The Seventh Slayer

By Kantayra

Chapter Twenty One

“If I didn’t know better,” Clifford Fitzpatrick said with narrowed eyes, “I’d say you were backing out of our…arrangement.”

The static-y image of his unlikely ally on the viewscreen quickly denied the accusation. “There have just been complications lately…”

“Like not warning us in advance of the invasion?” Fitzpatrick commented.

“I didn’t have time,” the traitor insisted. “It was all announced at the last minute.”

“I suppose your earlier warning that we should move the project elsewhere shows at least some reliability…” Fitzpatrick mused.

“The project is all right then?” The voice at the other end sounded relieved.

“All we need is the girl,” Fitzpatrick agreed.

“Now?”

“Now. We’ve waited too long as it is. Sooner or later Price will track us down…and I’d rather it was later.”

“When then?”

“We’ll make the exchange tonight,” Fitzpatrick informed the blurred image. “Just make sure you stick to your part of the bargain.”

“Y-You’ll have her,” the voice sounded a bit nervous, “just so long as you carry through…”

“The deal holds then,” Fitzpatrick said with a small smile before turning the monitor before him off.

* * *

Ajaya yawned. The gesture of boredom had no effect. In fact, no subtle hints of any sort had any kind of effect. Ajaya was becoming rapidly convinced that Xeris didn’t have the deceptive skills necessary to be the traitor. And that was in addition to the fact that his current subject was the top ten thousand reasons he would never betray SCBI…

“…And, thus it was that Fletcher Price’s resourceful leadership saved the entire Setax colony from annihilation,” Xeris concluded story number one-too-many about how wonderful SCBI was. “All of the Veliks liberated were allowed to return to our home dimension, three phases over.”

“Uh-huh,” Ajaya hoped that her disinterested look would clue him in to the fact that he had been talking way too long. It didn’t work. Ajaya cursed herself for the umpteenth time for being too polite to just tell Xeris to shut up for two seconds.

“That was just prior to the Watchers’ attack on the Weresi household, of course,” Xeris segued right into the next in the seemingly endless tales of SCBI’s liberation of the Velik population. “The Weresi’s were an ancient family, stemming far back to the very beginnings of the conflict between the Veliks and the T’Liff…”

If Ajaya had to hear another demon family genealogy, she was going to scream. Quick, distract him! Her mind screamed. Get him talking about anything else!

“Why don’t you go back?” she blurted out at random.

Xeris gave her a curious look.

“I mean,” Ajaya hastily explained, “why don’t you go back home, too? Everyone else is. There’s no need for you to stick around here…not that I’m trying to get rid of you or anything!” she hastily amended.

He nodded slowly. “I understand your question,” he informed her.

“Uh…good,” Ajaya paused, waiting for more. It didn’t come. “Aren’t you going to answer it then?” she finally asked when the silence became awkward.

“The answer requires much consideration in order to be phrased perfectly,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Uh-huh,” Ajaya propped up her chin with one hand.

There was a bit more silence.

“I am from a warrior family,” Xeris finally said.

Ajaya waited for him to continue. He didn’t. “And?” she prompted.

“It is the duty of all warriors to repay the debts of war,” he clarified.

“So, your people owe SCBI so you’re helping out?” Ajaya asked.

“That statement is oversimplified, but essentially correct in its basics,” Xeris agreed. “SCBI gave my people new life, so now I owe them mine.”

“Do you take everything this seriously?” she asked curiously.

“I am from a warrior family.”

“Yeah, but…don’t you ever take a break?”

“I am from a warrior family.”

Ajaya sighed. The Velik Demon was starting to sound like a broken record. “You were on the Weresi household,” she prompted him, deciding that the epic stories of his people’s war with the T’Liff was better than trying to get him to improvise in a conversation.

Xeris nodded at the reminder. “The head Weresi house at the time of the First Rift was Kayata the Sixth…”

Ajaya prayed for someone to save her.

* * *

What neither of them realized were the events that had just been set in motion halfway across the globe.

Simon Denton paused for a minute and shut off his acetylene torch to wipe his brow. While the majority of the wrecked wings of SCBI Central had been effectively sealed off against the chill winter winds, a lot of the electrical and heating vents were still exposed.

He had spent the better part of the day here, in the main heating duct that had previously gone into the Wiccan Temple. It now came to an abrupt, jagged end less than a dozen feet away from him, and the opening needed to be closed before the heating bill went through the roof…more than usual, that was. A snowy climate combined with six Pyrals as residents made for a steep enough bill already.

