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Notes, Part One, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five (final part)
Failure to Communicate, Part Two
A few hours of research later and Wesley had done most of the uncovering of information. None of it good. Riley, for instance, could have lived a long time not knowing that there really were alien creatures whose veins ran with acid. If the Netraxan demon they were tracking was part of the Gktr’kl family, then she would gather with the rest of her clan to perform an annual cleansing ritual – to free any of them from contaminants who had been touched by unclean humans in the interim – which culminated in tearing their stolen infants limb from limb and eating them. Riley couldn’t help thinking that some counselling about not sleeping with things that brought you out in hives might be a better approach, but it didn’t seem to be one the Netraxan species had considered. A clan group could be as small as three but could be as many as forty. Three was doable, despite the acid-for-blood problem, but forty was going to need a platoon. Something he didn’t have any more.
Riley had also discovered that although Cordelia seemed to be shallow and shoe-obsessed she also researched as if she meant it, and that Wesley knew far too much about demons to be healthy.
Now Wesley rubbed his right eye wearily and then winced as the pain reminded him that it was bruised. “You see what this means?”
Riley saw all too clearly. “It’s not enough to save Winters’ son. We have to find out where the ritual is going to take place, so we can save all the babies.”
The surprise and relief on Wesley’s face that he had grasped it was almost insulting. “Precisely.”
“I suppose this wouldn’t be a good time to point out that what we could really do with around now is a bunch of highly trained demon-killing soldiers with lots of high-tech equipment?” Xander observed. As Wesley and Cordelia both looked blank, he added: “Riley used to be part of a super secret demon-killing commando operation.”
“Not Brachen demons though, right?” Cordelia said at once.
Riley noticed Wesley making urgent gestures to him, and followed his lead to give a firm assurance that no, absolutely no Brachen demons had ever been captured by the Initiative. He had no idea what a Brachen demon was, as they didn’t give their HSTs the same names that the Watcher’s Council did, but he did know that he absolutely did not want Cordelia coming after him with that stapler.
“Good.” Cordelia spun around from the computer screen and gave him a dazzling smile. “That means I don’t have kill you.”
“That’s…good to hear.” Riley wondered what it was about Sunnydale that produced these dangerous young women, and what it was about him that rather liked them being that way. He could still remember Buffy slamming him down onto the mat with all that super power of hers, and the unexpected thrill that had gone through his body at the realization that this slender, beautiful girl could snap him like a twig. Probably not a realization to share with the military psychiatrist when he had his next assessment….
It was a shock to realize that he would never have another assessment, because everything he had trained for, everything he had believed in, he could no longer trust and was no longer a part of. Somehow he had ended up on the side of the people who sheltered vampires and harboured werewolves, and he understood why that made him look like a traitor, but he knew absolutely that he had chosen the right side. Which didn’t mean that it didn’t cause him a pang in moments like these when he realized that, like a bereavement, he was letting go of the military only by degrees, and that it hurt to know he was outside of something that had once kept him safe. It occurred to him that Wesley must have undergone something of the same process when he was fired by the Watcher’s Council.
“I think we can take it from here.”
Riley looked up in shock to find Wesley giving him a ‘you can go now’ smile that looked strange battling all those bruises.
“What?” Xander articulated, saving Riley having to.
Wesley tapped the book in front of him. “We now know that the Gktr’kl clans sacrifice their infants in group gatherings, meaning that Mr Winters’ son is in no immediate danger, until the next gathering. By which time, Angel will be back in LA and can decide how best to proceed.” He gave a light laugh that sounded entirely false. “It would be a very unfortunate coincidence indeed for the day of the clan sacrifice to coincide with the day when Winters decided to…”
Which was when Cordelia jolted back violently, with a hand clutched to her forehead. Apparently, years of fighting demons had given Xander unusually good reflexes, because he caught her and held her up even as Riley sprang across the room to help. It was a little like holding a human eel, the girl snapping backwards and forwards in their arms while she emitted odd little half-sentences that Riley assumed were the result of her synapses overloading from what seemed to be a stroke.
