The Seventh Slayer

By Kantayra

Chapter Thirteen

Isabelle fidgeted in her seat nervously. The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It wasn’t even the tension of nervousness or anticipation; it was pure, unadulterated horror. Virtually no one spoke, not even to whisper among themselves.

The sterile atmosphere of the room did nothing to help things. The underground security rooms lacked all the comfortable elegance of the rest of the mansion, and Isabelle was willing to bet a million bucks that this wasn’t normally where these meetings were held. For one, the room was way too crowded and they were packed in like sardines.

Fletcher leaned against the wall at the far side of the room looking more disheveled than either Isabelle or Ajaya had ever seen him. One of his glasses lenses was still broken, and he was reading the computer screen before him with an odd squint in one eye. His expression was dark, causing nervous little twitches from those who were watching him. He was most certainly the center of all attention.

With a sigh, he finally removed his broken glasses and began.

“As you know, at 10:49 this morning we were attacked.” His tone attempted to remain cool and collected, but slight quavers of nervousness slipped through from time to time. “We have now confirmed that our unseen enemy was, indeed, the Watcher’s Council.”

This caused an instant buzz, mostly of comments like “I knew it!”

“Quiet, please!” The chatter instantly stopped at Fletcher’s command. “Two large, explosive missile devices were fired simultaneously at 10:49. The first impacted directly at the center of the surgery room in the medical wing. The second struck the Temple on the second floor next to the library. Both primary targets were completely obliterated. From what we’ve gathered so far, no one was in the Temple at the time of the attack. There were at least ten patients and three nurses in the medical wing, all presumed dead.”

The stunned silence was deafening.

Fletcher faltered a bit but managed to continue. “In addition, the force of the explosions blew out all the windows in the building. Fortunately, the attack was mid-morning and thus most of our vampire residents were safely asleep in the interior rooms. However, there are currently three missing and presumed dusted.”

“Who?” someone from the back of the room asked.

“I’ll give you the complete preliminary casualty list when I’m done,” Fletcher assured her. “Finally, snipers managed to kill at least two residents within the building before the security grid was activated. A third was killed driving the Watcher’s Council from the front yard. At this moment, our count is nineteen dead, at least twenty-five seriously injured.

“The list is as follows: Bevrok, Ryan Blaire…”

“You know any of these people?” Isabelle asked Ajaya as Fletcher continued to read off the names.

Ajaya shook her head. “I think I might have met Selin briefly at lunch once, but…” She trailed off when Fletcher went past the ‘R’s. “Good,” she breathed a sigh of relief, “Lily wasn’t staying in the medical wing…”

“That is the list thus far,” Fletcher finished solemnly. “Already we have been contacted by the government. They are debating whether to declare this an act of terrorism. If so, we may have to decide what should be done with the Watchers’ Council – a decision,” he sighed wearily, “that I do not relish having to make in the least.

“As for the security system, we are still investigating what went wrong. It should have deployed automatically at the first sign of attack.

“I will now hand out more detailed reports to all the squad leaders.” He began passing out data pads to those gathered around him. “Everyone meet with their squad leader for your current assignments. Lambda Team will meet with me since their squad leader is currently presumed dust.”

“Let’s go,” Ajaya caught hold of Isabelle’s hand and wove her way through the crowd to where Alex was waiting against the west wall. “You can meet with my squad.”

They got there to find Alex frowning at the data pad, Monica bursting out into tears, and Xeris staring blankly into space.

Nicolas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Terrible…” he shuttered slightly.

“We’re lucky we didn’t lose you,” Alex said quietly. “If you’d still been in the drawing room when the windows went…” He trailed off with a little gulp.

“I’m all right,” Nicolas insisted, smiling weakly at the little pat Monica managed to give him on the shoulder.

