Tar Baby 2/4

[dragonyphoenix]

Title: Tar Baby
Series: Lotus in Muddy Water
Fandom: BtVS
Characters/Pairing: Faith, Wesley
Rating: PG
Concrit: Please, in comments
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, not yet, but the will be once I've taken over the world. Bwah-ha-ha.
Warnings/Squicks: None
Summary: Faith starts seeing a vamp who isn't there.


Brigit, having parked the car, was walking to the picnic when she saw Dave, her cousin, jogging toward her. “What's up?”

Coming to a stop before her, he said, “Your friend seems rather, um, uninhibited.”

“That she is,” Brigit agreed.

With a shrug he asked, “Think she'd go for me?”

Brigit thought back to the time Faith had told Wesley she'd fucked a guy she barely knew. “I think you've got a shot.”

“She split,” he said.

“What?” Brigit asked, not immediately following the jump in his logic. “Faith? She left?”

“Yeah, there was some kind of a commotion over by the teens, your sister and her friend in the middle of it, and then Faith ran off. Nobody's really sure what went down.”

“Ah,” Brigit added as she realized that someone had sent Dave to her, that someone wanted her to figure out what had happened. “Thanks.”

“No sweat,” he said as he started to jog off, heading toward the parking area. “Grandpa Joe forgot his meds again.”

As she walked on to the picnic, Brigit wondered what could have set Faith off. Sure, the girl was wild and unpredictable, but this sounded different. Certainly they wouldn't have sent Dave along, with the excuse that he was fetching grandpa's medication, if somebody hadn't thought it was important.

By the time she got to the meadow, most of the teens, including Grace, were lined around the table helping themselves to food. Good, given how late it was, it made perfect sense that she'd want to eat right away. Stepping toward Grace, cutting into the line, she called out “Where's Faith?” as if Dave hadn't already filled her in.

Grace's hands got very expressive as she started talking. “Oh stop,” she said, holding both hands out in a stop position. “She totally flipped out,” she added, waving her hands in little flips. “She ran up to us, freaking out about some guy, light brown hair with a scar on his cheek, right Claire?”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed, her eyes wide. Brigit suppressed a snicker. The girls were hamming it up a bit too much. “And she shoved Grace.”

“Oh, you poor baby,” Brigit said, grabbing Grace into a hug.

“She wanted us in the sunlight,” Grace whispered next to Brigit's ear before calling out, sounding completely exasperated, “I'm fine! Claire's just making a big deal as usual.” Brigit could almost hear Grace's eyes rolling in the tone.

As Brigit stepped back, releasing Grace from the hug, someone called out, “Hey, no cutting the line.”

“Fine, fine,” Brigit said, walking to the back of the line where she was joined by Anne, her sister-in-law.

“Care to join us for lunch?” Anne asked, nodding toward the table where her parents were sitting.

“Love to,” Brigit said with a grin, knowing it would give her a chance to pass the sunlight info along to Anne, who would then pass the info up the chain herself.

* * *

Wesley was lost in thought, not even seeing the room, pondering over Aidan's question until his mind lit on an obscure text, one from a very early expedition in Australia, the only copy of said text existing in an obscure Council run library, access limited to a very few souls. “I do believe I have something. There's a sect called Primals, mostly in the Australian outback as far as I know, who possess themselves with an animal spirit, usually something predatory. Because humans retain their souls when merging with animals, the results are particularly gruesome. They tend to die in extreme agony if something isn't' done, ah but that's the point. An animal spirit can be removed from it's human host.”

“How?”

The doorbell rang. Wesley waited, never doubting that Aidan would answer it. When the bell rang again, and Aidan hadn't moved, Wesley asked, “Aren't you going to get that?”

“They'll come back later if they really need me,” Aidan replied, waving aside the distraction.

“It could be important.” Door and phones had always been answered in the Wyndam-Pryce household.

With a sigh Aidan got up, leaving Wesley and the study behind. Wesley listened from his seat. “Cam, I thought you couldn't make it until next week.,” After a pause, Aidan added, “Our good fortune then. Come in. I'm afraid you've caught me in the middle of something.”

“You always are,” a second voice interrupted, the voice an alto that could either belong to a man or a woman.

“You don't mind?” Aidan asked, sounding as if the answer were important to him. Wesley looked over, even though he couldn't see the front door from where he sat, startled by Aidan's words since, in his experience, the man didn't care about anyone else's opinion.

“I can keep myself busy,” the voice replied in a dry sounding tone.