“…abandoned warehouse…big pentagram…lots of candles….ooh – babies!”
Xander looked as distressed as Riley felt, stroking the girl’s dark hair back from her face every time another whiplash of her spine sent it tangling across her eyes. She was clutching Xander’s arm so hard as she staggered and twisted that Riley thought the boy would have bruises there for a week. Riley tried to help, but her struggles were too violent, and he snatched at the phone instead, beginning to dial 911.
A bony finger came down to disconnect him. “What are you doing?” Riley rose to his feet, angrily. “That girl needs an ambulance.”
“Actually, she needs a notepad.”
Confused, Riley watched as Wesley picked up a notepad and pencil, both of which he held out as the last convulsion finished. “What is up with you, Wesley?” Xander tenderly stroked a last tangle of hair out of Cordelia’s eyes, holding her trembling body in his arms. “Cordy? Are you okay?”
Cordelia snatched the pad and pencil from Wesley and scribbled rapidly. Riley watched a little dazedly as Wesley wordlessly followed up the pad and pencil with two aspirin and a bottle of water, that he opened for her. She dropped the pad on the table and took the tablets and water, gulping down the pills with long, cooling swallows of water. Only then did she seem to become aware that she was more or less sitting on Xander’s lap, with his arms around her. “Do you mind?” she demanded.
“Cordelia,” Wesley said in mild reproach. “Xander stopped you from falling.”
“Yeah, well, he forfeited the right to have his hands where they are right now when he got smoochie with Miss Adorable Little Redhead TM.” Xander snatched his hands away from her at once, looking stricken. Cordelia blinked, mind effortlessly shifting tracks. “How is Oz anyway?”
“Still a werewolf, but unvivisected.” Riley gazed at the pad on which an address had been scrawled and a picture of a goblet. “What just happened?”
“Cordelia had a vision.” Wesley hooked a stray strand of the girl’s hair behind her ear and gazed at her with quiet concern. “Are you all right?”
“Apart from the road-drill in my head you mean? Peachy.”
Wesley smiled, apparently reassured by her sarcasm, and Cordelia gave him a glimmer of a smile back, before pressing her hand harder against her forehead. “If I ever meet those Powers, I’m going to poke them with something pointy.”
“A what?” Xander demanded. “She had a what?”
“A psychic vision from the Powers That Be,” Wesley offered as if it were an explanation, even though a quick glance across at Xander’s expression, confirmed for Riley that it really wasn’t. Wesley ducked his head to meet Cordelia’s eye. “What did you see?”
Cordelia stabbed a finger at the address. “The baby-eating scalies are having their supper party tonight on the docks. We’ve got maybe an hour to get there, which would be fine, except we have to go to Winters’ first. They’re going to be killing him in twenty minutes.”
Riley watched the weariness wash over both their faces, and then Wesley was resolutely pulling an axe from a desk drawer and Cordelia was picking out a crossbow.
“No way.” Xander stepped in between them. “Cordy, you just had what looked like the world’s most painful seizure, and Wesley looks like he got chewed up and spat out by a cement mixer.”
Riley snatched up the piece of paper before Wesley could reach for it. “Xander’s right.”
Wesley glanced at Cordelia. “I trust you memorized the address?”
She nodded, resolute despite the obvious searing pain in her head.
As Cordelia and Wesley both stepped around him, Xander hastily backed up to block the exit. “And how are you going to get there anyway?”
“We have a car.” Riley also stepped forward to intervene, trying to give them an encouraging smile when he felt like tackling them both to the ground. “We can take you there.”
Ignoring both of them, Cordelia said to Wesley. “You have your bike, right?”
“Of course.” Wesley headed purposefully for the door, Cordelia right behind him.
“Excuse me.” She glared with laser bolt of death eyes at Xander and Riley – who had to admit he might well have backed down at that point. Xander, however, seemed to have encountered a full on Cordelia Chase glare before, and glared right back.
“No way in hell, Cordy. Or any demon dimension of your choice. You let us come with or we handcuff you both to the desk.”
