Tears were threatening again, but she managed to keep them back. She only sniffed once before continuing. "I hope your friend doesn't get killed as well."
"Adam? He might not look it and I might not want to believe it sometimes, but he can look after himself. He'll be back, probably without a scratch on him. I'm Joe Dawson, by the way." He offered his hand to the girl. He'd almost managed convince himself with that speech, anyway. The girl took the offered hand after a little hesitation.
"You're American."
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"You have a terrible accent."
Had that been the look of horror on her face? His French was good by most standards, but he never had managed to shake the accent. "So bad I scared you into speaking English?"
"Oui." Even through the tears, the girl had an easy smile. She'd be breaking hearts wherever she went in a few years time. She offered her own hand back to him. "Marie Roquefort."
"Pleased to meet you, Marie. Despite the circumstances."
