Not Very Nice People - Chapter 7/11: Outstanding Problems free porn video

NOT VERY NICE PEOPLE by Crazy Baron Chapter 7: Outstanding Problems Synopsis: The forces of darkness are putting their plans in motion, and Mike Caldwell is caught in the middle. Meanwhile, his mind itself is becoming a battlefield between two personalities, his own and that of his character-- and the odds don't look very promising for him in either conflict. ***** I can think of no better testament to the extent that either reality or my perception of it had warped than the fact that less than 48 hours after leaving my home for Texas, I found myself in a fictional universe, discussing the matter of thwarting a disastrous demonic invasion of the world. To be more precise, the location was Sunnydale, California, and the person with whom I had been conferring was Rupert Giles. He, however, saw me only as Buffy Summers, his currently unofficial Slayer charge. Giles cleared his throat and said in a reassuring tone, "I admit we have rather a lot to deal with right now, but I hope you're not too disturbed because of it. As I said, I will delve into every source I can get my hands on to find out more, and Willow has also agreed to drop by later today to help me. I should imagine we'll come across something useful sooner or later." "I don't doubt it for a second," I said. "Who knows, it might even happen that the evils we are struggling with will clash with each other. The Mayor hates to have his plans interfered with, as we have seen, and Angronok regaining access to our dimension would be a serious inconvenience to him." "Here's to hoping we get to witness a death match between the two," I remarked with a grin. "I'll bring the popcorn." As there were no more pressing issues at the moment and no news or fresh information to share beyond what we had already discussed, I took my leave a little later. With the weather being as nice as it was, the early afternoon was perfect for a leisurely stroll through the town. I took what I believed was a shortcut and, sure enough, soon discovered I no longer had any idea where I was. I needed more than a full hour to get back to where I lived in this universe. I was now all but convinced that the town actually changed its plan every night. I had been positive that going down a particular street and then turning right would take me to the vicinity of the Summers house, but instead, I was soon wandering through a district of apartment blocks. Even though the town both appeared and actually was far more hospitable in daylight than after dark, my confusion over the lay of the land was as great as ever. After a while, I reached the mall and spotted three fashionably dressed girls going on foot in the opposite direction, two blonds and one with Asian facial features and jet black hair. All were in their late teens. I dimly recognized them as Buffy's classmates but couldn't recall their names. As we passed each other, they smiled and one even said "Hi!" to me, to which I responded in like manner. I was sorely tempted to ask them for directions to Revello Drive, but since they probably considered me--or Buffy, that is--weird enough as it was, I kept my mouth shut. It would do a major disservice to her reputation if the popular girls in her class were to hear her asking where her home was. I eventually found my way to the main street. It was a fairly narrow and generally modest stretch of road going through the heart of the town; small shops, stores and caf?s flanked it tightly on both sides, leaving barely enough room for two drive lanes between the sidewalks. The sunshine had enticed the locals into leaving their homes in droves, and they were bustling everywhere, going into the stores and coming out of them, parking their cars, sitting at the tables underneath the awnings of a coffee shop or simply passing the time outside. Judging by their looks, they were completely ordinary and average people; one could have collected a similar group of folk by going to any small or medium-sized town with comparatively affluent population on the southern West Coast and then rounding up random passersby on the street. There was not the tiniest hint anywhere that they were conscious of the supernatural events plaguing the place, let alone that none of this was supposed to exist, except in works of fiction. The atmosphere was so natural and placid, so perfectly familiar that it only strengthened the sense of total unreality which the town center and the majority of the townsfolk exuded. I would have liked to stop there for a while, possibly get a cup of coffee and simply watch the people go about their business or lack thereof. In fact, I soon developed a curious desire, almost an urge, to visit a shop just to see if there actually were customers and staff inside, together with products or services one could buy. A persistent little voice in the back of my mind was telling me, despite all my senses contradicting it, that the street and the whole town could and should have been nothing but a movie set, built on the backlot of some film studio, then dressed up and arranged to wait for my arrival. But if I went somewhere entirely unexpectedly, maybe I would be able to sneak a peek at the flip side of the cardboard walls and backdrop paintings and catch the actors unawares, playing cards and smoking cigarettes on their break, before they could assume their roles and interact with me as if they were meeting Buffy Summers. Was there actually coffee in those mugs, or were the caf? patrons only miming and drinking nothing? Did any of the books on the shelves in that bookstore have legible writing on their pages? And, for that matter, were "Joyce" and "Dawn" studying their scripts right now and together rehearsing the lines they would say when I got home? I was passing by the cinema, still immersed in these thoughts, when a voice called to me: "Miss! Hey, miss!" Both because my preoccupation with the philosophical aspects of this experience and because I was again unaccustomed to being referred to as a female, I was slow on the uptake and only reacted when the caller was directly in front of me and at a short conversational distance. "Excuse me, miss!" he repeated one more time to get my attention. "Can I talk to you? This won't take a minute, I promise." If every other person around me was eminently normal, the man who was accosting me assuredly stood out from the crowd. He was about average height but stocky and chubby, making him look a bit shorter than he was, and dressed in a tattered flannel shirt, cargo shorts and sandals. His crooked legs and thick arms were both covered in thick reddish hair that seemed to shine in the bright sunlight. However, what made the greatest impression on me was his face and head. It would not have been accurate to describe the man as downright ugly, but he was by no means handsome either. He had a large, bulging forehead, small, very deep-set eyes, an unevenly shaved chin, a bulbous nose and stringy, greasy hair with a hairline that had receded all the way to the top of his head. "I'm Jamie," he introduced himself. "Nice to meet you. My friends call me the J-Man, or sometimes J-Star, so I'm fine with you calling me that too. Do you like superhero comics?" His speech, expressions and movements were restless and intense. "I can't say I do," I replied in a non-committal tone, hoping that he would be discouraged by my lack of enthusiasm. "Here, check this out." He was carrying a portfolio of some kind, and he pulled out a stack of papers stapled together, pushing it to my hand. "That's