tarnished -- part three -- trekker |
Chapter Four | |
Marching Into the Valley of Death, Otherwise Known as Los Angeles |
“Wow,” Xander said. “You know those ads, that say ‘See beautiful Los Angeles, California?’ I’m foreseeing some serious need for a new advertising slogan.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, “Like... see smoldering wreckage. Uh, but you know, I can think of some people who would so go for that.”
“Like us,” Willow said, “Apparently.”
“Always up for a bit of smoldering wreckage, huh, babe?” Kennedy said.
“Oh, yeah. Definitely one of my more attractive qualities.”
“Hey, I think it’s kinda sexy,” Kennedy said.
Giles decided that was his cue to get as far away from that conversation as possible
They’d stopped here in the mountains on the outskirts of the city, in their fleet of busses, to give the Slayers and Watchers and various support staff one more chance to rest before entering the city and, thus, the fray.
It was a stunning sight. The city was nearly in ruins. The suburbs were mostly untouched, yet, though, still a strange sprawl of green across the tan of the desert. The heart of the city though... it was a war zone. Many of the skyscrapers still stood, but there were plumes of smoke everywhere, like small tufts of weeds. Parts of the city had been razed nearly to the ground, frightening patches of flat amongst the vertical architecture elsewhere. All around, the girls were in groups, staring out at the destruction and exclaiming at it.
They all seemed so young. The average age was around fourteen, actually. They’d divided them up and assigned Watchers and older Slayers to each platoon, but still... this was a war that would be fought, and hopefully won, by adolescents.
Many of the Slayers were hardly battle-tested at all.
They had no choice, he told himself again. The force amassed in LA was growing by the day. They’d have to defeat the forces already there and find some way to close the portal that had somehow opened, and if they failed... if they failed, once again, the stake was the world, and the lives of every human everywhere.
Giles walked to the edge of the bluff, and wondered if maybe he was getting too old for all of this.
Just then, there was a crackle of magic behind him, and he turned just in time to catch Ethan as he stumbled.
“Er. Hello,” he said.
Ethan answered with a grimace, then stepped back and touched just beneath his nose, then glanced at his finger.
“Splendid. No nose bleed. So...” he stopped, staring over Giles’ shoulder. “Oh my.”
Giles turned back to the horrible view.
“I know. Fortunately, most of the population’s evacuated.”
He glanced back after a moment to find Ethan looking around at their... army, he supposed was the correct term.
“Awfully young, aren’t they? Do they know anything?”
”They are. But they’re Slayers. They have better instincts in a fight than the best-trained soldier.”
“Not really designed for this kind of fight, though, are they?”
“No,” Giles admitted. “But they’re the best hope we have.”
“Lucky us.”
***
They gave the girls two hours, and then they headed in. The eerily quiet, abandoned streets had quieted the chatter, and now the girls just stared out the windows, quiet, pale, tense. Some seemed afraid. Many, though, scanned the empty suburban houses and lawns like hawks seeking prey. They were tensed, not with fear, but anticipation. Ready to fight.
Giles had seated the youngest Slayer, Katie, beside himself. Back when they’d assigned seats, he’d worried that she’d be afraid. She wasn’t, though. She had the same watchful predator’s pose as the older girls. One small hand curled tight around a stake, the other splayed against the window.
He’d only brought her because she was one of the best. She’d thrown herself into the training with enthusiasm and now she could bring down even the oldest girls with ease. Even Buffy had to struggle to best her in a fight.
Still, the girl was barely ten, and his heart was pounding now with the wrongness of it. Wondering if he’d learned nothing. Now he was head of this damned Council, and the first thing he was doing was bringing a ten-year-old to a war zone.
She looked back at him.
“How long ‘til we can get out?” she asked.
He leaned out into the aisle a bit to see through the windshield. Ahead of them, the city and the smoke loomed.
“Soon as we find somewhere we can set up a defensive position,” he said.
Perhaps another child would have asked ‘when’s that?’ but Katie just nodded tightly and turned back to the window.
Ethan, sitting in the aisle leaning against the seat in front of Giles, raised his eyebrows, but didn’t comment.
By the time they left the suburbs and the city rose above them, everyone was silent.
***
Just inside the city, they found their defensive position. A stretch of raised freeway, with the city burned to rubble for a patch of blocks around it, had been broken off at either side, creating a raised island accessible by only one entrance ramp. The destruction of the city gave a clear view in all directions.
Along the way, the Slayers had spotted groups of demons, increasing as they went.
They parked the busses below the freeway and climbed the ramp.
They found a massacre.
The evacuating residents had been trapped here, by the fallen segments of the highway, and there was bumper to bumper traffic. No one alive, though. Bodies. Everywhere.
***
It took hours, even with all the strength their army commanded, to clear the bodies, but afterwards, the Slayers' spirits were still high. Giles remembered this youthful resilience, from back in the Sunnydale library that seemed so far away now.
They had sorted out guard duty, parked one of the busses crossways to block the entrance ramp as much as possible, and now the girls were staking out their own, more personal territory. There were fierce battles erupting over who got to claim the luxury cars as bunks... Andrew and Xander had had to intervene over the Ferrari before any blood actually ended up being spilled... somehow that had ended with Andrew claiming it for himself, in fact...
Giles picked for himself a small, rusted pick-up truck right at the end of their stretch of freeway, only feet from where the asphalt ended in mid-air. There was a gap of twenty meters or so to where the broken section ended and the freeway picked up again, empty of cars. From the back of the truck, he could see for miles. Burnt, fallen buildings, singed palm trees, and beyond all that the buildings rose up again, huge abandoned hulks that, in the dark, somehow resembled the prows of sunken ships, down in the constant twilight of the deep.
Now and then, he could see movement there, and he knew that was the enemy.
He felt safer, here, though, where he could see them.
He heard a small scuff and turned to look, expecting it to be Ethan.
It wasn't.
Katie climbed up into the back of the truck, silently, and crawled over beside him, sat down and leaned against him. For a moment, he battled the instinct to put a comforting arm around her. He'd told himself, constantly, that he should treat her like an adult, because she was a Slayer. He gave up the fight quickly, though, and held her.
"Are you all right?" he asked, though he could see no reason why she should be.
"Yeah," she said, then, after a moment of quiet, she said, "I can see them."
"Yes," he said.
He wondered, for a moment, if she was afraid, but when she spoke again, it was to say, "When can we fight?"
A Slayer. Always.
"Tomorrow," he said. "At daybreak. We need rest, and they'll be weaker by day."
She nodded, and remained leaning against him.
"Do you have a place to sleep?" he asked.
"Yeah. With Lisa and Emma," she said.
Lisa was sixteen, and had taken the younger Slayer under her wing. She'd had a younger sister back home.
"Good," he said.
She remained at his side for a while, silently, then, just as silently slipped out from under his arm and walked away into the dark.
Ethan chose that moment to appear, himself.
"She's a little one," he said.
Giles nodded.
Oddly, it hadn't occur to him until then, but she reminded him of Brianna.
As he and Ethan rolled out their sleeping gear in the truck bed, he remembered shouting at Robson, about what he'd do if Bri were called. What was *he* doing? Now? The only answer he could come up with, though, as he stared up at the stars, was he had no idea.
tarnished -- part three -- trekker |