Le Bella

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Seven

“Time to go fight fight fight a battle battle battle on the Heckmouth!” Hopie sang happily to herself, oblivious to the glare Spike was sending her. The blonde vampire carefully massaged his forehead, which though not seriously burned, was turning a very undignified shade of pink.

“No running with the flamethrower,” he said firmly in Hopie’s direction, but the child was too hyper at the thought of a good slay to mind him.

“Come on, Anni,” Hopie said. “You come too. We can play together with the vampires. Grrrr. Arrrrg. Slay slay slay slay with Crossbow and Boooooooooob!” The child giggled.

“Indoor voice, Hopie,” Cordelia yelled from the other room. Hopie quieted a bit.

“How come you never shriek with joy when you go slaying?” Lindsey asked Faith with a mocking smile.

“Oh goody,” Faith said mockingly, “I will enjoy this slaying ever so much.” Lindsey nuzzled her neck, and she shrieked with laughter.

“Indoor voice, Aunt Faith,” Hopie yelled from the other room. “Or else Momma will get mad.” Cordelia laughed, her eyes shining with adoration for the little girl.

Hopie, still running with the flame thrower, ran directly into Wes. Both of them fell over. “Sorry,” Hopie said, not exactly sure if she was. “Anni and I are gonna go slay some vamps. Wanna come?” Hopie stared at him, playing with the trigger of the flame thrower. Wes got the distinct impression that the child was daring him to tell her that Anni couldn’t go. Anni looked at him, her ice composure perfectly in place.

“You’re going to need a weapon,” he said. “So am I.” Anni smiled. She wasn’t ready to be the slayer, but hanging out with the Shanshu child was the most fun she could ever remember having.

Buffy led them both to a weapon chest. Anni looked carefully at each of them, her expression unwavering. Buffy didn’t understand the girl, who seemed so very different than she had at that age. “Have you ever slayed a vamp before?” she asked Anni.

Anni shook her head, biting her bottom lip slightly as she picked up several stakes, fitting them carefully into her sleeve. “I’ve read about them, but I’ve never actually seen one before, with of course the obvious exceptions of Spike and Angel.” The girl’s British accent became more pronounced, the only clue that she was feeling anything at all. To Buffy, her face was a complete blank.

Wes knew better. Anni was walking the line between excited and nervous, and she clearly adored Hopie. He helped himself to a glaive and several stakes. Buffy lifted her eyebrows at him. A slayer in training was one thing, a former wimp-Watcher was completely another. He returned her stare, and Buffy shrugged.

“Did you have a vision, Hopie?” Buffy asked. Hopie nodded, skipping from one foot to another excitedly.

“Yup yup,” she replied.

“How many were there?” Buffy asked. Hopie shrugged.

“More than four,” she said. “I forget.”

“Eight,” Cordelia answered. “Think you and Faith can handle eight vamps and the girls? I’m not feeling up to it, and someone has to watch out for Connor and Dawnie, because something tells me that they aren’t coming up for air any time soon.”

“They’ll be mad we didn’t tell them,” Buffy said. Cordelia shrugged.

“You make out like luvsick teenagers, you miss out on the slay action,” she said. “Maybe it will teach them a thing or two about this whole I-haven’t-seen-you-in-so-long-well-would-you-look-at-that-our-lips-are-touching-I’ll-be-darned thing.” Anni tried to control her facial expressions, but the idea of touching her lips to Connor’s sent little shivers down her back. She wished that he was coming.

“My Connor’s no fun when Dawnie’s here,” Hopie commented, noticing the odd expression on Anni’s face. Anni mentally seconded that motion. “You can play with me instead.” Anni nodded.

“Go for the heart, don’t get backed into a corner, and call for help if you need it,” Buffy said, giving Anni the Slayer’s Cliffs Notes to Slaying Vampires. Anni nodded.

“Don’t do anything untoward,” Wes instructed. Everyone stared at him and he shrugged.

“Who wants to come play with us?” Hopie asked. “Besides Aunt Faith, ‘cause I know she’s coming.” Hopie knew that Aunt Faith would never let her go into battle without tagging along. Faith took her Champion duties very seriously.