“I know Buffy’s not technically a member of the squad,” Alex began, “but you’re probably all noticing that she’s not here. I just wanted to assure you all that she’s fine, not injured or anything. She’s just waiting with Spike until he regains consciousness. It looks like he’ll be OK, too…”

“Thank god they were wearing their rings,” Monica commented between sniffs.

“Reminds me,” Nicolas toyed with the ring on his hand, “I should give this back…”

“Not yet,” Alex informed him. “You’re going to need it this afternoon.” He flashed the data pad in their direction, showing them their assignment. “We have the dubious pleasure of searching the remains of the medical wing for survivors,” he sighed. “If there’s anyone who doesn’t feel able to accomplish this task…” He trailed off and looked at the assembled faces.

Monica managed to pull herself together and nodded firmly. Everyone else indicated their willingness to help as well.

“Let’s go then,” Alex ushered them out the door. “What kind of sick bastards attack a hospital anyway?” he muttered furiously under his breath.

Ajaya couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

* * *

“Holy shit!” Isabelle’s eyes widened in amazement at the twisted shrapnel before them. “There’s no way anyone survived that!”

“Keep your pessimistic comments to yourself,” Alex snapped, giving her a dark look.

Isabelle thought about giving him a sour glare but decided that now was not the right time. She leaned back against a fence post beside Ajaya and watched several people walk around the rim of the destruction, moving large blue tarps with them as they went.

“What exactly are they doing?” Isabelle wondered curiously.

“My guess is that they’re covering the area with a tarp before we began digging through the wreckage,” Ajaya answered, “in case there are any vamps in there that would be dusted by the sun.” She watched several of those strangely short people – as in, shorter than she was, short – with the funny-looking capes surround the arc of tarp.

“How are they going to get it up—Oh!” Isabelle cut her question off abruptly when the answer to her question made itself apparent.

The ‘capes’ of the small, petite figures expanded, revealing their true purpose. Ajaya and Isabelle watched in amazement as the large butterfly wings extended, and the butterfly people took to the air, pulling the tarp up with them.

“OK, I wish I could do that,” Isabelle commented, awed when they came to graceful, light landings on top of the wreckage and fastened the tarp in place, creating a sort of a tent safe from the daylight.

“All right, let’s move in,” Alex said once he’d gotten the go-ahead call from one of the butterfly people. “Remember to keep your ears open for any sounds of life…”

Isabelle and Ajaya managed to end up side by side in the search through the rubble. After a while, even their combined Slayer stamina began to fade after lifting heavy metal beams over and over again and depositing them in piles to be cleared to a dump.

So far the excitement of the afternoon had been the discovery of two bodies: the first a human patient, and the second a Velik nurse. The second discovery had pretty much broken up Xeris, and Alex had ordered him off the job.

All in all, it was very discouraging…

“This is hopeless…” Isabelle was just saying for the umpteenth time when a shout from Monica sent everyone running in her direction.

“We’ve found someone!” she cried out in delight.

In the squeeze of the crowd, Isabelle just barely managed to see a head and arm protruding from the wreckage.

“What is it?” Ajaya demanded, unable to see over any of the spectators.

“Vamp. Still undusted,” Isabelle informed her.

“OK, people, clear out,” Alex managed to push the crowd back by the tone in his voice alone. “She needs room to breathe…or, er…you know what I mean. We’re going to need someone strong to help lift off this beam. Gupta, Navarro? You here anywhere?”

Isabelle and Ajaya came forward as the crowd parted around them.

“Gupta, you’re the lightest,” Alex said. “You take the far end.” He gestured to the ragged edge of the metal that was a good twenty feet within the rubble. “Be careful not to shift anything.”

Ajaya nodded nervously and began to carefully pick her way through the center of the destruction, wincing every time she felt the debris move beneath her feet. She finally reached the far end without creating any landslides.

Several other people with super-strength were now standing at various places along the length of the beam. They waited for Alex’s command before all lifting simultaneously.

