Chapter Twelve: Perfect Plans

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004 (Part Two)

Christie’s eyes glazed over and she pondered the twists and turns of this latest adventure. So now they were all in the heart of Evil Inc., Christie's demon-dar was raging off of the charts, and she was beginning to question Buffy's sanity more and more now that she was seeing the infamous Angel up close and personal.

Very personal.

'Looks like he's a spitter.'

Seriously, how many lectures and arguments did they have to sit through before the real business of saving the world could begin? Or even minor considerations such as naps, and perhaps bathing?

Andrew was taking the brunt of the screaming at the moment, as well as the inadvertent spray. If being bitched out wasn’t infuriating enough, in the course of a few hours, Christie had been sniffed by a vamp, ushered into an observation room in the firm's small but impressive clinic, and lectured like an errant six year old. So far, the only good thing about this whole affair was that nobody, and that meant nobody, was laughing at her propensity for making zombie attack plans anymore.

Well, Buffy was getting some medical attention, and that was good too. But there were strings. Boy howdy there were strings…

‘Blah blah blah …stupid to come to LA during a zombie invasion.’

‘Blah blah blah, increased chances of death….’

Seriously, barring everyone from seeing Buffy, including Dawn, Spike, and the entire crew she flew in with?

Stupid.

And really where did he think they should go in the middle of an invasion of the living dead?

Or would uprising be the better term?

Christie snapped back to attention as Andrew's voice cut shrilly through Angel's latest self-righteous explosion. “Fine, if you want to stick guards on her room, then we're going to stick guards on your guards!"

"No, you won't," the vampire snarled through the rattle of various weapons as the slayers flanking Andrew took exception to the commanding, threatening note in his voice. "I think we've all established exactly how well you 'take care' of sick people, so why don't you leave this in the hands of the professionals this time?" It wasn't really a question.

Andrew's face paled, and his hands balled into white-knuckled fists.

When it became obvious that he wasn't going to speak, one of the younger slayers, Antoinette, chimed in. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" she asked defensively.

Angel never took his eyes off of Andrew. "And how is Dana doing?" he asked, cold derision in his voice.

You could have heard a pin drop in the packed board room.

That was a low blow. The lowest. Fresh off the plane, jet-lagged as hell, and still running on adrenaline if little else, none of them had had time to really process the magnitude of their losses in London.

Angel's words rasped harshly against nerves frayed to the breaking point.

This was the so-called Champion of the Powers? This puffing bully with bad hair and good P.R.? Andrew was ten times more of a Champion than the vamp. After all, Andrew had managed to get everyone out of London, rescue Buffy, and was an expert at formulating intelligent zombie plans. Angel loomed and delegated from his ivory tower while that Fred chick researched and one of his pet vamps smelled people. What kind of hero was that?

Something snapped inside of Christie when she looked at Andrew's face and saw the obvious pain etched there. For some reason, that hurt worse than all the rest. Before she had time to stop and think about what she was doing, she had stormed across the room and driven her fist straight into Angel's nose.

The dangerous silence in the room erupted into bedlam. Christie knew she probably shouldn't have done that, but man, had it felt good! She should be helping Andrew get the other girls under control instead of glaring into the bloody, shocked face of the vampire at her feet and thinking bemusedly that for a dead guy, Angel could sure squirt a lot of blood.

Then the firm's security guards flooded into the room and things got… interesting.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The tiny suite wasn't so bad, all things considered. It wasn't home, but home was pretty thoroughly over run by shambling corpse-things.

Corpse-things…

Nina smiled ironically to herself as she looked out of the windows that overlooked downtown L.A. Her sister had pretty much freaked out when she had used the word 'zombie' in front of Amanda.

Jill had always been the level headed one. The older sister. The registered nurse. The single parent, expertly juggling PTA meetings and extra shifts at the neighborhood clinic. Of the two of them, Nina would have expected her sister to be able to handle nearly anything with pluck and aplomb, even the walking dead.

It was Nina who was the dreamer. The baby of the family. The art student.

The werewolf.