Her glare was on full beam now, outraged and furious, and Riley found a whole new admiration for Xander’s nerve. He might not have super strength or soldier training, but he evidently had testicles of steel.
“I don’t date you anymore,” Xander continued implacably. “You have limited ways to hurt me.”
She held up the crossbow as if she meant it then narrowed her eyes and lowered it to point it at his groin. “Don’t bank on it.”
Wesley hastily shoved the crossbow down so it was aimed at the floor, but gave Xander a glare of his own. “I really wouldn’t advise provoking Cordelia when she’s just suffered a vision. Nor would I recommend getting in our way.”
Xander held his gaze steadily. “I meant what I said, Wesley. You’re not getting out of here without us. I’m not pretending to be Buffy, but we both know I could take you right now and I’m not letting either one of you walk into that kind of danger without back up.”
Riley held up his hands. “Look, we all want the same thing here – to save those babies from being eaten by demons. Tell me any way that isn’t more likely to work with four of us helping rather than just two?”
That seemed to get through as nothing else had. A look of defeat washed over Wesley again and he shrugged. “By all means. Let’s go together. As you put it so nicely, how can we refuse?” He sounded bitter as well as tired, and Riley didn’t blame him. They had just told him in front of a girl he had evidently already failed to protect once that he wasn’t up to protecting her or himself and they all knew it. That had to hurt.
They made their way down to the car in silence, and when they reached it, Wesley held open the passenger door for Cordelia and then wordlessly slid into the back next to Xander.
“You’ll need to direct me.” Riley gave the girl what he hoped was an encouraging smile, but she kept staring straight ahead, still angry.
“Take a left,” was all she said. They drove out to do battle together against baby-eating demons in a tight-lipped silence in which the bruises throbbing on Wesley and Cordelia’s faces seemed to make too loud a clamour to allow for any other conversation.
***
They made it through Winters’ front door with thirty seconds to spare. As Cordelia snatched up the baby and Wesley grabbed Winters and ushered him out, the demons were coming in through the back door to assist his furious ‘wife’. The next few minutes were crowded, scary, and painful. Yet, it was as he stabbed a Netraxan demon with a screwdriver that Xander threw him that Riley realized he was actually enjoying himself. He left the screwdriver in the wound, to avoid any acid blood spurting out, and watched the creature topple and fall with a sense of a job well done. At least he felt useful when protecting people from evil baby-eating demons. All the same, he was glad that Winters’ wife let her glamour go and reverted to her real form as she threw herself at him, screaming with rage. Otherwise there was no way that he could have just snapped her neck; and even with her undoubtedly scaly and clawed in appearance, he couldn’t help thinking of the way she had appeared when they opened the door, and giving a little shudder as he let her fall.
Xander didn’t exactly fight like a soldier, but he fought as if he meant it; even when two demons came straight at him, it didn’t seem to occur to him that he was outnumbered and outmatched, and that not getting between them and their fleeing prey might be a good idea. He punched one – not very efficiently but it still slowed it up – and stabbed the other – unscientifically but with a lot of force – in the side, jerking out of the way of the acidid spurt of blood as if he had been doing it all his life. That one backhanded the boy straight into the nearest wall, but Xander just gave himself a shake and staggered back to his feet, diving after the demon as it set after Cordelia and the baby, and wrapping his arm around its neck. It elbowed him repeatedly in the guts, making him grunt and gasp and look as if spewing was not out of the question, but he still hung on.
Even as Riley buried a borrowed dagger in the neck of the Netraxan demon he was fighting and dived across the room to help Xander out, he was filled with a whole new appreciation for the young man’s courage and determination. It was scary enough to think of Buffy being out there every night from the age of sixteen, fighting these things, but scarier still to think of a sixteen year-old Xander and Willow doing the same thing without super powers. Knowing how bruised he invariably was after fighting demons, and that was with military training, equipment, and protective clothing, he was amazed that Xander was still throwing himself into the thick of things.
He punched the demon hard in the stomach and received a back hand for his trouble, which knocked him across the room.
“Xander!”