my own work. Made by hand." "Okay," I said and took a look at the papers. They were printed copies of a comic, done in black and white and drawn in a messy, childish style. It didn't take a trained critic to realize that Jamie's work lacked both artistic merit and commercial potential. "What do you think?" Jamie inquired and went on before I could answer, "You see, that's the first part, the origin story for my hero. It starts small and kinda slow, but the action really gets going around half way in. There are two main protagonists, the girl and the guy, and before they go on adventures battling evil they need to discover that they possess this awesome power and then learn to work together." "Right." "The thing is, I consider this my mission," he spouted, and his saliva almost flew all the way to my face. "I don't want to just entertain, but educate too. If you give your kids a comic book they like to read and put in positive messages of, you know, tolerance and equality and all that, they'll absorb it and you're making them better as people and improving the world without anybody even noticing it." "Assuming, of course, that you get---" "I've always been big on equality, you know. Ever since I was little, my mom taught me that men and women are just as good and they both deserve to have the same rights and privileges. We need to make that happen, out and out. The strange thing is that it shouldn't be something we strive for, it should be true for everyone everywhere, you know, by default." "This is all very good, and I'm sure you've put a lot of thought into your philosophy, but I---" "What I'm going to do over the next issues of my comic is have the heroes travel around the world and use that as a framework, you know, to expose the misogyny that still festers in every culture. It needs to come out into the light so we can fight it. Do you know why male dogs lick their nutsacks?" "I haven't thought about that much," I confessed, taken more than a little aback. "Uh... because they can?" "Exactly!" Jamie exclaimed in excitement. "You're getting my point! That's the kind of thing that confronts you everywhere. It needs to be faced, and my stories help you do that. I love to employ allegories and all that stuff in them, you know, not to make it too obvious but so that you get the point if you think about it. You want a rich texture of characters and traits which mix into one, and they can carry the plot and also convey your message." My mind had promptly drawn a parallel between Jamie and another failed cartoonist from my home reality. If Dan Mancini had not been as severely disabled as he was, he might well have left home, traveled to California to pursue his dreams and then, most probably, turned out like Jamie. One appeared to be echoing the other in an uncanny manner. This observation gave me a mischievous idea, and I couldn't resist airing it. "Jamie," I piped up as he was drawing breath for a continuation of his sales pitch, "do your comics have a flying superhero mouse from Mars? That could be a worthwhile addition." "What?" he blurted out, and I was already beginning to regret my lack of tact. He would easily notice that I was making fun of him, and there was no telling what his reaction would be. Then, bafflingly enough, a wide smile appeared on his face. "A flying mouse from Mars? Hey, that's goddamn genius! Why didn't I think of that? Wow!" "You should give him a name which references pop culture and his inner strength, like how smart he is," I added, egging him on shamelessly. "Something to stimulate the readers' imagination." "You're brilliant!" he shouted. "That's a fantastic way to comment on alienation and otherness--you have a literal alien in the cast! Besides, I can also satirize Superman and the worship of masculinity through him because he can fly! Oh yeah, I'm absolutely going to introduce the guy in the very next issue. He'll fit right in!" Jamie dug out another stapled issue of his comic from the portfolio, along with a pen, and began to scribble notes on the margin furiously. "Uh, what's your name?" he inquired me without taking his eyes off the paper. "I've got to give you the credit for creating the character." "You don't have to. It was just---" "No, no, I most unquestionably do. What's your name?" "Um... Cindy Caldwell." "Is that, like, with a C?" "Yep. C-I-N-D-Y." "Cindy," he repeated and put the pen and the papers back into the portfolio. "Got it! Thank you so, so much! When I get the eleventh book in print, your name will be on it. That's a promise." "Very kind of you," I thanked him and flashed him an embarrassed smile. "Oh, on a different topic--do you know how I could get to Revello Drive from here?" "Revello Drive? Sure! Keep going this way, then take a left and then right. It's the first crossing street." "Great! Thank you!" "No, thank you, Cindy!" Regardless of how confused Jamie otherwise might have been, his directions were correct, and less than a quarter of an hour later I entered the family home at 1630 Revello Drive, trying to seem like a longtime resident who had been out for a casual walk. I had spent the rest of my trip wondering whether Jamie's being at large was proof that even in made-up universes, public healthcare was faltering because of budget cuts. If so, then perhaps Sunnydale did indeed exist on some level beyond pure fantasy or illusion. "There you are, honey," Joyce greeted me happily. She was of course completely unaware of my latest misadventure, and I had no intention to inform her about it. "You're just in time for lunch. Why don't you and Dawn set the table while I take the tray out of the oven." From my previous sojourn in this reality, I remembered Joyce as a good cook, and she had succeeded once again. Sweet potato and chicken tray bake had hardly ever been on the menu at my home, and I was a bit unsure of what to expect as the lady of the house brought the main course to the table, but all my misgivings turned out to be groundless in no time. The food was absolutely delicious. Dawn apparently thought so too since she helped herself to a second serving while Joyce and I were still consuming our first. "Buffy?" Joyce addressed me. My "mother" and "sister" had been chatting almost all the time, but I had been too lost in my thoughts to pay them much attention, thanks to both the food and the information Giles had provided me. For this reason, I was almost startled to be included in the conversation. By bringing me back to the present, Joyce had unwittingly also reminded me of how utterly awkward my situation was. "Yeah?" I muttered hesitantly in response. "I'm going to visit a few art galleries downtown in the afternoon," she said, "and I'm taking Dawn with me. You'll have the house for yourself." The reaction that she had expected was most likely quite different from the one she actually got from me: "Dawn? To visit art galleries?" "It's called improving yourself," the girl pointed out to me in a smug tone. "I'm developing a refined taste in the fine arts, in case you didn't know. Not everybody is just drooling over boys and skipping class day in, day out when they're thirteen." "And I agreed we could stop by the mall on the way back," Joyce added with a smile. "That may have something to do with it." The teen rolled her eyes at her mother but didn't say anything. After we were finished and the table was cleared, Joyce went to get her purse and told Dawn to prepare for the trip. The girl was already wearing light makeup, and she scooted upstairs to fix it and make sure she was presentable according to her own standard. "We'll