“I feel so loved,” Faith said. Hopie ran up to her, trying to give her a hug, but finding it difficult with a crossbow in one hand and a flame thrower in the other. Faith snuggled the little girl for a moment, feeling the protective tug she always felt when they were about to go into battle. Hopie may have been Cordelia’s daughter, but she was Faith’s charge, and her darling at that.

“I’m in,” Spike said, “providing the half-bit there keeps her flame thrower bloody well to herself.” Angel snorted with laughter and then tried to hide it behind a straight face.

“I’ll stay here,” he said, thinking that either he could have some special adult time with Cordelia or catch an encore presentation of Sesame Street. Either way, he’d be a happy vampire.

“I’ll go,” Willow said, surprising everyone and earning a soft smile from Wesley. Anni looked at the Wicca and then at her brother, trying to let go of her anger at them both. She hardly knew Willow, but a Wyndham-Price did not take terribly kindly to having her spell cancelled repeatedly. Willow returned Wes’s smile and then turned the grin toward Anni. Anni returned Willow’s stare, allowing her face to soften a little.

“Two slayers, One vampire, one witch, one slayer-in-training, the Shanshu child, and…”

“A partridge in a pear tree?” Wesley suggested wryly.

“A former Watcher,” Willow said helpfully.

“I think we can handle a measley eight vamps,” Faith said. “Lindsey, are you coming for the show?”

“Actually,” he said. “I have another hunt in mind.” Looking each other in the eyes, a silent message passed from Lindsey to Faith, and she knew that he was going to make sure that Lilah had left Sunnydale.

Hopie ran to the door, weapons in tow.

“Don’t run with the flame thrower,” Angel and Cordelia said simultaneously. Hopie slowed slightly. Everyone followed the eager child, who was acting like they were going to the circus.

Spike carefully kept Buffy in between himself and the flame thrower.

When the vamps came into sight, Buffy whispered instruction to Anni, “The element of surprise can always work in your favor.” Hopie let out a high pitched little kid version of a blood curdling war cry.

“Or,” Faith said dryly. “There’s that.” All of them threw themselves into the middle of the vampire circle. Immediately, Faith took out one with a quick stake to the heart, and Buffy’s first victim fell soon after. Hopie picked the shortest one, and, biting her bottom lip in concentration, jumped up and thrust. She burst into giggles when the vamp exploded into dust.

“Bye Bye!” she called joyfully.

Anni narrowed her eyes at the vampire approaching her, a male who looked about twenty. He was easily twice her size, but it was her mind, not her heart that was racing. Years of vampire anatomy lessons had her sharp mind analyzing that margin of error she would be allowed in order to hit her target. Her eyes widened a bit when she noticed the ring he wore on his left index finger. Was that what she thought it was?

His hand reached immediately for her throat, and in the moment she was distracted, he closed his hand and she couldn’t breathe. She soon fell limp in his arms. He brought his mouth down to her neck.

“Accio!” yelled Wesley.

“Muerte!” Willow screamed at the same time.

Anni turned and gave them a disgruntled look as she neatly thrust the stake into the vamp’s heart. Microseconds later, the spells hit the vamp, and he screamed in horror before he burst into dust.

“Haven’t you ever heard of playing dead?” Anni asked. Wes shuttered at hearing her say the word dead. She needed to start training, and soon. He had every intention of keeping her alive for an extended period of time. Besides, if he didn’t he had the distinct impression that Hopie wouldn’t let him live very long either.

Two vamps jumped Willow, and Wesley turned his attentions to the red head. Hopie was arguing with Buffy and Faith over who got to slay the seventh vamp, and didn’t notice that unusually small predator at her back. Anni acted like lightning, her heart pounding.

She dove, tackling the girl to the ground and covering her small body with her own. Buffy and Faith quickly took out the larger vampire as Wesley watched Willow handle the vampire rushing her like a pro. A whisper from the Wicca’s red mouth was all it took for them to burst into flame. Seeing the flames from underneath Anni, Hopie remembered her flame thrower. She shoved the older girl gently aside and aimed the flame thrower carefully at the smallest vampire, who was only a little taller than Anni.