Perhaps dropping that little bomb hadn't been the best of ideas, but after being spirited away from their house by commandos whose only explanation had been ‘Angel sent us,’ Jill had been screaming for answers. In all fairness, Nina hadn't been thinking entirely clearly. Hundreds of feet above the ground in a black helicopter, watching the growing masses of the undead as they wandered through the streets below, and faced with Amanda's tears and Jill's suspicious demands, she had spilled her guts to her sister.

Jill had pulled away then, asking coldly if Nina was taking drugs. Nerves frayed from what was already an untenable situation, Nina had snapped. They'd fought, as much as anyone could over the loud whirring of the propeller, and things had been said that had probably been better left unsaid.

They hadn't exchanged words since, even when they had been ushered into the suite and introduced to the other family that would be sharing the rooms with them. Jill's cold stares had changed to wide-eyed shock when she realized that the Henderson’s were all sporting stubby pink tails and nubby horns over the eyes of otherwise very human faces.

Now she was sitting on a cot on the far side of the room, staring blankly at the wall and struggling to come to terms with this major shift in her paradigm. Her cot was shoved up against her daughter's, where Amanda lay sleeping soundly for the first time in days. Nina's face split in an honest, if still small, smile at that. She envied that kind of resilience. Amanda hadn't cared about the Henderson's tails, she'd been scared by the commandos, but no more so than by the zombies on her front lawn, and now? Now she was sleeping the sleep of a child who believed that all was right with the world, that Mom and Aunt Nina would make everything better, like they always had.

And they would, or at least they'd try.

In the meantime, they were both trying to make this strange new setting home, even if they weren't technically speaking. Their bags, packed in a rush under the watchful eye of the uniformed men, were stowed under their beds. Nina had managed to find a bright eyed intern doling out minor supplies when she had realized that they had only packed one toothbrush between the three of them. She and Mrs. Henderson had gone through the kitchen, adding what little food they had managed to take from their homes to the already well stocked kitchenette before the family of demons had left to go explore the law firm that was their temporary home.

Maybe they hadn't been exactly living the American dream, but after Jill's ex had stopped lurking around, things had been nice around the house. Cozy. Even though it hurt, Nina had known that this day might eventually come. Oh, the zombies had been a surprise, but her lupine secret had been hanging over her head for weeks, looming large like dark storm clouds ready to rain all over their happy suburban parade.

Nina stared out over L.A. without really seeing it. The small bedroom that she, Jill, and Amanda were going to be sharing had a large window overlooking the city. Normally it would have been a picturesque view, but now it was just a front row seat for the chaos that was unfolding outside. The smoke plumes and scattered figures played like a silent movie in front of her unseeing eyes. She kept telling herself that everything was going to be alright. And beneath that, her thoughts kept straying to the man—well, technically the vampire—who seemed to be making a habit of saving her.

Yes, everything was going to be alright. And Angel would be there to help.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Shouldn't have said that," Angel muttered in a muffled voice. The wet towel Cordelia was pressing against his face dampened some of the thinly veiled despair in his voice, but not all of it.

He really shouldn't have. The brawl had spilled into the halls, breaking more things than heads. Cordelia still hadn't managed to pry the entire story out of him, but from what she had seen, nothing good would come of the whole mess.

Nothing.

But he didn't need to hear that right now, much as she'd like to say it.

Cordelia pulled the rag away from his nose, which from the looks of it had taken at least three more knocks after that purple-haired girl's leading assault, and glared at the vampire in mock exasperation. "Can we perhaps talk about this after I've managed to get you to stop bleeding all over what will probably be my last new shirt for a long, long time?"

Angel glowered at the stained rag, looking for all the world like an overgrown petulant child, but quietly submitted to her attentions again. Cordelia knew that he would much rather be sitting alone in his darkened office, brooding over his seeming inability to deal with slayers, any slayers, in anything resembling a rational manner while cold blood soaked into his shirt.

That was why she was here.

They didn't need beat-down-under-the-weight-of-the-world Angel. They didn't need chest-thumping-Neanderthal Angel, or sulky I-can't-believe-you're-a-couple-hundred-years-past-puberty Angel. And the especially didn't need mired-in-Buffy-angst Angel. That thought brought a glimmer of jealousy to the surface of her mind, quickly forced back down. They also didn't need catty-high-school Cordelia either.