Wesley looked gaunt and grim, appearing in the doorway and throwing the boy a sword as if he and Xander had fought side by side for years. As the demon slammed Xander against the kitchen cabinets and made to go after Wesley, Xander hung on grimly with his left arm and drove the sword straight through the demon’s ribs, hollowing his stomach to avoid the blood spurt. Its claws were an inch from tearing off Wesley’s face when it went down, gurgled, and lay still.
Riley staggered painfully to his feet, holding his ribs but feeling the adrenaline flowing. He hurried over to offer a hand to Xander, who grimaced as he let himself be pulled up. Wesley surveyed the dead demons whose gore spattered the kitchen in all directions. Where the blood had landed, it had eaten through the formica, paint and floor tiles, but by a miracle it had not touched them.“Are you okay?”
Riley dusted himself off, catching his breath. “Fine. Where’s Winters?”
Wesley bent and picked up one of the Netraxan daggers, wiped off the blade, and then pocketed it. “We put him in a cab and sent him to the police station. Detective Lockley may not like us much, but she does recognize that demons are a genuine threat to the civilian populace.” He looked at his watch and grimaced. “We don’t have a lot of time to get to the docks.”
Cordelia appeared at a run. “Wes!”
“I know.” He held out his hand for the keys. “You’d better let me drive. I know the way.”
When Riley tossed him the keys, Wesley turned on his heel and headed for the car without another word. Despite having been through a battle together, Wesley still felt grim and distant, and Riley felt a flare of annoyance that was doused almost immediately when he saw how stiffly Wesley was moving. If the man’s body was as bruised as his face, he must already feel as if he had been ten rounds with a Netraxan, and, from what Riley could tell, had received no medical treatment or even much rest since. He glanced at Xander and saw that he had a cut above his eye that was trickling a thin line of blood. “Are you okay?”
Xander nodded, wiping his head. “Ask anyone in Sunnydale – I have a thick skull. You?”
“I’m good.” Riley didn’t mention his aching ribs, and noticed that Xander was making a conscious effort not to limp. He really hoped there were going to be only three demons waiting for them on the docks, and not forty. They had to run to catch up with Wesley and Cordelia, not certain that those two would wait for them. Given the way Wesley already had the engine running as they threw themselves in the backseat, Riley thought it was quite possible that one more second’s delay and the man would have gone without them.
It was starting to get dark, that granular twilight in which oncoming headlights dazzled out of slanting rain, but Wesley drove as if he had grown up in LA, far too fast, cutting in on the inside, running lights, foot to the floor all the way. Three seconds into the journey and they had both been scrambling to do up their seatbelts. Now, Riley saw that, next to him on the back seat, Xander was also pressing back against the upholstery with his foot pressed to the floor as if that could reduce the speed and their fender-bending closeness to the van in front of them. Wesley stepped hard on the brake, wrenched the wheel around and found space that didn’t exist by borrowing liberally from the sidewalk. Next to him, checking the map, Cordelia didn’t so much as blink.
“So, you do this often?” Riley asked, still pressing back against the upholstery.
Cordelia shrugged. “The Powers – omnipotent and all but not too hot when it comes to understanding how the LA rush hour impacts on an ETA.”
They ran a red light at an intersection, taking a left hand turn across the nose of three lanes of rain-hazy headlights and made the corner on two wheels to the blare of indignant horns.
Riley risked a glance at Xander who gave him a sickly smile. “At least fighting acid-bleeding baby-eating demons is now looking a lot more inviting than staying in this car,” Xander murmured.
Winding the window down in the hope of gulping in some fresh air along with the gas fumes, Riley caught the salt scent of the sea. They must be getting close to the docks – Wesley cut in front of a six wheeler on the inside, wrenched the wheel to the right, and ran another red light – if they lived that long.