be back before five," Joyce announced as she closed the door behind her, and with that, the other two Summers women were gone. I climbed the stairs to Buffy's room and sat down on the bed. I had a brief respite before the night would fall and the peaceful town would change into a feeding ground for vampires and various species of demons, as well as a death trap for the blissfully ignorant common person. I was mentally tired but the knowledge that untold horrors and trials of strength very likely awaited me only a few hours in the future kept me wide awake. I would never get truly used to this. I was also acutely aware of the fact that the room, the clothes I wore, the furniture, the whole house and the other two females who made up Buffy's immediate family belonged to someone else and her life. No matter what I touched or where I laid my eyes, I felt I should not have been doing that. On a whim, I got up and moved to the desk. There was a pile of school books that attracted my interest, and I picked the topmost one up and opened it. It was a math textbook, with the homework problems for Monday circled with a red marker. Then came an English literature textbook, followed by her history and biology books. She had an essay on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow due next Tuesday, I noted, and on Thursday there would be a history exam. This prosaic schedule seemed almost comical in juxtaposition with her calling that could easily leave her dead and the Earth at risk of being overrun by demons by then, a contrast that the writers of the show had used to good effect on many occasions. My own high school years were far away in the past, so I would have badly needed a refresher course if I had had to write the English essay or do the biology homework, but a physics postgraduate student would breeze through the math, and as I had always been interested in history, I had faith in my ability in that subject as well. As a matter of fact, I was about to find myself a pen and start happily working on the math problems when a thought occurred to me. I might be able to solve them too neatly, leaving Buffy to wonder who had done them for her and her teacher to suspect she had cheated. The little homework conundrum led to a far more interesting and puzzling reflection. Was there actually a Buffy Summers who existed independently of me? Had she been here before I had been thrust onto the stage in her place, and would she continue from where I would leave off? And if that was so, where was she now? On the other hand, if there was no real Buffy, was this entire universe nothing but a dream or a simulation? It definitely seemed real, at that moment even more so than the life I knew I had back in Greensville. Regardless, I reasoned, the best course of action was to assume that Buffy did exist, and that meant I had to be as careful as humanly possible not to ruin her life. Finally, I again arrived at the burning basic question behind everything else: what was the purpose of all this? I was no closer to solving the underlying mystery than on the day my coffee had inexplicably turned into tea at our kitchen table in Greensville and the insanity with transforming skinsuits had started for me. The math problems, at any rate, had lost their appeal, and I returned to the bed and laid down on my back, staring idly at the ceiling. Joyce and Dawn returned a little after five o'clock. I went downstairs briefly to greet them and then slunk back to my room. Right then, I was keenly aware that I was only pretending to be Joyce's older daughter and Dawn's older sister. The Buffy identity was like a mask that I was forced to wear, and fooling her kind-hearted family members disgusted me. How I had been able to do it for the duration of my previous stay in Sunnydale without breaking down completely was nearly incomprehensible to me. They deserved better, and so did I. There was a late night dinner of burritos, and then I excused myself in my typical fashion: "I guess I need to get going. A Slayer's work is never done." "What kind of demons are you going to face off against this time?" Dawn asked, intrigued. "Horned ones, or ones with huge battleaxes, or ones with- --" "Hopefully none of the above," Joyce cut her off and chuckled softly, with a touch of concern showing through. "Maybe just a few run-of-the-mill vamps," I said. "There's no special occasion that I'm aware of, so I wouldn't be too worried if I were you. I always land on my feet." "Please, honey, take care of yourself." She got up and gave me the customary kiss on the cheek. "Sure thing, Mom." I might have managed to reassure Joyce and Dawn of the relatively low risks of patrolling that night, but I felt anything but confident as I stepped out on the street a while later, with two stakes in my jacket pockets. Aside from the weaponry, I had prepared for the night out by fixing my hair in place with a couple of bobby pins and by changing into a fresh shirt, a plum-colored sweater, women's khaki pants, a brown-red short jacket and boots, an outfit that one part of me considered perfect and another part completely ridiculous for the mission ahead. The darkness had fallen and I was once more on my own, with no one else to rely on. I had ample time to think as I slowly walked down the street, waiting to find trouble or for trouble to find me. In fact, I welcomed the privacy being alone offered, even though it came at the risk of physical violence. Two personalities, Buffy Summers and Michael Caldwell, were now engaged in a constant tug of war inside of me. Sometimes I only impersonated the former, at other times I really was her. It felt completely natural to me at one moment and unbearably fake at the next. It was self-evident that this could not last. Even if I somehow managed to maintain my basic sanity in the middle of all this, the balance of power between the Buffy and Mike personae would eventually change--in her favor. This was her home turf, and even when I wasn't actively identifying as Buffy, I was playing her. My eyes picked up movement ahead, on the sidewalk a hundred yards or so down the street. For a second, I was startled and fumbled for one of the stakes in my pocket until a street light illuminated the indefinite shape and showed that it was nothing more than a teenage boy, dressed in the Sunnydale High basketball team jacket, walking along in a relaxed, forward- leaning posture but with a long, decisive stride. He had a small, round nose and freckles on his cheeks, and brown hair with a slight tint of red. The boy seemed somehow out of place to me, although there was no manifest reason why he would not have fit his surroundings perfectly; a high school sophomore, perhaps, on his way home from hanging out at a classmate's house or a little date with his girlfriend, passing through a typical suburban neighborhood on foot as he had not yet gotten a driver's license or because Dad had told him not to take the family car this time. Then again, this was Sunnydale. He might just as well have been a vampire or an even more fearsome monster in human disguise. As we passed each other, he gave me a cursory look and then assumed his previous casual pose, while I kept stealing discreet glances at him over my shoulder. Little did he know that I was holding a stake in my hand inside my jacket pocket to counter a surprise attack--or, to be more accurate, to increase my chances of getting to keep my blood for my own use, if he turned out to be predisposed by his demonic nature to drinking it. What I had dismissively called "run-of-the-mill vamps" only