Even with another Slayer, two vamps, and three other assorted demons helping her, Ajaya found the weight of the beam almost unbearable. They inched it sideways and forward with agonizingly slowness, the rubble shifting dangerously under Ajaya’s feet in warning.

After an eternity, she finally heard Alex shout that she was clear of the wreckage, and she gratefully set the beam down.

By the time she rejoined Isabelle, there was already a flurry of action around the newly-discovered survivor. Mere minutes later, they’d been hijacked to carry the stretcher and, along with Nicolas and the ever-important ring, made their way carefully to the makeshift infirmary in the war room.

“We need immediate medical attention here!” Nicolas called out to one of the doctors.

Soon the oriental vampiress had been taken from their care, and doctors and nurses scurried around the victim, cleaning up wounds and feeding her blood.

Nicolas sat against the wall in exhaustion, and Ajaya and Isabelle joined him.

“She’s lucky to be undead,” Isabelle commented. “The rubble must have shielded her from the sun.”

Nicolas nodded. “She would have died if she were anything but a vamp,” he agreed solemnly. “It looked like the rubble crushed her rib cage. That’ll take one hell of a long time to heal…” He let out a deep unnecessary sigh and stood again. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” he informed them. “You two get back to the blast site. Tell Alex I’m going off to tell Lambda Team that they haven’t lost their leader after all…”

* * *

No more survivors had been discovered in the rest of the excavations. The final tally was eighteen dead. Serious injuries had dropped to twelve over the course of the evening, and Isabelle had dropped in for a second to see Spike once he had been dropped from the critical list. He had still been unconscious, and Buffy had been curled up asleep at his side, but Isabelle could already see the improvement in his injuries. It was the first time she’d ever been grateful for vamp healing…well, the second. The first had been when the vamp they’d discovered in the wreckage had survived.

Now, she lay back on her bed in complete exhaustion, staring at the steel plates that still covered every window in the mansion and would continue to do so until they’d discovered what had gone wrong with the security system. It was a bit unnerving, but not half an unnerving as the thoughts that were running through Isabelle’s head at that moment.

It had been in her dream. Someone at SCBI had been trying to kill her. That seemed to indicate that someone here was working with the Watchers’ Council…and she had absolutely no idea who it could be.

She wearily rolled onto her side and watched Ajaya scribble and erase at mathematical calculations on the bed across from hers. The other Slayer was biting at the earpiece of a pair of Coke-bottle glasses she’d obviously didn’t need to see and murmuring softly to herself.

“Ajaya…” Isabelle slowly began.

“Yeah?” Ajaya looked up at her with a sudden start.

“What are you doing?” Isabelle chickened out of her intended question.

“Engineering final,” Ajaya answered matter-of-factly. “I got an extension because of the vamp attack, but I want to get it done before the next semester…” She began babbling.

Isabelle frowned slightly at the other Slayer’s nervous mannerisms. “Are you OK?” she finally asked.

“Fine,” Ajaya insisted a bit too quickly. “Never better.”

“This was really nasty,” Isabelle frowned slightly. “It’s OK if you’re not fine. I’m not really fine, and I’ve only been here for two days…”

“ ‘Nasty’?!” Ajaya abruptly spat. “You have no idea what ‘nasty’ really is! You weren’t out there! You didn’t have to fight them!”

“Woah!” Isabelle raised her hands defensively. “Whatever it was that I said, I didn’t mean it…”

Ajaya clenched her fists and gave Isabelle a furious scowl before bursting out into tears on her bed.

To say that Isabelle was surprised by this sudden mood swing would have been an understatement.

“Hey,” she said softly, carefully resting a hand on Ajaya’s shoulder, “what’s wrong?”

“I killed him.” It was a barely audible whisper.

“What?” Isabelle asked in confusion and disbelief.

“When,” sniff, “we were in the firefight with the snipers,” Ajaya managed to pull herself together enough to speak. “I shot one of them…killed him…”

“Oh.” Isabelle’s eyes widened, and she sat down on the edge of Ajaya’s bed. “Was he shooting at you at the time?” she finally asked.

