Fanfiction: Three Fights
Faith had started her rounds with Buffy, cruising the cemetery. This was the most boring part of patrol, as far as she was concerned. Head for a couple of fresh graves you’ve mapped out from reading the obituaries (just like the retirees who circle all the good garage sales in the classifieds), wait for the disoriented baby vamps to rise, then pop ‘em before they know what hit ‘em. Fish in a barrel.
Where the wicked good fun came in was later in the night, in the neighborhoods B. probably avoided even in the day. The nabes where Faith could rock and roll. Survivors hung out here, vamps who gave a good brawl. Sure, Buffy came with her at first — she argued that it was crazy to get caught here without a backup — but she was always ready to pack it in after they’d dusted a couple and it seemed that nothing else was shaking. Faith preferred to stay, to grab onto an alley and rattle it until something was shaking.
Since Faith’s return, she and B. had discovered a new difference between them. Much to her surprise, she had learned something new about fighting during her incarceration. From, of all people, the prison librarian, a sweet but matter-of-fact check kiter named Stevie. She’d taken a self-defense course about three months after she’d really needed it, and the most important thing Stevie had learned was finding yourself on the ground wasn’t necessarily defeat — if you knew your attacker had just handed you a weapon. As far as strength went, a woman’s lower body was a match for a man’s upper body. You saw being taken down, if that’s the way it was going to go, as an opportunity, and you made sure the rapist went down with you. You stretched yourself out low, on one side, setting your center of balance. Cocked your leg, then thrust and twisted — coiled energy in explosive release. Kicked that fucker in the head, and kicked him until you knew you were safe.
This knowledge had changed Faith deep down, erasing one of her recurring nightmares. She’d tried to pass it on to Buffy, even spoken to her of teaching the potentials how to fight from the ground. Buffy had changed the subject. Watching her these nights, Faith knew B. could handle herself when taken down, but she made sure she came to her feet as soon as she could wrench free, bring the fight back to the level she was used to. Maybe it was too down and dirty for her.
Dirty fighting — that’s what Stevie’s asshole boyfriend had called it when she was taking the class. Faith hadn’t been aware that rape was a gentleman’s sport overseen by the Marquis of Whosit’s rules. You did what you had to, to survive. That went for human rapist scum, and as far as Faith was concerned, it went for vamps.
Faith turned the corner onto one of her more reliable side streets. A sudden gust kicked up, carrying the faint tinkle of wind chimes. Not a sound she expected to hear in a neighborhood like this. A sign of someone who cared, probably kept a neat home and cleaned up the crack vials and dogshit from around her stoop. Faith hoped to hell she kept herself indoors after dark.
There. A couple of vamps leaning on the fender of a beater Chevy. Faith adopted her swingy and clueless stride, just a drunk girl humming a song she’d been grooving to at the Bronze. “Oh, shit!” She took a sudden turn into an alley, bending to retch by a Dumpster.
God, they were easy. Fell for it every time.
The first one grabbed her by the arm and spun her toward him, and Faith used the momentum to drive her borrowed stake into his heart. The second was bigger, and enraged. Still out of arm’s reach, he swung a fist and now she saw the thick chain he clutched. She had just enough time to turn, taking the blow on her shoulder blade. The breath rushed from her, and she staggered. The stake flew from numbed fingers, clattering across the alley. The vampire caught her by the arm and slammed her againt the Dumpster. Her head snapped back and hit its side with a hollow metallic clang, and her vision dimmed. She’d wanted a little sport, but maybe this time she’d miscalculated.
He seized her above the elbows and yanked her toward him; instead of trying to push away, she grabbed his grimy tee shirt, pulling herself closer still. He took a fistful of her hair and drew her head back, baring her neck to him. Not so much for playing with his food, then. She sagged, stretching her right leg back and then slingshotting it forward again, knee bent, driving it into his balls. Their howls rose up together, hers feeding the energy massing in her muscles. She pistoned her knee into him again and a third time, until he folded over his crotch and she had a clear shot at his head. She felt his nose crack beneath her knee just before he crashed to the pavement; he lumbered into her as he fell, taking her with him.
He was slow and stupid now, and she squirmed from beneath him. Faith rolled onto one hip and into position, delivering one powerful kick, probably unnecessary. The vamp sprawled onto his back on the cement, arms stretched out, ready and waiting for the stake that scattered him to dust.
Faith grabbed for a stack of wooden flats and pulled herself to her feet, taking inventory of various pains. Nothing broken, she thought, but she’d feel it in the morning. More than enough sport for one night. As she limped out of the alleyway, she heard again the high, clear notes from the wind chime above.
Sometimes the small things, like now, proved to be the sweetest.