DISCLAIMER: Angel the Series/Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy etc. Elizabeth Blaine and attendant characters belong to Wes Craven etc. I'm just playing. If, herein, other characters bear a certain resemblance to familiar faces, it's intentional and they, of course, belong to their various creators as well.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: 1. I write femslash. Therefore, there be f/f lovin' ahead. If you don't like it, find another 'ship. 2. Vampires and blood and stakes, oh my! This story is dark in places. Not all the time, and not forever, but there will be some points where things aren't pretty. If you are bothered by graphic descriptions of the evil that men do, you may wish to find something fluffy. 3. Some knowledge of the show, Angel and the movies Dracula II and III (Ascension and Legacy) are quite probably necessary, though not entirely so.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Resurrection is for the Unbelievers
By sHaYcH
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Don't listen to him, Little Bee."
After five years of living among the undead, not much surprised Elizabeth anymore. However, that voice, tinged with such a familiar amount of love, sarcasm and command nearly knocked the vampath off the bed.
If she could have spoken, she would have whispered, "Gran?" Instead, she looked around the room, trying with all her might to find the source of the voice.
It had to be Gareth.
How she knew her captor's name, she didn't want to contemplate.
Gareth Evans, once a CPA working for a small firm in Hoagland, Indiana had been visiting the Big Apple when a hungry vampire had decided to spice up his diet with geek. Then, in a fit of sheer pique, that same vamp had turned Gareth.
Three days later, one of Faith's girls had put a stake in his heart and sent him off to the big dust buster in the sky. Once there, he had accepted the proposition of one of the Tos and returned to Earth.
Gareth Evans, unlike Elizabeth, had been a weak willed son of a bitch with a nasty penchant for raping children when he was human. As a vampath, he had access to powers that allowed him to fulfill fantasies that he hadn't even dreamt of as a CPA.
::Yes, my love. You know now. You feel it – feel Us as We feel You. Come, join Us. Become One. We shall own it all. Let us feed upon the despair of this world.::
"Oh pox on that piece of outer dimensional trash. Forget about him, Little Bee and get out of there before he turns you into Vampathic Soufflé. Go on – you can do it. You're better than that piece of outhouse refuse." Helen Blaine's voice was a goad that filled Elizabeth with strength. Love, compassion, and a strong desire to look into the eyes of a certain blonde detective rippled through the vampath, giving her the energy she needed to fight Gareth's compulsion.
That was when she understood that they were still linked. It was his blood that had coated the blade of the knife… the same blade that was still sunk deeply into her side.
Anger, bright, burning and empowering tore through her. With a scream of pure defiance, she strained at her bonds.
Bone and tendon twisted. Muscles flexed as her blood pumped endorphins and something more into her system. Salt filled her mouth as her fangs erupted and pierced her lip.
The agony of her shoulders dislocating was a welcome sensation. As the ropes loosened, she bent her body in a powerful flexion, releasing her wrists from their prison. Sitting, she rotated her arms in a massive windmill motion, restoring her shoulders to their proper place. Her face was a mask of pain, but she was determined to escape.
Ripping the tape from her mouth, she spat out the gag and said, "Never in a million years – not even if you were the last remainder of anything remotely human in the universe." As she spoke, she reached behind her, pulled the knife from her back and used it to cut her legs free.
Gareth snarled. "Then you will die like the others!" Fangs sprouted from his mouth and he leapt for her.
Reflexes dulled by hours of capture, Elizabeth could only topple off the bed. The other vampath missed, landing half on the bed, half on the floor. The redhead laughed lightly and said, "Guess your momma was right, Gar. You do have two left feet."
"You will die screaming my name in agony," he yelled as he staggered to his feet.
"Oh yeah – because that is the only way I will ever scream your name, you bastard whoreson of a pathetic excuse for a vampath."
Gareth reached for something hidden in the shadows behind him. When his hands came forward, he was holding a shotgun. Deliberately, he chambered a shell and took aim at Elizabeth.
"I usually like to watch them quiver," he said, his voice dropping into a sing-song lisp. "But I think it's time to try a new thrill." He pulled the trigger.