“Here! It’s here!” Cordelia pointed to a turning between warehouses that they had absolutely overshot and could not possibly make –
Wesley hauled on the handbrake and spun the wheel around. There was a horrifying split second when Riley and Xander were both hurled forward, then yanked back by their seatbelts. Riley waited for the vehicle to just rip open, and then it was obediently jerking around on its squealing tires with a whiplash ferocity that jolted straight through Riley’s spine. Wesley was flooring the gas pedal even before he released the handbrake. The car flew through the air at rocket ship velocity before hitting the ground so hard that Riley swore he felt a crown crack.
“My suspension,” Xander gasped helplessly.
Wesley said: “Was there a number on the warehouse?”
Cordelia closed her eyes. “E-48.”
Wesley floored the gas pedal until metal screamed as they snarled up between boxes and crates. Cordelia’s cry of recognition had both Xander and Riley tensing for another horrific handbrake turn, and as Wesley wrenched the wheel around, Riley felt the jolt jerk from the soles of his feet to the top of his skull.
“Please make him stop doing that….” Xander whimpered.
Riley thought Wesley was going to drive straight into the doors of the warehouse, but he veered away at the last minute and just spun the car around sideways, leaving it with the engine running, before snatching up a sword and heading for the small entrance door at sprinter speed. Cordelia was a foot behind him, long dark hair flying loose, and an axe gleaming in her hand. As Wesley ran he was wriggling out of his jacket, holding it in the hand that wasn’t gripping the sword. Riley yanked at his seatbelt and then struggled out of the car, with Xander on his heels. Wesley slid back the door and seven demons turned in expectation, clearly anticipating the arrival of Winters’ late wife and her borrowed baby. Wesley sprinted across the warehouse while the Netraxans were still staring at them in confusion. Riley understood why – the head of the demons had a baby on the altar and a knife in its hand – but that didn’t make it any less crazy.
As Wesley ran through their ceremonial pentacle, the demons snarled with rage and the priest-demon drew back the knife to drive into the baby’s heart. Which was when Wesley threw the jacket he carried over the baby and sliced down with his sword to cut off the demon’s stabbing arm. As the demon screamed with rage and pain, Wesley ducked the spurt of its blood and then kicked it hard in the midriff to drive it and its acidic gore a few paces further back. He whipped the smouldering acid-spattered jacket off the baby before the blood ate all the way through the cloth and held it up as a shield as he drove his sword into the demon’s heart. More blood spattered on the jacket as Wesley ducked behind it and then threw the cloth down fast before it ate through and reached his skin.
“Cordelia, get the babies,” he shouted. “Stay away from the demons.”
Which was when a Netraxan grabbed him and hurled him into a pile of crates. There was no time to see if Wesley was only winded or had broken every bone in his body, as the other demons were trying to get to the baby on the altar. Riley swung the axe he had borrowed, hoping that Xander would protect the girl, and got the demon who had tossed Wesley ten feet through the air so easily between the shoulderblades. It roared and staggered, and he had to twist his head out of the way as he yanked the axe out, to avoid the blood spatters that came with it. Another chop with all his strength and it went down and didn’t move. He turned to see a demon lash at Xander with raking claws and the boy dance back, jerking his head out of the way like a prize fighter hanging on for the next bell and then brandishing his sword in warning.
“Bad baby-killing demons,” Xander told them. “Stay.”
Xander was blocking the demons’ access to Cordelia, who was, in her turn, blocking the route to the screaming babies who had been dumped in what looked like a demonic shopping cart. Riley snatched the baby from the altar and ducked a vicious lash of demon claws, kicking out hard to send the demon staggering backwards. With the baby still clutched in his arms, he spun and kicked again, a move he had been taught by Buffy – something that probably looked a lot more graceful when she did it, but certainly was effective as his right foot hit the demon hard in the chest and sent it flying. He thrust the baby at Xander and slammed his elbow into the head of the next demon that launched itself at them.
Wesley staggered out of the boxes, shaking his head, but still alive and apparently in one piece. He was even still holding his sword. As Xander shoved the wailing baby in with the other wailing babies and punched another demon to hold it off, he shouted: “Cordelia, get the babies in the car and away from here.” A demon grabbed him around the throat and began to make what seemed to be a serious attempt to pull his head off.