a quarter of an hour ago, in the safety and comfort of a family home, ought to have been fairly undemanding for me to eliminate, but I was well aware of the fact that it was far easier said than done. On the other side of the street, a middle-aged woman, dressed in a sports outfit, was jogging in the same direction as the boy was going. I followed her too with my eyes, and much the same thoughts came to my mind again. Was she what she appeared to be, a housewife or a working girl in her forties who had the habit of taking care of her health with a late night run around the block, or was I looking at a vampire or a shapeshifter who intended to prey on unsuspecting victims by masquerading as an ordinary upstanding citizen? These ponderings gave me an acute pang of homesickness and a burning desire to be rid of this insanity for good. While my world had more than its share of monsters and creeps, at least they were flesh-and-blood human beings. Not long after, another dark figure separated from the shadows under a palm tree, resolving into a human form clad in a black coat and trousers. I instantly recognized the figure as Angel. "I was waiting for you," he said, "just in case you wanted company." "Oh, right," I replied. "Why not. It's a nice night for a little walk, for people in our line of work." "Unless you've got other plans, I thought we could pay a visit to that mucus demon pit in the woods and take care of it. You did say I never take you anywhere new." "Sounds romantic." I was both relieved and slightly apprehensive to meet him again. On the one hand, teaming up with such a capable fighter as he was dramatically increased my chances of survival, but on the other hand, we were supposed to be romantically involved, and I was unsure how to deal with that aspect of my role. For the Buffy part in me, kissing and cuddling with him would have been something to look forward to, but my own personality was less than enthusiastic about the prospect. "Have you decided yet?" he asked after we had walked together in silence for a while. "Decided? On what?" "Your future. After graduation. You're going to have more than one option when it comes to colleges and studying, or so I understood it." "Oh, it's not... The acceptance letters haven't arrived yet," I stammered, uncertain if this was actually true or not. "And when you factor everything in, I don't think I'm really free to choose for myself. I've got this... this cursed destiny thing that's keeping me here now that..." "Now that Faith turned out the way she did," he completed the sentence for me. "Yep. It all comes back to her." This was another offhand and thoughtless quip which had been intended mostly for my own amusement and which the person I was talking with saw in an entirely different context. "What happened," Angel said in a somber tone, "was hard for both of us, harder for you than it was for me. I hated it, and I have no words to describe how much I hated hurting you. No matter how many times I repeat this, it doesn't seem to get any better." "Uh, no, you shouldn't let that bother you anymore," I told him, desperately trying to recall the event he was referring to. "It's over. Ancient history." "I kind of get the feeling it's not; not really." "Maybe we should, um, take one day at a... Things will sort themselves out, I'm sure. Let's give it a little more time." Our route was taking us past the old cemetery, a logical enough place to check for vampire and demon activity. As it happened, someone was talking with a clear, loud voice near the main gate. We, for our part, became as quiet as we could and approached the gate slowly until we saw two people standing on the grass near the stone wall. I deemed it wise to survey the situation first and barge in afterwards, if at all, so I quickly snuck behind the trunk of a huge tree. Angel followed on my heels. Although both figures were mostly in shadows, one of them was immediately familiar to me. I had once more run into the strange man in the green suit. Even here, in the middle of the night and away from bright lights, he managed to stand out. His attire and behavior were certainly not those of a person who wanted to maintain a low profile and conduct his or her business without attracting attention, the meeting location notwithstanding. "...won't be a problem," the man in green was saying. "I'll have it brought to you by the day after tomorrow, at the latest." "You'd better," the other one responded in a tone of voice that conveyed a thinly veiled threat. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and its end glowed in the darkness as he took a drag. "We made a deal, mate, and I'd hate to have to remind you to stick to it." "Don't worry," the man reassured his partner. "My associate is always as good as his word. Now, I'm going to meet with the Sathir'na demons at the factory tonight, twelve thirty sharp, and things should start moving from there with the Item. I want you and your friends to be there as backup, in case we run into complications." "So you want us to come prancing in and tell the sods they'd better be nice and give the little souvenir to you, or else?" "No. I'd prefer if you could stay outside, out of sight unless I need you. I'm hoping I can conduct the formalities and the ceremony without anyone getting hurt." "Getting hurt, eh?" the other man laughed. As he raised his voice, his British accent became more prominent than it had been before. "That's the fun part of it! Are you sure you've got the right bloke for the job? Your way of doing things sounds a bit namby-pamby for my taste." "Rest assured," the dandy said. "I will sort it out, and you'll be rewarded for your help." "Twelve thirty it is, then," the other man confirmed, took another drag and put his cigarette out. "See you, mate." "See you there." The meeting was finished. The man in green turned around and started walking away down the street, whistling to himself, while the other figure slunk quietly to the graveyard and disappeared behind the tombstones. Although we had only heard a part of their conversation, there was no question that the night would see plenty of adventure and action--or that the green-suited fellow was indeed not as harmless as he seemed on the surface. Especially the words 'Item' and 'ceremony' had been alarming, to put it mildly. We didn't have much time if we wanted to stop him. "Something tells me we have a party to crash at twelve thirty," I said to Angel as soon as I reckoned the others could no longer hear us. "Let's bring our friends too." "Definitely. If the Sathir'na and that guy in the Halloween costume are planning to open the Angronok portal tonight, which is what that sounded like to me, we need to stop them." "By the way, was that other man, the one dressed in black---?" "William the Bloody himself," Angel said. "I would have known him from his smell alone." "What's he doing back here?" "I don't know, but I'd like to find out. Maybe we should ask him a couple of questions when we get around to it. It's probably safe to say he's not in Sunnydale for a vacation or a walk down the memory lane." "I have a suspicion you're right, but there's a black magic ritual for us to ruin first," I said, not having the faintest idea what "factory" the two men had referred to, where it was and how I was supposed to accomplish my mission there without getting killed. ***** As I was to discover, the factory was an old red brick building located on the same side of the railroad tracks as the Bronze and not far from the docks. It had apparently been abandoned quite some time ago and