Simon took the opportunity to give himself a brief break, pulling the heated thermos of coffee Willow had prepared for him and taking a deep drink. The warm liquid almost instantly restored the warmth to his stomach. He only wished it would extend down to his fingers and toes as well. Why, oh why, had the Watchers decided to cause major property damage right before the first real cold spell of the year? Only last week he’d been able to ride his bike, and now he was bundled up in a winter parka and still freezing…

Clank!

Simon paused his inward musings at the strange metallic sound. He looked nervously about himself, making sure that none of the damaged infrastructure was in danger of collapsing around him. Everything looked all right. It must have just been the metal shifting in the cold…

He picked up the torch again to resume his work.

Clank! Clank!

He froze. There was that sound again. And this time it had sounded eerily regular…

Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.

The sound continued to pulse in a slow, regular rhythm. Simon tried to place the source and, despite the echoes of the duct, quickly came to the conclusion that it was coming from his left…just beyond where the vent broke off and was exposed to the chill New York winds…

He activated his torch just to make sure. It never hurt to be overly cautious…

He crept slowly toward the weakened edge, trying to make out the source of the sound.

Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank…

It seemed to be getting closer down, almost as if it were moving up the side of the building…

Simon felt the metal shift underneath him and realized that he couldn’t go out any further, or the damaged metal wouldn’t hold his weight.

That meant all he could do was wait to see what was approaching…

Clank. Clank. ClankClankClankClankClankClankClank!

He held the lit torch up before him when it seemed that the whatever should be coming right up through the opening…

And nothing came.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and in that moment he was besieged.

The torch fell from his hand as he was knocked flat on his back. All he caught was the glimpse of something very dark as it passed right over him and seemingly flew down to the other end of the shaft.

He just barely craned his head around in time to check which way the thing went. He blinked for a second. What he thought he saw was one blackened – tail? – something going down each fork in the corridor.

He grabbed hold of the torch again and carefully crawled over to where the think had disappeared. In both directions, there was nothing as far as the light of the torch could see. He nervously reached into his tool kit to find his communicator and report the incident, not knowing that it was already too late…

* * *

“Ajaya!”

Ajaya breathed a sigh of relief to be rescued to Xeris’ latest tale but frowned when she saw a very distressed looking Isabelle.

“I…er, need your help,” Isabelle amended, abruptly noticed Xeris’ presence, “with that project.”

Ajaya nodded in understanding. “Right,” she agreed. “That project… Xeris, I have to go help Isabelle, like, now.”

He didn’t seem offended in the slightest, and Ajaya quickly followed the other Slayer out into the cold drizzle.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

Isabelle’s lips were pressed into a hard line. “C’mon,” she insisted instead. “I want you to see this because I’d really hate to jump to any wrong conclusions…”

“What?” Ajaya was concerned now.

“Follow me,” was all Isabelle said before she led Ajaya out into the winding paths of the garden, the gray sky above them booming as if aware of the importance of this moment…

* * *

“Is that it?” Aida asked anxiously, gesturing to the small pot of bubbling liquid in the direct center of the makeshift pentangle they’d been using since the temple was destroyed.

Willow shook her head. “We did it right, didn’t we?” she turned to their most familiar Familiar that they summoned for all spells of this importance when Lily wasn’t able to help…which she most certainly wasn’t at this point.

He human-shaped spirit nodded mysteriously and gestured to the boiling liquid.

“We’re all good then,” Willow said nervously. “I guess the only thing we have to do is to test it out…”

“If it doesn’t work?” Aida asked nervously.

“It’ll work,” Willow insisted firmly. She reached out for the pot…

And screamed.

Aida watched in horror as a back shadow snatched hold of her wife from behind. Instinctively, she gestured to repel the attacker, but at that moment something leapt upon her back as well.

She herself managed to let out one scream before the shadow surrounded her entirely, forcing its way past her lips and down her throat. The world seemed to fade slowly away to nothing as the black took complete control of her mind…

It was only a second later that Dawn ran into the room, anxiously responding to the sounds of screams. What she saw made her blood run cold.

Willow, Aida, and their familiar all sat stock still within the pentangle, their bodies frozen in unnatural positions of horror.

Cautiously, Dawn crept closer, trying not to look too closely at the screams of pain and horror still on their faces. And that’s when she noticed it.

Aside from their positions, they all looked entirely normal, except…

Except their eyes. Through the open lids, the shadow looked back out at the world.

Dawn ran for help.