“Yeah, because that will only leave the three of you trapped here with the killer demons and no escape!” she shouted back, grabbing hold of the shopping cart all the same. She looked across at Wesley for confirmation and he nodded.
“Do it,” he said, before bringing up his sword to ward off the dagger with which a Netraxan demon was making a serious attempt to fillet him. Riley kicked out at the demon trying to get to him, torn between helping Xander, helping Wesley, and helping Cordelia, and in the meantime, with his hands full trying to keep back a demon he couldn’t afford to let bleed on him.
She was running full tilt for the door when the demon jumped out of the shadows and grabbed her by the hair, dragging her away from the shopping cart, which went speeding on towards the open doorway. At the sound of Cordelia’s scream, Xander abruptly went limp, surprising the demon tugging at his neck, and as it slackened its grip, flung his head back with skull cracking force. The demon went down like a felled ox, crunching the back of its skull on the concrete. Xander was running even as it hit the ground. He flung himself at the demon slashing at Cordelia, tearing it away from her with sheer determination, and flinging it into a pile of crates.
Wesley took a slash to the arm from the Netraxan dagger and stabbed it through the heart with his sword, twisting his body away to try to escape the spraying blood as he pulled out the blade. He was only partially successful and as he saw the blood spatter on Wesley’s shirt, and heard the man cry out, Riley slammed his elbow into the frontal lobe of the demon clawing at his neck with strength enough to feel bone crunch and flung himself across to help the Englishman. He grabbed a double handful of Wesley’s shirt and ripped it from his body with all his strength, throwing it away from both of them where it hissed and sizzled, emitting a choking cloud of green smoke.
“Cordelia….” Wesley spun around, coughing from the fumes, and with blood running from his mouth.
Riley twisted to look as well, horrified to see that Cordelia lay crumpled in broken crates, and one demon had Xander’s arms pinned behind his back while a second had its claws raised to slash open his stomach – and he and Wesley were on the wrong side of the warehouse to help. As he began to run, Wesley did the same, and he automatically reached out to steady him without looking at him, just habit now to know where the civilians were, know where the demons were, and to try to keep the first protected from the second. They were still twenty feet away when Cordelia threw herself off the boxes, snatching up the knife Xander had dropped when he was flung away from her, and, as the demon brought down its clawed hand to scoop out the boy’s guts, stabbed it two-handed in the back. As it screamed with rage, she jerked out the dagger and stabbed it again and then again, staggering as she pulled out the knife, and barely twisting her head away in time as its blood spattered across her blouse.
By a near-superhuman effort which Riley guessed must come from his desperate need to get to the girl, the boy slammed the demon holding him back against a pillar savagely, and then twice more, until it went limp. Then Xander flung himself across to Cordelia, who was desperately pulling at her smouldering blouse. He helped her to rip the flimsy thing off and they threw it away, she wiping her fingers desperately on her slacks, hair tangled and blood trickling from a cut on her head. Xander wiped at her skin with his bare hands, trying to get off the last spatters and then scraping the burning liquid off on his jeans. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her in close. “It’s okay,” he said. “Cordy, it’s off.”
For a moment as she clung to him and he held her so tightly, his arms wrapped around her and his mouth against her forehead, Riley wondered if they had both forgotten that they were no longer dating and this was not the person to whom they owed the most comfort. Then Xander was stroking her hair back from her face with great tenderness. “Are you okay?”
Riley felt something twist inside him, because the concern for her in Xander’s eyes was so raw and for that moment as she clung to him, it was clear that she was nothing other than comforted by him. And then another second passed and Xander seemed to realize that he had pressed against his body the bare skin of a woman wearing only a bra and slacks whom he was no longer dating, and Cordelia became aware of the same thing, pulling away in embarrassment. She turned her back on him to slip her arms through the sleeves of his jacket and button it rapidly, and when she turned back it was with a conscious effort to appear in control. “Thank you,” she said coolly.
Xander forced a smile. “You’re welcome.”
Riley realised he still had hold of Wesley’s arm, as if he thought the guy might fall over without him to support him. “Are you okay?” As he turned to look at him, he saw the criss-crossing cuts all over his bare shoulders and chest and couldn’t stop his exclamation of shock.