also gutted by fire in recent past, as the roof was largely gone, the walls were marked with soot and the windows were mostly shattered. Trying my best to move stealthily but fast, I had entered it through a side door and was now crouching behind a steel beam on a gangway, looking down on a large hall that was three or four stories high. To augment the stakes, I was holding in my hand a mace, courtesy of Giles. This room had perhaps once served as an assembly or packaging room, but all that was left was a gloomy, partially roofless space, whose floor was littered with broken pieces of wood, scraps of metal and dirt. A faint but bitter smell permeated the air; I assumed it originated from whatever industrial chemicals were still left at the site, mixed with rotting organic materials. The place had been deathly quiet when I had arrived, but suddenly one of the main doors rumbled open, and I could hear several people moving around in the darkness below me. Their heavy, slow tread echoed ominously in the hall, but all I could see were vague silhouettes against what little light got in from the outside. Metal scraped and clanged against concrete, and then someone struck a match. Flames leaped up in a barrel, and they revealed that the heavies were on the scene in full strength. My skin crawled as I watched what I had initially assumed to be a group of people mill around only a few yards away from me. They were humanoid but clearly not human--large and muscular, bald-headed, bearded beings with wrinkly, brown skin and huge, drooping, almost bat-like ears. A thick ridge of skin covered their jawlines, and short spikes protruded from it. All the same, their single most terrifying feature was their eyes: two entirely jet-black, irisless bulging globes in large sockets, surrounded by sagging skin and heavy bone. They wore coarse, loose-fitting garments made of leather and some sort of fabric, as well as boots, but their arms and heads were bare, and I noted with dismay the tremendous size of their limbs and imagined how strong the demons might be. They let out grunts and groans, and two beings on the other side of the room spoke with each other in low mumbling sounds. After Angel and I had reached the nearest pay phone and called him, Giles had advised that the Sathir'na were comparatively civilized, as far as demons go, and possessed no notable magical powers. He seemed to think they were not a particularly great threat as such. Nevertheless, and even with support from my friends, the prospect of having to confront several of those beings at once filled me with unadulterated dread. I counted eight demons around the burn barrel, and there were probably at least a few more further away in the shadows. Right then, I would have gladly traded my wooden stick with a metal head and my make believe superpowers in for Jake's AR-15 and a couple of magazines, but that was not an option here. The group perked up in unison and turned to look towards the main door, which had been left half open. Sure enough, a series of quick, sharp footsteps carried from that direction, and soon I could make out another person, walking at a determined and confident pace towards the demons. The man in green stepped into the circle of light and stopped only a few feet away from the largest demon, who wore a heavy golden chain around his neck. Although the man was not short by any means, the Sathir'na leader towered above him. "There you are," the demon said. The voice coming out of its mouth was low- pitched and booming but clear, devoid of the almost comical slurring or growling I had expected. "Are you prepared?" "Yes, thank you for asking," the man replied in his own signature manner, energetically and cheerfully. "Everything is going well, and I've made the arrangements." "Good." "So, I take it you have the Item on hand now?" "I do." "Can I see it?" The head demon put its hand into its pocket and pulled it out in a fist, opening it slowly in front of the man. On its fleshy palm lay a small disk, seemingly the size of a coin but in actuality large enough to be a medal or a medallion. It gave off a golden glow as it reflected the light of the flames. I was too far away to discern any engravings or other markings on it; it appeared as a smooth and featureless, perfectly shaped little round plate to me. Involuntarily and almost without being aware of it, I held my breath. Like in so many tales of fantasy (and was this just another one?), a small and superficially inoffensive object was the key to the destiny of the Universe. The man reached out his hand to touch the amulet, but the demon closed its fist and pulled it away. "Not so fast," it hissed. "Where's our payment?" "You will receive it shortly," the man responded. "I couldn't bring the platinum you requested with me, of course, but---" "So you don't have it?" "No, it's not here yet, as I said. But rest assured, I---" "I don't like what I'm hearing," the monster shouted and stepped menacingly forward. It nearly crushed the man's toes in the process, but he took a step back just in time. "I don't like it at all!" Right then, the first tendrils of light gray smoke floated past me and into the hall. They seemed to be coming from every direction, sneaking in from the outside like living creatures and flowing together in the middle of the room. In no time at all, it was as though a veil had descended over the whole scene. "What's going on?" another demon exclaimed. "It's a trap! It's a trap!" We were making a grave mistake. The demons and the man had not intended to start the portal ritual; they were only bargaining over the talisman. It would have been much better to wait until the man had the item in his possession and then confront him alone. Other demons below me bellowed in surprise and anger, and suddenly there was a crash of metal, the thump of a hard punch hitting home and a loud roar of pain. Now it was too late to call off our attack. For the first time that day, I was genuinely happy to let the Buffy personality take over as I swung my legs over the railing and jumped down, into the magical smoke. My feet hit the remains of a wooden table, but I maintained my balance with ease, all set to join the fray. Angel was already fighting one of the demons just a couple of yards away, and another ogre loomed out of the smoke like a mountain right in front of me. The monster wasted no time in storming towards me, with its arms stretched out, but I swung the mace and landed a heavy, accurate blow on the left side of its massive skull. Tiny drops of dark red blood burst out of the wound. The being roared in pain but stayed on its feet and lunged again. I hit it a second time and then a third as fast as I could. It dropped to one knee, clearly in a daze, but as I prepared for the coup de gr?ce, it grabbed the haft of the mace and my blow hit it harmlessly on its shoulder instead of its head. It took a swing at me with its free hand, but it was too slow for me. I dodged the huge fist with relative ease and concentrated on wrenching my weapon free of its grip. A quick kick in its face caused it to release the mace, but now the demon was clambering up on its feet again. I took a proper hold of the weapon with my both hands and delivered a rapid series of three strikes, with the final one hitting the demon's throat. Letting out a gurgling growl, it fell down. The magical mist was getting thicker, and it was already hard to see for more than a couple of feet in any direction. All around me were chaotic noises of hitting, groaning and crashing, together with indistinct shapes moving