Fallen Angels

By Kristi

Acathla

@--Dawn--@

I scream and try to bite the monks when they got near. It doesn’t really do any good. They unbind me and drag me over to the demon statue. One of them pulls out a dagger and slices it across my palm. Its totally unreal the way the blood just wells up. It hurts, a lot. You’d think I’d get used to being sliced and used as key.

I am trying not to cry. I remember the way Buffy was so brave when she jumped into that portal to save me. She didn’t cry. I want to be brave like that. I’m not. I start crying when they slap my bleeding palm on the statue’s chest.

They drag me back to the alter. The rope things automatically wind around my ankles and my wrists, binding me tightly. My palm is dripping blood onto my bare feet. Why do these rituals always require bare feet? At least I could die in a really cool pair of shoes.

“Bring in the food. Faelghahor is going to want to eat when he arrives.” Lilah says

My cries get a lot weepier when they drag in Xander, Cordy and Gunn. They are all chained together. The monks attach the chain to a couple of pillars.

“Dawnster, you okay?” Xander yells. His voice is really weak and he sounds like he is hurting.

“Yeah, I’m not liking being a key though.” I yell back.

“Yeah, I’m not enjoying the being food aspect of this whole thing either.” Xander yells. “I think maybe it’s the Twinkie’s revenge.”

I smile a little in spite of the situation. “Mom always said you are what you eat.”

@--Angel--@

We watch from across the street as Lorne’s demon army storms the front of Wolfram and Hart. We’re a small group, Wesley, Giles, Willow, Faith, Buffy and I. There are no other people I’d rather go to battle with.

We watch as Wolfram and Hart’s security collide with the demons. That’s our cue. We sneak across the street and toward the back of the building. I smash the window near the corner and we crawl into an office. It’s empty. I had hoped it would be. We can hear the battle going on in the front lobby.

We use Willow’s blueprints to locate the service stairs and walk down into the basements of Wolfram and Hart. Buffy squeezes my fingers and holds up the charm. It’s glowing a very faint pink. At least we know we’re on the right track.

Wes leads us through the maze of hallways in the sub basements. There was only one room on the blueprint that was big enough to hold a portal, a key and whatever they wanted to bring through the portal. We’re headed to it right now. Willow’s charm is glowing a deep red. Wes stops in front of a door and nods. I lace my fingers with Buffy’s. I pull her close to me and kiss her. I try to pour every bit of my love for her into that kiss. If the portal is open I want her to remember all the reasons she has for staying here with me.

@--Dawn--@

The statue has started rumbling. I can see its mouth is beginning to open into a glowing orange portal. It doesn’t look anything like the one Glory used me to open. I always just assumed all portals look like. This one is opening up a little slower then Glory’s portal, but just like her portal things start walking, crawling, flying and oozing out of it.

They must have been told the rules though, because no one goes after me. I’m left to watch and hear, as Gunn, Cordy and Xander are being munched on by the denizens of Hell. I can’t even see through my tears, and I’m glad. I wish I couldn’t hear.

“Leave the Seer for Faelghahor, you idiots!” Lilah screams. It takes me a minute to realize she’s talking about Cordy.

@--Buffy--@

We bust through the door, literally, when we hear the screaming start.

Oh God

We’re too late, we’re too late. Oh God, we’re too late. Acathla’s mouth is open and all I can see in my mind is Angel. I tell him I love him. I kiss him. I ask him to close his eyes and he does, so trustingly. I pull my sword back and run it all the way through him. His eyes fly open and he looks to me in confusion. He holds out a hand and the confusion is replaced with love and trust. His last word before Hell swallows him whole is “Buffy,”

I don’t realize I’m on my knees until Faith jerks me up. Her hand is like a vice on my bicep and the pain shakes me awake.

“Move your ass, B.” She shoves a sword in my hand and pushes me toward a group of demons.

I push the emotion of seeing my little sister bound to an alter to the back. I push the image of sending Angel to hell back. I can’t afford that now. I have to be the slayer. It’s the work I do. My sword slices cleanly through the head of a hell hound. I see Faith out of the corner my eyes. She’s a blur of black leather and shining steel. She’s laughing her head off.

“Yo! B! I don’t know what it is about you, but we just don’t have these good times on the Hellmouth anymore. It’s a vamp here, a vamp there occasionally something slimy.”

“Glad you’re entertained, Faith!” I yell back at her.

Angel is in game face, ripping hellhounds and other unidentifiable things to pieces with his bare hands. He eerily reminds me of the way he was when he first came back from Hell. I suppose he fought all these things the hundred years or so he was down there, the hundred years that I sent him there for. I push that out of my mind. There’s no time, not now. I can break down in his arms once the fight is over.