Wesley took a step away from him, the sword slipping from his fingers in his exposure, while Riley couldn’t help staring in horror. There were so many bruises, the clear imprint of a shoe marking the left side of his ribs, and then all those marks left by fists where Faith had apparently used him as a punching bag before cutting him with something that had left this ugly tracery of scabs. It was worse somehow that there was a pattern of sorts, starting from his left shoulder and heading in a sweeping semi-circle across his chest to his right shoulder. The cut on his right cheek, and that livid black eye, which had looked so bad before, now receded as if Riley was staring down a tunnel and all that was in focus were those cuts, slash after slash, shallow and spiteful and so carefully symmetrical that there was no question that they had been cut slowly, quarter of an inch by quarter of an inch.
Riley knew he should stop staring, but it was as if Wesley were a car-wreck and he just couldn’t stop himself from looking even though he knew he should avert his eyes.
Wesley closed his eyes, clearly feeling humiliated by this exposure of his injuries, and started to say: “It looks worse than…” but couldn’t quite get himself to say aloud so absolute a lie.
Belatedly recovering, Riley almost tore his combat jacket in his speed to get it off and wrapped around the man’s slashed shoulders, fingers shaking a little with shock as he did so. Not meeting his eye, Wesley swallowed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Riley still felt cold with shock. He had seen some horrific things that demons had done, but they usually just wanted a meal, they didn’t tend to cut up their victims slowly for fun. It made it so much worse that this was a human being who had done this, and not even some insane stranger who came out of the dark and vanished back into it. He had held the girl in his arms who had done this, touched her skin, kissed her lips. She had felt so fragile, and it made it worse that a part of him still felt sorry for her. She had been even more damaged than he realized. The proof of how much she had been hurt written all over Wesley’s body in cuts and bruises, her own version of pay it forward carved into his skin.
“Why did she…?”
Wesley zipped up Riley’s jacket. It was far too big for him, but the breadth of the shoulders ensured the sleeves fell so far that only his fingers were visible, completely concealing those rope burns and cuts around his wrists. “Payback. I wasn’t a very good Watcher to her. And because she wanted to make Angel angry.”
The cold shock was giving way to a hot anger, because Angel had gone away and left them after this? “Did it?” he said tautly. “Did it make him angry?”
“Not as much as she hoped.” Wesley met his gaze for the first time, weary and hollow-looking, as if what Faith had done to his skin was nothing to what she had done to him inside. “Angel recognized that it was a cry for help.”
Riley felt the bitterness flood his mouth, those slashes and cuts still dancing in front of his eyes. “Oh, was that what it was?” He had a whole lot more he wanted to say about what it looked like to him, which was sadistic and protracted torture at the hands of an expert who, however troubled, was surely in less need of help and protection than the victim of her anger.
The wail of crying babies permeated and Wesley seemed glad of the interruption. “We’d better call Detective Lockley.” He gingerly picked up his acid-pocked jacket and delved into its ruined pockets, digging out a cellphone.
Wesley placed the call, dealt with what seemed to be a fairly pissed cop, who nevertheless promised to come down with social services at once to collect the babies, and then wearily stumbled out to the car. It was only after he had opened the trunk and looked into the unfamiliar contents that he seemed to remember this wasn’t Angel’s car. A shimmer of culture shock running through him like a heat haze. “Oh…” He put a hand up to his clearly thumping head, leaning against the bodywork. “We need rock salt.”
Xander pulled back the blankets to produce a box of rock salt, along with all manner of weaponry and a few spell books. “So, they’re the dissolve-y kind of demons, not the dismember-y kind?”
Wesley nodded, swaying a little. Riley made to take his arm and then thought of those cuts and held off. “Why don’t you sit this one out, Wesley? Xander and I will get rid of the bodies.”