here and there. Just before he was obscured by the billowing clouds, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the man in green running away, towards the doors. I had no opportunity to stop him; I could only hope that someone else might be in a position to do so. Just then, a huge hand grabbed me from behind and gripped me like a vice. I winced in pain and tried to turn around, but the demon was too strong. It lifted me in the air and threw me against the ground. I fell on my side, on top of the mace, but at the same moment I was already scrambling back up, ignoring the throbbing sensation from my muscles and readying the weapon to dispatch another enemy. The demon flailed its arms at me, and I again ducked and evaded its blow. In turn, I lifted the mace and aimed a strike at its head, intending to deal with this monster exactly as I had with the first one. The head of the mace hit the demon's left temple hard, and I expected it to stumble. I was wrong: either this being had a tougher constitution than my previous opponent, or there had been less force in my attack than I had thought. As I hit it again, I saw a piece of steel pipe in the demon's hand. It skillfully deflected my strike with it, and to my terror the mace came loose from my grip and dropped on the floor. I raised my hands to defend myself, simultaneously looking for an opening to deliver a flying kick in the demon's head or throat, but it threw the steel pipe down and, surprisingly quickly, punched me squarely in the face. A tremendously large fist filled my field of view, and then it gave me a hard blow that reverberated through my head and almost caused me to black out. The hit sent me falling backwards, and I landed painfully on my back, with cold concrete rubble crunching below me. A moan of agony escaped from my lips. This demon was both tougher and faster than the first. It was immediately hovering over me, aiming a kick at my torso; I rolled to the side and barely avoided it, getting on my feet and then dodging a very heavy punch. I frantically looked around for the mace, which would even the odds considerably, but it was probably somewhere behind the demon and out of my reach. I went on the offensive and jumped up, intending to deliver a sharp kick, but I made a slight miscalculation and hit the demon's chest as opposed to the more sensitive areas further up. It stumbled back for the briefest of moments but somehow managed to thrust me a little to the side with its arm, and instead of landing more or less neatly on my feet I was again lying on my back less than a second later. Pressing its advantage, the demon punched me to the chest as I was getting up. Again, there was a flash of pain, but thanks to my superhuman endurance, it dulled almost at once to a mere disagreeable throbbing. My attempt to rise nevertheless failed, and the demon used the delay in my counterattack to pick up the steel pipe, intent on giving me a beating that would keep me down for more than a short while. The demon growled loudly and dropped the pipe. A length of heavy duty steel chain had suddenly been wrapped around its neck, and it was feverishly reaching for its throat, trying to get rid of the chain. Angel had come to my rescue; he forced the monster's head back, tightened the chain and then, with a Herculean effort, he threw the being over his shoulder. Its neck snapped with a revolting cracking sound as it came down. "Thanks!" I said to him and drew air hungrily into my lungs. "That was pretty timely as far as getting help goes." "My pleasure," he replied. His face had morphed into the terrifying vampire visage and a drop of blood was running down from a cut on his forehead, showing that he had been just as hard pressed as me. There was no time for more pleasantries, however. As he went after his next opponent, I picked up the mace and ran in the direction where the smoke seemed to thin out somewhat, in order to form an overall picture of the confused situation. All I did find out was that the fight wasn't over. Yet another Sathir'na demon marched out of the haze and roared as it began its attack against me. I had learned a hard lesson that night and put it to good use. The demon ended up receiving a fast series of mace hits to its head and a powerful thrust with the same weapon to its chest, while it only had time for one feeble punch that merely grazed my chin. Another two blows with the weapon did the rest, and the monster collapsed in a heap on the floor. My joy for the victory was cut short. Immediately after, two more demons barged towards me from behind. Having been alerted by their footsteps, I turned around in a flash and prepared to take them on by moving a little to the side so that I could at least hope to tackle one of them before the other could get its hands on me, and I gauged the distance to the nearest one, estimating when the best time to strike would be. A barely audible, brief whizzing sound reached my ears, and both demons fell at almost exactly the same time. A black crossbow bolt had struck each of them; one had pierced the throat of its target, and the other had gone through the demon's eye. The former demon growled and fell forward, while the latter just stopped dead, stood still for a second and then collapsed. "The cavalry's here!" Xander declared proudly, with a smile on his face. He and Giles had joined the fight now that the numerical advantage of the demons had been whittled down. Giles only gave him a quick look and then went on to cock his weapon again, putting another bolt in the track as he looked intently around for enemies. Xander, in contrast, couldn't help but revel in his performance. "Did you guys see that?" the young man boasted, holding his unloaded crossbow in a relaxed grip. "And with all this smoke around! I'd say that was some pretty expert shooting right there. Damn, I'm good!" Without warning, a hulking dark silhouette appeared out of the mist behind him. I only had time to shout a warning--"Look out!"--and charge at the demon. It had been so focused on making poor Xander Harris pay for his hubris and letting his guard down that it barely even saw me before I pummeled it with a series of mace strikes. It swung its fists at me twice but missed, while I capped my attack off with a kick to its torso and another mace hit to its back. The ogre, apparently already injured, was completely subdued as a result. The remaining handful of demons had had enough. They bolted and made a break for the door together through the already dissipating magical smoke. None of us was especially anxious to chase after them. Xander, who had reloaded his crossbow in the meantime, took aim at the backs of the demons but promptly realized that they were out of effective range and lowered his weapon again. The lifting smoke revealed the bodies of seven dead demons lying scattered on the factory floor. The monsters made good their escape, and the noises faded out. The fire was still burning in the barrel, giving off a flickering but serviceable light. I scanned the shadows around me once more but didn't detect anything alarming; the others did the same, with the same results. The battle had probably not lasted more than a few minutes, even though it had seemed like half an hour to me, if not more. We gradually allowed ourselves to relax slightly, and our alertness and tension began to slacken. Nevertheless, this was hostile territory, or a no man's land at best, a place where vigilance would never go amiss. We couldn't afford the luxury of forgetting that salient fact. "Was that it?" Xander asked, flicking