The flame caught hold, and Anni threw a stake at the vamp’s heart to be on the safe side. All of the warriors stood, frozen in spot, as the flame burned a deep midnight blue, and then, with a sunburst of amethyst light, the vampire exploded into dust. The dust, refusing to settle, formed a snake like projection in the air. Even as the dust finally began to fall, the eerie color seemed drawn toward Anni like a magnet.

No one could move. Hopie thought really hard about making that blue light go away, but the best she could do was slow it down. Willow reached out to the Shanshu child with her mind, and she mentally urged Wesley to do the same. Hopie, given the last burst of magical enthalpy she needed, wished really hard that the blue light would stay away from Anni. A rose colored force field appeared around Anni, simultaneously blocking the onset and freeing her to move.

Anni concentrated, imagining the entire group back at the Summers’ house. Moments later they were there. Anni collapsed, completely drained by the magical feat. Willow rushed to her side.

She grabbed Anni’s hand, allowing energy to flow from her body into the twelve year old’s limp body. Anni’s eyes remained closed. Finally, they fluttered, and everyone in the room let out a breath.

“You can’t do that!” Willow scolded, surprising everyone with the hardness of her tone. “You could kill yourself like that.” Anni absorbed the Wicca’s anger and nodded her acquiescence. Willow silently accepted Anni’s admission of guilt, and crushed the girl against her in a fierce hug. Moments later, Wesley had enveloped both girls in a hug.

They heard laughter from another room, a very familiar kind of laughter.

“Ooooh,” Hopie said. “Someone’s very happy.” Everyone ignored the child.

“Please let that be Cordelia,” Spike said, “because if it’s Dawn, I don’t think I could take it.”

They followed the noise. Angel and Cordelia were sitting in the living room, inches away from the front of the television. “Three, three red go carts,” the Count said on the television.

Angel gave Cordelia a disillusioned look. “I can’t believe that’s what they think vampires look like,” he said, crushed. Cordelia kissed his lips hard, and then started laughing again. Poor Angel hadn’t ever seen that particular Sesame Street character before and was properly insulted.

Seeing they had an audience, the two turned, and Hopie bounded down to join her parents. “We killed all the vamps real good, Momma, but then one turned into blue and glowy light and tried to get at Anni, and I made it stop and Anni brought us back here and I kept my eyes open this time and Willow’s making fluffy eyes at Wesley!”

Wesley cleared his throat. Angel smirked at him, subtly turning off the television. “Fluffy eyes?” he asked skeptically. Willow glared at the child. Wesley smiled at Willow. Buffy’s jaw dropped open.

“Oh,” Hopie said as an afterthought, “and you need to talk to Aunt Faith and Buffy about sharing, ‘cause they wanted that one vamp all to themselves and wouldn’t share none of him with me!” With that, Hopie curled up in between her parents and fell promptly into the deep peaceful sleep of the very young.

“Blue light?” Angel asked.

“Research,” Buffy responded. “We need research. Go ahead, someone make with the books, because I think we’ve got a problem.” Angel picked the sleeping Hopie up.

“We have to get back,” he said. “Kindergarten tomorrow morning.” Cordelia nodded.

“Come back this weekend?” Wesley asked, letting everyone know that he and Anni planned on staying. He frowned, thinking that Anni still looked very pale. The others nodded.

“Connor,” Angel bellowed, knowing that Hopie could sleep through seventy-two trombones playing with tambourine accompaniment. Connor came into the room.

“Can Dawn come?” he asked.

“Please,” Dawn added, expertly making it a five syllable word.

“School tomorrow,” Buffy reminded her sister. Dawn gave her begging eyes. “This weekend,” she promised. “As soon as school is out on Friday, you can go to LA.”

“Like Hell,” Spike said.

“Heck,” Hopie corrected groggily.

“Bloody Heck,” Spike responded.

Anni, much like the younger child, fell asleep between the hold of a man and a woman. She thought groggily that she liked the feeling. The blue light would haunt all of their dreams that night, until Anni woke up in a strange bed, screaming.

“THE RING!”

 

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