The man probably would have argued, already trying to struggle upright, but Cordelia swiftly plonked a crying baby in his arms. “Here. Make soothing noises. I’ll take care of the others.” Wesley looked down at the tiny wailing thing in shock, and then slowly stretched out a finger which it gripped tightly. His expression of disbelief at how tiny it was coupled with reverence for how miraculous all its perfections were, was one that Riley had felt cross his own face a dozen times when introduced to new cousins, but it certainly took Wesley’s mind off anything except trying to comfort it. Cordelia picked up the other crying baby and rocked it gently.
As he backed towards the warehouse, Riley looked back at them, Angel’s two skinny, dark-haired associates in their outsized borrowed jackets, both murmuring soothing things to wailing infants, while looking so battered and exhausted that a strong gust of wind would knock them over. He turned to find Xander also gazing at them.
“I’m not leaving them here.” Xander’s expression dared him to argue with him and Riley shrugged.
“I’m all for kidnapping them if you are, but I don’t think they’re going to come willingly.”
Xander shook his head. “Have I mentioned today how very much I don’t like Angel?”
To a background music of wailing babies, Riley and Xander wearily salted Netraxan demon corpses. By the time the beautiful but bad-tempered police woman had arrived with the representatives from social services, the demons were only faintly bubbling circles of green acid on the warehouse floor. “I’m going to need a statement,” she said tersely.
“Can’t it keep?” Cordelia demanded. “We got less sleep than you did last night, especially Wesley – I at least got to catch a few hours being unconscious.”
Detective Lockley did cast a quick appraising glance over Wesley, but didn’t visibly soften. “Maybe you two should be more careful about the company you keep.”
Xander stepped forward angrily and Riley hastily caught his arm and stepped in front of him, trying out his best reassuring smile. He flashed his ID, hoping she didn’t insist on running it through the system and telling the Initiative where he was. “I’m sorry, Detective. This is army business now. We’re happy to pass the babies over to you to be reunited with their parents, but we really can’t divulge any information about how we retrieved them.”
The detective looked a lot less impressed than he had hoped. “I can tell you how you retrieved them – you chopped up a bunch of crazy baby-sacrificing demons with various illegal weapons and then threw salt on their remains.”
“I can’t confirm or deny that, ma’am.” He kept smiling as blandly as possible. “But I really do need to get Mr. Pryce and Ms. Chase back for their debriefing now.” She gazed at him long and hard and he kept gazing back, still keeping it light and friendly and absolutely not backing down an inch.
She snorted in derision and shrugged, gave Wesley and Cordelia a look that was half pitying and half contemptuous, and then turned away. “Tell your boss, he and I still have unfinished business,” she told them, but then she was walking away, and Riley grabbed Wesley’s elbow in one hand and Cordelia’s in the other and quick marched them to the car.
“Just so you know – you’re not going to be debriefing anything, soldier boy,” Cordelia told him firmly. Given that the girl was so exhausted she could barely put one foot in front of the other, Riley was once again forced into unwilling admiration for her stubborn determination to pretend that she and Wesley were coping just fine and needed no help from anyone.
Xander pointed at Wesley. “He’s not driving.”
Wearily, Wesley slid into the back seat. “I assure you, I only break traffic laws when time is of the essence.”
“I don’t care.” Xander firmly slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and drove back to the offices of Angel Investigations at a very pointed five miles below the speed limit.
***
I stand corrected
The .. this light into the sidekicks, and only them, is so wonderful.
Riley didn't get any credit by far. Ever. I mean yeah I admit I myself found him a bit lacking though sympathetic, it's through a friend and thinking about it I realized he just got played up in a bad light. He fought and fough for Buffy and for what he thought what he thought was right even as he got shafted and had his world view in a turvy. I am so glad that you reflected all that was good in him, giving him the chance he barely had.
This story makes me wish that he had joined the AI team. It would have been LOTS of fun
~Tai
Oh and Maturing! Wes, Cordy, and Xander!
Yeah. I like them in that pinniacle of almost all grown up. Where they have yet to suffer all that horrible betrayl that's heaped up in the end seasons. Not to mention. I love Anya but shoot, the Xander/Cordy undertones in this make me SOOOO very happy.