the safety switch of his crossbow on. "No more baddies around?" "Looks that way," Angel replied. His face had returned to its human form. One more series of footsteps, much lighter than those of the demons but still fairly loud, echoed in the hall. Willow, who was adhering to the local female fashion and habit to battle the forces of darkness in less than optimally suitable clothes (a reddish brown coat, an ankle-length red- silver print dress, along with clunky black shoes on her feet), made her way cautiously to us. "Did we win?" she asked. "Seeing as you guys are standing there and the demons are all sort of dead, I-I'm guessing we did." "Yeah, we won," I confirmed. "The Mist of Hecate was quite effective," Giles remarked in an approving manner. "It's supposed to disorient and weaken several species of demons, including the Sathir'na, but the recorded historical instances of its use in combat are few and the details scanty. I admit I had my doubts about it." "Hey," Willow piped up excitedly, "maybe we could try these obscure old time spells more often, you know, instead of just going, 'Nah, it won't work anyway and even if it does, it's too dangerous.' There's plenty of really interesting stuff in the tomes you keep in the top shelf of your cabinet, Giles. There's the Marenschadt, and the Volkov manuscript, and... I think it's wasted potential to have all those cool books just sitting around, collecting dust." "And I, in contrast, think that we should be mindful of the risks involved," Giles retorted gently but firmly. "Magic is not something we as mortals can take lightly. There are always dangers and consequences." "Well, the Mist did help, didn't it? I was the one who found the spell, so I'd appreciate a little appreciation." "I hate to interrupt the festivities," I said, "but we may have jumped the gun here. The demon gang and the weird man weren't about to summon Angronok. He was just trying to buy the talisman from them." "So we delivered them a nice and thorough ass-kicking a bit early," Xander inquired. "What's so terrible about that?" "I'm afraid Buffy has a point and we have been rather too hasty here," Giles said in a thoughtful tone. "The Sathir'na have no special interest in the talisman, other than its trade value. They don't worship Angronok and stand little to gain if he and the other Old Ones associated with him were released. I should have realized that. Bloody hell." "All the same, I fail to get the motivation for the long faces," Xander voiced his dissent. "We could have let the man in green get the talisman," Angel explained to him, "and then taken it from him. Or we could have followed him back to the other cultists and taken the whole group out. Now the talisman's lost and the man and his friends are still out there." "But Buffy said that the guy in the green suit is a very tough fighter, didn't she?" Willow interjected. "What if he has some powers we don't know about? We could've been in for some nasty surprises if it came to blows between him and us," she remarked and then added quickly, "Not that I doubt you guys could deal with him, kicking and hitting-wise, but there's the magic side of things as well." "Listen, everyone," Giles spoke up after a short pause. "Be that as it may, we must find the Angronok talisman. I can't stress enough how important it is that we get it back." "What does it look like?" Xander asked. "I haven't seen it before." "Right," the Watcher said. "You were not there when we last handled it; I forgot. It is, uh, like a medal, round, some four inches in diameter and made of gold or gilded bronze. There are no markings or decorations that are visible to the human eye in normal natural light." "Ooh!" Willow interjected excitedly. "I could do a location spell! The Volkov manuscript had one that should work with the talisman and other powerful objects like that. We talked about it earlier." "Oh, you mean the Lampoi invocation?" Giles asked. "I suppose we could try it. The ritual to open the portal is so complex and involved that there shouldn't be any danger of the spell activating the forces in the talisman accidentally." "Great!" the witch in the making gushed and knelt on the floor. She put her hands together in front of her, closed her eyes and began to chant with a quiet voice in a language I didn't recognize. She recited the first line of the spell fluently but abruptly forgot the words in the middle of the second, stuttered and halted. The same helpless and confused expression that she had shown at the Bronze the night before came on her face again, and she gave a pleading look to Giles, who bent down beside her. I made a mental note of this occurrence but did not interfere in any way. The rest of us spread out and wandered around with our eyes cast down. I poked the corpses of the demons with the haft of the mace and moved them slightly to see if the talisman had ended up underneath a carcass. An overpowering foul smell was rising from the dead demons, making me give up on the idea of searching them more carefully. Willow and Giles completed the spell together. A shimmering, electric blue light seemed to emanate from Willow's hands, and it quickly formed into a ring that expanded through the whole space. For a couple of seconds, the hall was as brightly lit as if it had had proper modern lighting, but then the magical illumination slowly waned and the shadows returned. I didn't know how the spell was intended to make the magical item easier to find, but aside from the light show itself, I had noticed nothing out of the ordinary and the amulet was still missing. Now that the excitement of the fight was over, I suddenly felt cold, tired and weak. My muscles ached and my legs were slightly unsteady. The Buffy persona was also temporarily retreating to the background, and I shivered as I began to comprehend what I had just gone through. Even though the fight was business as usual for Buffy and my performance as her had been hardly exceptional from a physical or tactical point of view, I had essentially cheated death and survived blows that should have at the very least seriously injured a normal human being. "Any sign of it?" Giles called out. "Nope," Xander replied for his part. "Unless the talisman can turn invisible, in which case we're in trouble, it seems... that we're in trouble." "Anyone else?" "I can't find it," Angel said. "I'm pretty sure it's either hidden underneath some debris or inside a crack in the concrete, or else it's no longer here." "And you didn't see the man in green suit leave the building with it?" "There's no way to be certain," I said, "but I believe the Sathir'na boss kept it after the man didn't bring the payment. The demon didn't hand it over." "That's how it looked like to me too," Angel confirmed. "If the talisman is not on the body of the head demon, it must have dropped on the floor." "Just our luck," Giles commented, took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, as he had done in his apartment yesterday. "We already have the Mayor and the Ascension as a big concern, and then all this happens. It unfortunately seems that Angronok and the talisman have become something of an outstanding problem to us, as the Council would term it." "Ah, that pesky old Council," Xander quipped sarcastically. "Always making a fuss and exaggerating stuff." There was little else for us to do at the factory. Giles spent a few more seconds deep in thought, clearly troubled by the situation, but couldn't come up with a solution. "I'm afraid we have exhausted our options," he said at last. "I suggest we go home and