* * *

Ajaya gave Isabelle an odd look and opened her mouth to speak, but the other Slayer shushed her and gestured for her to move over to the window. Ajaya looked through the small hole in the paint, and her eyes widened at what she saw.

Monica sat with her back to them, staring at the blank monitor before her, her shoulders slumped. Across the rickety old table from her, Nicolas sat with his arms folded on the table, apparently discussing something very serious with her.

Ajaya frowned when she couldn’t make out anything more than their muffled voices through the window. She turned to Isabelle and mouthed ‘door?’

Isabelle nodded, and they both moved over to the door, listening against the crack and trying desperately to hear the voices over the drizzling rain.

“I don’t think I can do it,” Monica was saying.

“You’re backing out now?” Nicolas countered. “The worst part’s already over.”

“That’s debatable,” she argued. “You don’t know how he is. He’ll be extremely displeased if I fail him in this.”

Nicolas’ voice was definitely angry now. “You’ve dragged me this far, Monica. You can’t just pull out now!”

“There’s got to be another way!” Monica protested. “This is too hard…”

Thunder boomed in the background, and Ajaya and Isabelle missed Monica’s next words. They turned to look at each other and nodded in mutual understanding…

* * *

Everyone in the Devonshire house stood stock still in shock and horror.

Unconsciously, Buffy’s hand sought out Spike’s, and she held onto him as if her unlife depended on it.

“All of them?” Fletcher asked in stunned disbelief.

Dawn nodded through her tears, her image displayed in the center of the viewscreen. “W-We don’t know what it is yet, but every single Witch… You should have seem them, Fletcher,” she whimpered softly.

“I-I have to get back,” Fletcher said numbly, still trying to absorb that fact that every single Witch at SCBI HQ had been taken out. “We’ll get help…the other units…”

“The attack’s not isolated,” Dawn abruptly shook her head, forcing her mind back to the important matters at hand and not the dead, frightened looks on Willow and Aida’s faces. “We’ve been getting reports from LA, Tokyo, P-Paris…”

Jeren took that moment to run into the room. “The Mages!” he exclaimed in alarm, pointing back into the bedroom-cum-temple he’d just left behind. “They’re—” He froze when the looks on everyone’s faces told him that they already knew.

“A worldwide attack,” Fletcher said in disbelief. “Who—?”

“The Watchers,” Alex said with a furrowed brow. “They did it…”

* * *

Isabelle and Ajaya quickly ran to the far side of the garden, well out of hearing – and seeing – range of the shed.

“Heard enough?” Isabelle asked.

Ajaya nodded numbly. “It’s them,” she agreed.

“Or one of them, and the other’s in on the secret,” Isabelle added. “There was only one attacker in my dream…”

“I don’t think this is time to split hairs,” Ajaya decided. “We have to do something. Now.”

“Great,” Isabelle nodded. “I’m all good with the not letting them try to kill me. So, what do we do about it?”

“We need help,” Ajaya decided. “We need to tell everyone, and—”

“They’ll believe us?” Isabelle asked incredulously. “After all, we’re the newcomers here. They all think of Monica and Nicky as family…”

“We’ve got Slayer dreams; we’ve got the two of them hiding out with communications equipment in an abandoned shack,” Ajaya summarized. “I think we’ve got a pretty good case…”

“Let’s go then,” Isabelle agreed, heading back towards the house.

“Wait,” Ajaya caught her arm. “One of us should keep an eye of them, just in case…you know…”

“They run for it?” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “They don’t even know we suspect them!”

Ajaya frowned. “We’ve been asking an awful lot of questions lately…” she pointed out. “Besides, it can’t hurt to be extra careful.”

Isabelle sighed. “Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll make sure they don’t anywhere; you go get help.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ajaya was worried. “I mean, if your dreams are right, it’s you they’re after…”

“There’s no way I’m going to try to convince the squad that they’ve got traitors in their midst,” Isabelle crossed her arms in front of herself defiantly. “You’re the one who’s been playing Holmes all along; you turn the crooks in to the authorities.”

“You’re not worried…?” Ajaya insisted.

“No. Just hurry, and bring people. Strong people. Get Buffy and Spike,” Isabelle requested.

“Right,” Ajaya nodded. “I’ll be back soon.” And with that she dashed off into the rain and back to the house.

Cautiously, Isabelle approached the shed once more just to make sure the pair hadn’t slipped out during their conversation. She listened at the door for a second and ascertained that two voices were still inside before she sat just around the corner from the door and waited for Ajaya to arrive with the cavalry…

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