“Does it matter?” Ajaya shuttered slightly. “He was human, and I killed him.”

“I know I should say something more than ‘bummer’ here, but I can’t think of anything,” Isabelle gave her a nervous smile.

“I-I talked to Fletcher,” Ajaya admitted. “He called me aside to talk to him about it… That’s why I was late getting back here.”

“What did he say?” Isabelle asked curiously.

“The usual,” Ajaya shrugged. “That it was either me or him, and that what I did was no different than saving innocent lives from vamps. H-He said that humans are no different than demons, and that if they try to hurt innocent people it’s the Slayer’s job to stop them…” She trailed off and grabbed a Kleenex from the night stand to blow her nose.

Isabelle’s brow furrowed. “He really said that?” she said in surprise.

Ajaya nodded.

Isabelle’s concerned frown increased. “I’m not sure I agree with that…about the humans being the same as demons part…”

“Well, I would feel just as terrible if I’d hurt Nicky or Xeris or Spike,” Ajaya hastily defended the statement.

“But they’re good demons,” Isabelle said. “What you killed was a bad human. You wouldn’t have felt like this if you’d have killed an evil demon, would you?”

Ajaya paused for a second. “No,” she finally agreed. “I didn’t feel at all guilty after I staked my first vamp.”

“See, there you go. There is a difference,” Isabelle concluded.

“No,” Ajaya said slowly, “there’s not. It’s just a double standard, a prejudice…” She looked thoroughly horrified at the idea.

“They’re demons,” Isabelle insisted. “It’s natural.”

“How is it natural?” Ajaya demanded. “How is it any different from any other prejudice?”

“Demons try to kill people,” Isabelle countered.

“So do humans!” Ajaya protested. “England enslaved my country for years. Does that mean that Fletcher and Spike are both evil by default just because they’re British?”

“That’s different,” Isabelle waved her off. “British people aren’t evil by definition.”

“And demons are?” Ajaya argued.

“Well, yeah.”

“So that means that Nicolas is evil then? And Xeris? And Spike? You sure didn’t seem to find him all that evil when you were checking him out this morning,” Ajaya pointed out.

“They’re different,” Isabelle insisted. “They’re good demons.”

“So, if there are good demons, then demons can’t be evil by definition,” Ajaya declared triumphantly.

“Huh?” Isabelle looked at her blankly and then shook her head. “What were we talking about anyway?”

“You were just reminding me that I was being unfair sympathizing with an evil human but not an evil demon as well,” Ajaya said, cheered up slightly.

“I see…” Isabelle had clearly been lost a few turns back. “Did it work?”

“Maybe,” Ajaya bit her lower lip. “A bit, yeah.”

“Well, then that’s all right then,” Isabelle gave her a small smirk.

“Thanks,” Ajaya said softly.

“Er…no problem,” Isabelle shrugged nonchalantly. “It was my pleasure to do…whatever it was that I did.”

There was an awkward silence between the two Slayers for a while when Ajaya returned to her homework and Isabelle continued to think about the dream she’d had the night before.

“Ajaya?” Isabelle finally repeated her earlier query.

“Yeah?” Ajaya looked back up at her.

“Can I trust you?” Isabelle demanded seriously.

Ajaya blinked at her confusedly for a minute and then nodded. “Sure.”

Isabelle took a deep breath before beginning. “I lied earlier about my dream,” she confessed. “I do remember more of it. There was another figure who attacked me.”

“Do you remember who?” Ajaya asked, her full attention now on what Isabelle was saying.

“No,” Isabelle shook her head. “It wasn’t an actual person really…just a uniform.”

“Uniform?” Ajaya’s eyebrow rose an inch.

“An SCBI uniform,” Isabelle nodded. “I think it was a warning…that someone here is a traitor…”

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