Pathways - Chapter 9
The fight was on. The two Slime Demons that Lindsey had brought along to help him ambush Angel were not the only ones he had enlisted. The pair of young women counted a total of six demons in the room. They attacked anyway.
While Nina had heard vague comments about Lindsey from Angel she had never laid eyes on him. She did recognize his scent though as being the human male she had detected at the kidnapping site. Then the demons counterattacked and the brawl filled the room.
Buffy was in her element. She had trained with a sword of course and took no time at all to regain her comfort level with one. She acknowledged that Nina had been right, bare hands were not the best thing to use to handle demons. Even Mister Pointy would be relatively useless although it was her favorite weapon.
Steel clashed against horns and claws. Buffy was pleased at how agile Nina was, dodging one way to avoid a blow that would have removed her head and then back the other to duck a swipe that would have split her in two. Buffy herself spun around, her arms extended and one Slime Demon looked surprised. That look remained even as the head, no longer attached to the torso it had started the day with, sailed through the air.
The two women cut through the demons. A second one fell to the Slayer and another proved it couldn't function when Nina divided it in half. Buffy realized that the other blonde was much stronger than could be accounted for by simple training. Somehow she was drawing on her werewolf side, using its strength and speed even though she remained completely in her human form.
Speaking of humans. The unknown man who seemed to be the cause of all this trouble was making a break for a steel door set into the far wall. From the look of absolute rage on his face she suspected that Angel was probably on the other side of that door and that the man did not have good intentions toward her former boyfriend. She doubled her attacks but two of the remaining demons came at her and she had her hands full parrying their attacks. She saw the door being flung open and caught a glimpse of the stake in the man's hand as he rushed through the opening. She couldn't stop him. Hopefully someone else could.
"Nina!" she cried. "The door! GO!"
Angel had been straining at his chains ever since Lindsey had left him. Time was unclear; it could have been days although he was willing to bet it was more like hours. He didn't feel too hungry and that, after all, could well be the result of the beating his body had taken.
Never one to wait for rescue, he had been grinding the locks on the chains against the wall ever since he had been left alone. Not that he expected to do the Count of Monte Cristo thing but any weakening he could produce in his bonds might be needed sooner or later.
He had heard the faint murmur of conversation through the door and once he had heard Lindsey's voice raised in anger. "Must have got some word about his vampire squad," Angel had chuckled to himself. Then he had heard a loud crash and the sounds of battle. Interspersed among the growls and moans of the demons he thought he could hear human voices. Female human voices. Was it Buffy and Nina?
The door crashed open and Lindsey rushed in, an even wilder look in his eyes than Angel ever remembered seeing there. In his right hand he clutched a stake. With an inarticulate cry he rushed towards the still bound vampire.
"Nina!" he heard Buffy's familiar voice cry out. "The door! GO!"
Lindsey spun to face the doorway and sprang forward just as Nina rushed through the door. Her eyes fixed on Angel; the blonde woman was caught off guard when Lindsey leaped at her. She went sprawling, banging her head on the stone floor. The sword, black with demon blood, fell from her hand. Lindsey raised the stake.
Time seemed to slow and then stop for Angel, like an old fashioned film being run one frame at a time. He saw his beloved Nina helpless on the floor. He saw the stake in Lindsey's hand rise, the point aimed at her chest. He knew that a pierced heart would, obviously, kill her as dead as any vampire and if she died so would their baby. He saw that she was dazed and unable to shift to her werewolf form, where she would be nearly invulnerable.
The tendons stood out on Angels arms as he pulled with every ounce of his vampire strength, augmented by the fear he felt. And the cuffs held.
But Lindsey had gone only half way again in his thinking. The cuffs were designed to hold any vampire, nearly any creature. But the bolts securing the chains to the wall had not received the same amount of attention. They both pulled loose and Angel covered the distance separating him from the pair on the floor in one tremendous leap. The chains swung from his wrists.
Lindsey looked up just as the enraged vampire reached him. One chain encircled his wrist, jerking him away from his intended victim. The other wound around his neck. His eyes met Angel's and at least one wish of the ex-lawyer was granted when Angel pulled and the chain snapped his neck like a rotten twig.
Angel glared at the body. "Okay, this time I killed you. I hope you're happy now."
A clang from the doorway drew his attention. Buffy stood there, her hands resting on a sword, point downward. None of the demons sprawled on the floor behind her in the other room moved.
"Someday you'll have to explain that remark to me." When Angel opened his mouth she waved a hand. "I said 'Someday'. Right now you need to see to Nina."
"I'm all right, I think," qualified the other blonde girl as she gingerly sat up. "Although I have one massive headache. Does anyone know if it's safe for me to take about a dozen aspirin?"
"We'll have to read the book you brought home when we GET home," replied Angel as he helped the fallen woman to her feet. He examined her eyes. "Both pupils look the same. No sign of concussion but I think it would be a good idea if we saw a doctor."
"We?" smiled Nina.
"We," confirmed Angel.
A clearing throat brought their attention back to the third member of their trio. "I really, truly and sincerely am happy for the pair of you. However before you drop by the local ER shouldn't we make an effort to get those chains off you Angel? Right now it looks like you and Nina were playing some kinky game that got out of hand."
Nina snickered. Angel chuckled. then all three of them were laughing. Angel searched Lindsey's pockets, finding the key to his shackles. They fell away and he rubbed his wrists, appreciating how much lighter they felt and how good it felt not to have the cuffs digging into his skin.
Meanwhile Buffy was poking all the bodies to make sure they were dead and Nina was searching through a desk she had discovered. With a grunt of satisfaction she held up some file folders as well as a small metal box.
"Lots of good stuff here, sweetheart." Before Angel replied Buffy interrupted.
"Aren't you moving ahead awfully fast Nina? We've barely had even one date yet?" The Slayer batted her eyes. A pair of groans answered her. "Okay, okay, I'm just joking. 'Sweetheart', she says," Buffy mumbled under her breath.
"This guy over there, Lindsey McDonald was behind all this. I found the receipt for the purchase of those Yawish Amulets that let those vampires get through our previous magical barriers. There are some rambling notes in long hand. He wasn't very fond of you was he..." Nina paused and glared at Buffy, who returned an innocent look, "Darling?"
"No he wasn't." Angel heaved a sigh of relief. "Well then that's over. But you better bring the folders and what's in the box?"
"Money. A LOT of money in fact." Noticing the looks both Buffy and Angel were giving her she continued. "Hey, do you have any idea how expensive college is now? Just think how bad its going to be in eighteen years when she," Nina patted her stomach," Is ready to go."
"She?"
"She." the female werewolf firmly replied.
Angel looked at Buffy who shrugged. "She'll get no argument from me."
Before the trio left the old warehouse they piled all the bodies together and set that room on fire. They wanted the evidence of what had happened to be destroyed, or at least contaminated enough to be explained away. Angel also hoped this would finish off Lindsey for good.
A hasty visit to the hotel allowed everyone to clean up and change clothing. Buffy had summoned her limo and retrieved a suitcase from it containing clothes and personal items. They used the limo to run by a doctor's office that Buffy's connections found to make sure that Nina was indeed suffering from nothing more than a bump on the head. Once that was confirmed they returned to the Hyperion just before the sun came up and slept the entire day away.