get some rest. We can return here tomorrow in daylight and continue the search, unless someone can devise a more effective method of locating the amulet." "No objections," I voiced my agreement. Our general plan of action was thus settled, and we left by the main door. Angel and I led the group in case the man in green or the remaining demons had prepared an ambush for us, but luckily the coast was clear. If Spike had actually organized a vampire gang to support his new business partner, he had not kept his promise that they would be on hand, or else the man had decided to avoid a confrontation with us for the time being and had withdrawn together with the vampires. Either way, there was no trace of hostile beings anywhere in the vicinity. Once we were outside, Giles, Willow and Xander went to get the small cauldron and other items they had needed for creating the magical mist. They had scouted the locale before the battle and set up a little base some twenty yards from the main door by the side of the main building. The mist could easily flow into the factory from there, but the spot was not directly visible from the street, thanks to two small steel storage warehouses. The Mike part of my personality cursorily wondered what, if anything, we should do with the demon carcasses, but since the others were entirely unconcerned with such a small detail, I pushed the question out of my mind as well. No ordinary human inhabitant of this town was very likely to come to the ruined factory, given that the building itself contained nothing of value, was hazardous to enter because of its dilapidated state and was located in a neighborhood with a bad reputation. Various creatures of the night would probably deal with the bodies--cut them to pieces and eat them- -by the time the next incidental outsider did visit the scene of the battle. "Would you like a ride back downtown?" Giles offered as I handed the mace back to him. After we had reached him by phone, he had driven himself, Xander and Willow here in a black van and parked it at the curb one block away. "Thanks, but no thanks," Angel replied for himself. "I think I'll walk and see if I run into anything or anyone interesting. The night's still young." "I'll join you," I heard myself say. "We didn't get to finish our rounds properly before this little distraction happened." "Very well," Giles said. "Good luck and good hunting, both of you. Do keep me apprised if there are any new developments." "Will do." We watched as the others walked to the car, loaded their equipment and weapons into it, climbed in and drove off. Save for the intermittent, quiet sounds of traffic reaching us from the distance, the world was once more quiet and seemingly peaceful. The two of us started making our way towards the town center at a leisurely pace. Even though our surroundings, a run-down and possibly demon-infested industrial area on the wrong side of the tracks, were decidedly less than appealing, I was at ease and enjoying the walk. The battle had done a lot to restore the confidence I had had in my slaying abilities during my previous stay in this world. As odd and illogical as it was, I almost felt that I belonged here. "Maybe we ought to save the mucus demons for another night, but do you want to take a look at the sewers?" Angel asked me, breaking the silence. "To make sure everything's in order down there?" "Oh yes, the sewers," I said in a sarcastically delighted tone. "What could be more charming than a trip to the literal stinking underworld with you by my side? Not that I'd rather go alone; I like having you by my side. It's just that..." "Yeah, I know. We've had a pretty decent dose of exercise for one night." "That's what I was thinking, in a nutshell. Would it count as shirking if we gave the communal sewage network a polite pass, just this once?" "I guess we'd forgive ourselves, eventually." The feminine personality had carried me through the clash with the demons, but it had receded a little afterwards, when the adrenaline had stopped flowing and the immediate threat was gone. Now, however, Buffy was gaining in strength once again. The soft air around us, the shimmering lights of the town, the big yellow half-moon slowly rising above the hills in the east, the closeness of her boyfriend--it was as though she drew power from all of these things and consolidated her hold over me. What was more, simply letting go of the old me for good and accepting my new identity was becoming both easier and more attractive by the minute. Buffy's life was unimaginably hard in a number of ways, and that would have been reason enough to reject it in favor of my own, had I been given the choice, but the protestations of my rational mind were ineffectual. The temptation to give up the battle I had no chance of winning was greater than ever. I had family and friends in this world, and a mission, none of which I could abandon lightly. I had found love here. Maybe this was my true purpose and destiny. Michael Caldwell was virtually a nobody, Buffy Summers was the Chosen One. There was no question which one of them was more important in the grand scheme of things. "I have a confession to make," I said, a smile playing on my lips. "A little nap has never felt like a better idea to me, especially if we add some cuddling to it." "Fine by me," Angel commented. "So, we'll head for my place and rest a little when we get there. We'll keep an eye out on what's happening around town on the way and intervene if it's necessary." "A man after my own heart." Without being fully conscious of what I was doing, I took hold of his hand. His much larger fingers wrapped around mine, and then, as if out of an unspoken agreement, we both stopped and turned towards one another. We looked each other in the eyes. A warm affection welled up in my chest, and it struck me that I was undeniably and hopelessly in love with him. Whether it was only because my brain had been soaking in estrogen for quite a while by then or because the Buffy persona had finally taken over completely, I found myself eagerly waiting for his embrace and deep, tender kisses. I wanted to be his girl and make him my man. More unnerving than the emotions themselves was the naturalness of the attraction, and on some level I consciously knew I should have been scared of how my identity and sexuality were being thoroughly remolded by forces outside of my control, but the remains of my resistance to loving and making love to a man were crumbling fast. I recognized what was happening but no longer seriously wanted to fight back. Angel brushed a strand of my hair aside and put his hand gently on my neck, allowing his fingertips to make light contact with my skin. I could smell his scent and feel his touch; together, these sensations made my heart race in my chest. He leaned slowly in for the kiss. I closed my eyes, parted my lips slightly and let them curve into a small smile. Apart from intimate fondling and caressing, we couldn't go much further than this since sex between us would lead to Angel losing his soul, but for the time being, kissing was enough for me. Emotions mattered more to me at that moment. We would find a way, eventually, for us both to be physically sated as well. The kiss was not to be, and neither would a romantic night together follow the battle and routine patrolling. For a fleeting instant, immediately before our lips would have touched, I no longer felt his hand on my neck. I suddenly sensed emptiness where Angel had been standing. I opened my eyes-- only to see I was in Sunnydale no more. (To be continued...)