As Aidan returned to the study, his usually efficient movements seeming distracted, Wesley, wondering whom could have such an effect on the man, asked, “Who was at the door?”

“Cam?” Aidan asked. “You can meet her later. Now, about these Primals, how are the animal spirits removed?”

Wesley put his own questions aside to answer Aidan's. “As far as I can recall, it's merely a repeat of the original ritual, in which a sand painting is used to focus the power while a predatory act casts the animal spirit into some kind of a scapegoat, which is then killed.”

“So there are two sacrifices then: the victim of the predatory act and the scapegoat? And this would work for daemonion as well?” Aidan asked.

Wesley blinked. “While my sources were clear that it does work on Primals, most daemonion are created by dramatically different kinds of rituals.”

“Still it's worth looking into,” Aidan said.

“Only if one were willing to kill two innocents.”

Aidan's head snapped up. “I thought the victim and the scapegoat were animals.”

“Um, no, humans I'm afraid.”

“Is there any indication it could work with animals?” Aidan asked.

“Nothing that I recall,” Wesley replied, finally starting to wonder why Aidan wanted this information.

“Let's go over the ritual in as much detail as you can recall. Can you sketch out the sand painting for me?”

* * *

Running full out, at a speed no mere human could hope to match, almost creating a breeze as she flashed past the scattered families and friends partying on the beach, Faith didn't slow down until she approached the town and then only because the crowds had picked up, and she was afraid she'd crash into someone. Scanning the area, searching for Kakistos, part of her was terrified she would find him while part of her wondered if she was going out of her mind, seeing something that couldn't be there. “Shit, I must be going crazy,” she said to herself, dropping down to a walk. If it had been Kakistos, she must be far enough away, although it couldn't have been, not out in direct sunlight.

Faith had walked about half a mile further before she felt safe, or at least safe enough that she'd stopped expecting an attack anytime someone moved nearby. As the scent of burgers wafted over, Faith felt her stomach rumble. Lunch, she'd missed lunch. Looking over, Faith saw a grill surrounded by a crowd of guys, most of them a few years older than her and a couple wearing logos with Greek letters, making them frat boys. This she could handle. Putting on a confident swagger, she worked her way through the crowd, snaking her arm around the guy at the grill. “Sure is a lot of meat you've got there.”

The guy glanced away, like some kind of a pansy virgin or something, while a couple of his friends hooted out, pointing and laughing. Faith didn't get it until a hand with bright red nails slapped down on her shoulder. Faith jammed her elbow upwards, feeling a crunch behind her. When she turned, arms shifting into a defensive position, but it was some chick about her own age, blood running from her nose as mascara muddied her eyes. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Raising her hands, Faith said, “Look, I'm sorry. You caught me off guard.”

“Off guard?” As the chick snarled, her blonde hair paled, becoming pure white, while her lacy top and jeans darkened into the watery dress of the woman who'd given herself to Be-thatet, the demon Faith had killed not a week earlier.

“Fuck,” Faith shouted, slamming her fist into the demon's face. Arms grabbed Faith from behind. Her gaze darting, Faith saw bloody pieces of frat boys scattered across the sand. Grill-boy stepped between her and the demon, waving a spatula as if it were a weapon. “What the hell, you're protecting it?” Slamming an elbow back, hitting with fists and feet, she knocked the demons off, stepping back from the fray to assess the situation.

There were no body parts in the sand. There were four of five guys down for the count, but based on where they were, they were the demons she'd taken out. That chick, and she really was just some chick, not a demon, was surrounded by four friends, as young as she was. One backed away when Faith looked over. Taking a few steps back, Faith called out “Sorry” before turning and running off, leaving the mess behind, just like always.

She was about three-quarters of the way to Aidan's before she realized where she was heading. It didn't seem like a bad choice. If she was wigging, she could hole up there, go to ground until the visions went away, but if Kakistos had found her at least there'd be plenty of weapons at hand. Veering off at the break in the reeds, she slowed to a stop in the backyard, listening until she'd heard and located both Aidan and Wes. They were in Aidan's study, which meant she could make it to the training room without running into anybody. Hopefully a good workout would take care of all that shit she'd been seeing.

Absentmindedly swinging open the door to the training room, Faith froze and shifted into a fighting stance. The lights were on, but that wasn't what had stopped her. She'd heard a noise, a footfall on one of the training mats. “Not here too,” she whispered. The problem was, she couldn't ignore it here, not with Aidan and Wes right upstairs, defenseless if this really was Kakistos.