I fight my way through a pack of Harbringers, the kind that I fought the night Angel decided to kill himself, and the Powers intervened. I can hear screaming nearby. It sounds like Cordy. If she can scream, she’s still alive I reason. I fight my way through the demons, slaughtering as I go, until I get to Cordy. In all my years of being a slayer I have never thrown up, no matter how gooey or nasty things got. I have to support myself against the pillar Cordy and the remains of Gunn and Xander are chained to while I puke my guts out. Everything in me starts screaming and I want nothing more then to fall down and cry until there’s nothing left. Xander, the heart of the Scooby’s, he’s gone. And Gunn, Oh God, poor Fred.

A Vahrall demon picks me up over his head and throws me across the room. I land in a heap against a rock wall. My head strikes a rock hard and I fight total blackout. If I don’t get off my ass I’m going to lose Dawn, Angel, Giles, and everything else I’ve ever cared about in this world. The portal is still spewing out demons and I know what I have to do.

My eyes find Dawn across the room. The demons are avoiding the alter and Dawn entirely. Lilah stands near her holding an ornate ceremonial dagger, ready to kill her as soon as the big bad comes out of the portal. The first thing I’ve got to do is get to her.

@--Angel--@

I see Buffy fighting her way through the hordes of demons. She’s beautiful to watch in battle. She reaches a point where there’s nothing left but the Slayer. She doesn’t think about what she’s doing, she just acts with a deadly instinct. She’s a deadly weapon, like a perfectly crafted, balanced sword. I can see where she’s headed. I can hear her plan, almost as if she told me herself. I’ve known her for so long, my entire life it seems like. I can almost read her mind. My soul screams in anguish at what it’s mate is about to do.

I leap into the air, fighting my way over the demons. The battle is wearing everyone thin. Willow looks pale as she continues to wield her magic from near the doorway, trying to close the portal. Giles and Wesley stand in front her, fighting off the demons that would break her concentration. Wesley has a large bloodstain on his shirt, radiating from a wound either in his side, or his stomach. Giles’ face is covered in blood. They are not slowing down. They know if they do, we are all dead.

And it’s all for the love of tiny speck of a blond girl. The only thing I have ever loved in my entire life, the only thing pure in my entire life. She was my savior, my redemption, when I needed her most. I will be hers now.

Buffy is caught in a pack of Vahrall demons. She’s cutting them down, but they should keep her away long enough. I reach Lilah first. She’s a bug in the scheme of these things. She’s not worth taking the time to kill, so I don’t, take time. I put my hands on her head and I twist. Her neck snaps and she falls at my feet. I jump over her corpse and go to Dawn.

She’s crying. “Angel, do it, kill me. Everyone is going to die here because of me. You can stop it. Buffy won’t. It’s okay. This is what I was meant for. I’m not real, Angel. I’m just a key, use me.”

-“Angel, we have to save her. She’s my little sister. I can’t watch her die. She’s a part of me, the monks made her out of me, my soul, my blood. She supposed to have all the things I can’t ever have, she has to graduate high school and college. She has to get married to someone she loves as much as I love you. She has to have the house with the picket fence and 2.3 kids. She has to grow old with the love of her life. Somehow, if she gets all that, it’s like I get it too.” -

“Shhh, I’m going to fix it Dawnie, just give me a second.” I turn and skewer a hellhound the bounds toward me. I can’t kill Dawn, Buffy would never forgive me. Willow has been trying to close the portal with magic, but it’s still growing. There’s got to be a way to close it without killing Buffy or Dawn.

Buffy is getting closer to the portal. She locks eyes with me and fear turns my insides to ice. I can’t lose her again and that’s exactly what she has in mind.

-“She’s a part of me, the monks made her out of me, my soul, my blood.”-

That’s it, that’s how I close it. I rip the binds around Dawn’s wrists and ankles free. “Listen to me, Dawnie, there’s not much time. Tell your sister I love her. I will love her, always. Tell her I’m waiting for her.”

“Angel?” Dawn says.

I balk. She sounds like Buffy. That’s all the more reason I have to do this.

“Dawnie, do you trust me?” I ask, looking into her blue eyes.

Dawn nods.

“Close your eyes,”

My fangs sink into her neck. I don’t take much. I won’t need much. Three long drinks and her blood is still in my mouth when I dive through the portal. The last thing I hear is Buffy, my Buffy screaming

“ANGEL!”

Continue