They needed a champion. Hell, they needed a baker's dozen, but they really needed Angel to be the Champion Cordelia knew in her heart he could be. That was why the Powers had sent her back.

It was going to take all of her power to keep him anchored now. After years of helping the helpless, Angel was seeing his entire city swept under a tidal wave of living death. Connor was missing. So was Anne. Faith wasn't answering her phone. So many others… Cumulated years of second chances bought with his sweat and his blood, all gone.

Hot tears were burning behind Cordelia's eyes, but she held them back with nothing but willpower and years of practice. She knew part of what was coming, the vision was as fresh in her mind as it had been when it had ripped her from her long sleep. Angel was going to need a rock in the coming storm, and she could be that.

But Buffy had better keep her hands to herself, of a bottle of Nair might 'accidentally' end up in her shampoo.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rio

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004 through Sunday, February 1st, 2004

It was a logical, analytical system created by a person who knew it could not fail; which was why no one was surprised when all hell broke loose a mere 72 hours after it was implemented.

Step One: Gain permission from local and national governments to implement a Slayer enforced quarantine. Check.

Step Two: Greet all incoming flights with armed guards at the gate. Visually inspect all passengers as they disembark and place them in local hotels for a 24 hour lock down to ensure that all infected are identified and disposed of when they turn. Check.

Step Three: Complain about how boring Airport duty is, how you would rather be on the front lines of the battle, and name-drop your girlfriend's name a hundred and three times while bragging about your tongue ring. Check.

Step Four: Remember to avoid being bitten when one of the passengers getting ready to embark on an outgoing flight—which you have not established quarantine for because you didn't think about the infected leaving the country, only coming in. Oops.

Step Five: Hide bite from fellow Slayers because your uber-smart and witchy girlfriend will think of something. Check.

Step Six: Establish quarantine for all passengers entering the airport to depart the country as well. Check

Step Seven: Hide the fact that you are feeling sick to your stomach, queasy, and kinda ill from everyone including said girlfriend after she mentions she can't locate a cure by either scientific or mystical means. Check

Step Eight: Die in miserable janitor's closet, puking guts out. Che...

Step Nine: So hungry, hungry, hungry…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Reflections of Margorot LaHare,
Interview for the Magdalene Chronicles, November 17, 2007
Conducted by Allison Harkness

The Rio massacre caught the supernatural community quite unaware. Between the local paramilitary patrols and the forcible presence of the Watchers’ Council, many witches and friendly demons were lulled into a false sense of security. Quite frankly, even the most magical or demonic person didn’t expect zombies!

Once we realized that there was a problem, it was too late. The city was beginning to crawl with these creatures, devouring everything humanoid in their presence, including many demonic species. Evacuation of the magical community was negligible, as there was a lack of skilled telekinetics available. Best estimates reported only a ten percent survival rate of Rio’s supernatural community. Before we knew what was happening, the city was in chaos.

The truly horrifying part was the fate of those who tried to escape via mystical shielding. The problem with shielding of course, is that it depended almost wholly on the individual’s skill level and an avoidance of zombies. Once a zombie saw a person they would attempt to get to that person, unless otherwise distracted. The moans of one zombie would also bring others. The zombie(s) would simply attack the shield over and over until it failed. In that very second, the magic user would be overcome and torn apart.

Many demons thought it was quite sporting to watch this process. Of course that was until the zombies attacked them as well …

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004

Spike crushed his last cigarette out and desperately wondered if he could talk one of the black ops guy into a cigarette run with the chopper. One would think that with all the tobacco companies that Wolfram and Hart represented there would have been some free samples around, but no….

Lawyers, demons, slayers, and watchers living together in addition to nicotine withdrawal? This could get ugly quick.

Before he went anywhere, though, he would have to stop by the infirmary. He wasn’t sure what Buffy’s reaction to his being alive would be, but there would be no avoiding it now. Trepidation tore though him. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if she took back what she said in the Hellmouth. He didn’t think she meant it. But as long as he didn’t see her, he could pretend. Believe that she had meant it. That she truly loved him.

Even a demon had to have its illusions.

It didn’t matter, though. Even if he didn’t need to check on Buffy, he had to check on Dawn. He still had a promise to keep with his bit.

Till the end of the world; even it that is tonight.