“Make up your mind. Either come in, or shut the door.” It wasn't his voice. Taking one cautious step into the room, Faith's arms dropped to her side as her jaw hit the floor, and she almost blushed to think she'd been afraid. It was an old woman, taller than Faith by about a foot, a lean beanpole look to her body, with short gray hair and dark skin. She was dressed like one of those martial arts guys, in black pants and a white top with a black belt wrapped around her waist. The pants flared out as she circled around the room and Faith, not certain why, circled the room as well, keeping as much distance between them as she could.

“Attack.” That one word, barked out, sounded like an order.

“Uh, no?” Faith replied.

The woman stopped and pointed toward the door. “Then I have no use for you. Out.”

“And who are you exactly?” Faith asked, reluctant to leave when she didn't know what was going on.

Striding toward the far end of the room, the woman called back, “In this room, I am called Sensei. Either leave or attack. Here, I'll make it easy on you.” Pulling aside the sliding wooden door to reveal an array of weapons, she pulled out two staffs, tossing one to Faith before making her way to the doorway, where she waited with staff at the ready. “If you can get past me, you're free to leave.”

“What're you, Friar Tuck?”

“Do I look like a fat, lazy, old man?”

“This is crazy. Look, I'm not gonna attack you,” Faith said. “You're old enough to be my grandma.”

The woman didn't move. “Then I should be easy to defeat.”

Faith started pacing the room, swinging the staff, flipping it around herself and striking out at the air in an impressive array of fighting moves, ending a few feet away from the old woman, the staff coming to an abrupt halt an inch from the woman's forehead. “How about you let me go and nobody'll get hurt?”

This time the woman didn't speak.

“Move it, granny,” Faith shouted, taking a swing at the woman but a light blow that didn't even pretend to land. Faith struck out again, aiming for the woman but moving slowly. The woman raised her staff to block the blow, and then returned to a waiting position, staff at the ready, open to any attack. Faith made a couple of halfhearted blows, easily blocked. “Come on,” she shouted. As Faith swung her staff at the woman's leg, faster than her earlier strikes but still slower than anything she'd to against a real opponent, the woman thrust her staff under Faith's, brining it upward in a circular motion that swung it over Faith's staff, blocking it to the ground.

About forty-five minutes later, after countless matches had gone the way of the first few, the woman knocked Faith's staff out of her hands. “Are you ready to attack me yet?”

“I've been attacking you.”

“No, you've been playing at it.” Putting her staff down, carefully placing it along the edge of the wall, the woman moved to the center of the room. “Full attack, no weapons, you run at me. Are you ready?”

Faith looked meaningfully at the empty doorway. “What's to stop me from leaving?”

“You lose your trainer.”

Faith thought on that for a moment. “You?”

“You haven't defeated me yet.”

“I don't want to hurt you,” Faith said.

Catching Faith's eyes in her calm gaze, the woman quietly and simply told Faith to attack.

Faith ran at her, well below Slayer speed, veering out of the way when the woman didn't move.

“No! Attack me as if I were a demon.”

Faith took a step back. “What do you know about demons?”

Rolling her eyes, the old woman, the Sensei, said, “If I knew nothing of Slayers and demons, how could I train you? Attack again, full speed this time.”

When Faith ran at her again, still holding back, the Sensei stepped aside, slapping Faith's backside as she ran past. “Not good enough.”

“Look, I really don't want to hurt you.”

“Don't worry about harming me. That's my problem. Now attack, or would you rather get this Watcher killed like you did your last one?”

As the scent of the swamp, that fetid murky scent she'd hoped to never smell again, hit her, Faith heard Petra's last shrill scream and saw an arm bobbing in the water, the Watcher's pale silk blouse trailing in it's wake. She saw Wesley struggling against the demon, struggling to breathe as it dragged him down deeper into the sea. She heard Kakistos; “I'm coming for you Slayer.” As her gaze darted around the room, desperate to find the vampire before he hurt her again, her anger boiled up inside. Throwing herself at the frail looking woman, needing to smash something, anything, even if it was someone innocent, she found herself flying through the air and crashing into a padded wall.

“Better, but you control your anger. Don't let it control you.”

“How'd you do that?” Faith asked, rising from the floor.

“That's what I'm here to teach you.”

Comments

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure I promised the trainer early on. I don't recall what happens with the "vamp that wasn't there" storyline, although I do have it outlined. I think it's resolved in the next chapter or two.