Halfway to the office, Dersk's phone rang.
"Yeah?" Gods and small demons but his feet hurt.
"Find Elizabeth. I don't care what you have to do, just find her and get her back here safely. Don't ask me how I know, but she's in trouble." Kate sounded like she was about to chew her way through the phone, which would be quite a feat considering her jaw was still wired shut.
"Well, gee Boss, hello to you too." The half-demon smirked at the sound of utter frustration that echoed over the phone line. "So does this mean I get to use the company car?"
"Touch my wheels and you will know the meaning of pain, snake boy. Get a cab, borrow a friend's ride – do whatever is within the bounds of legality to get mobile. I'll reimburse you later."
Briefly, he considered hiring out a limousine, but discarded the idea. He hated driving the beasts, and gas was killer. A cab would have to do. First off – he needed some idea of where to find Elizabeth, which meant a visit to one of the local witches.
"Should I use Starbright or Maria?" he said as he mentally calculated how much cash he had left.
"Neither. Call this number –" Kate spat out a string of numbers and continued, "and ask for Willow."
"Huh. Now they're going for the tree names. How Celtic of her. Betcha her momma named her something like Matilda." Dersk smirked as he pictured an overweight, crystal kissing new age groupie with starry-eyed delusions of reinventing Wicca.
"As far as I know, Willow is what her mother named her."
"Oh." Dersk was at a loss, and then, as the name began to percolate through his consciousness, he swallowed and said, "You know, Boss – I never, ever want to piss you off. You have friends that make my parents look like saints."
"Just find Elizabeth, Dersk. Bring her home."
Somewhere in the hour between hanging up with Willow and calling Dersk, Kate found the courage to look into her heart and see that the woman who wore the face and name of Elizabeth Blaine was moving from the "evil vampire bitch from hell" category and into the "friend I care about in ways I can't enumerate" column.
There was a bond forming between them, and whether it was that connection or something else – something more esoteric – that led Kate to believe the vampath was in trouble, she owed Elizabeth the chance to know that she had a friend.
Hell, I owe her my life. The least I could do is to get over myself and accept that she's changed. She's not the demon anymore. I don't know what she is – but it isn't evil. If she could just convince her head of the facts her heart already understood.
Kate burned to jump to her feet, grab her helmet and systematically tear Chicago apart, but her broken hand was more than adequate to keep her housebound. Top that off with ribs that still felt like she was constantly being kicked by a mule and an inability to communicate in anything other than a gritted lisp, and well… the job of coming to the rescue was far more suited to an able bodied being.
Which was why she was about to put a large portion of faith into the body of one young half-demon.
"Please don't fail her – I couldn't forgive myself." Just be safe, Elizabeth.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As a med student in New Orleans, Elizabeth Blaine had spent more than her fair share of hours ensconced at the local pub. Much of that time had been occupied with caring for her boyfriend, but there were moments – hours, really – where she and her friend Tanya would play darts while Kenny and Lowell would talk sports.
Those hours paid off.
In spades.
With a flick of her wrist, she flipped the dagger from hilt to blade tip. Then, even as Gareth pulled the trigger, she threw, burying the knife to the hilt in the barrel of the gun.
Without waiting to see what happened, Elizabeth ran. As she knocked the bedroom door from its hinges, there was a loud roar and the smell of cordite filled the air. This was followed by a pain filled scream of rage.
She turned to look and what she saw left a massive grin on her face.
Gareth lay on the bed, his body torn, broken and bloodied in so many places it looked as though he'd been put through a meat grinder. Half of his face was gone, the white of bone peeking through where the skin had been blasted away. One eye hung by a tendon while the other wept bloody tears.
Most of the teeth on the injured side were gone, shattered into fragments.
"Gee Gar – you look like hell. Guess you won't be entertaining anytime soon." Elizabeth smirked and sauntered toward the front of the house.
Behind her, she heard the broken vampath rage. "You will die. Die! I swear it by the hand of Death and the blood of Evil – I will have my revenge on you, Elizabeth Blaine!"
She stopped. Turning, she walked back to the bedroom and looked at Gareth. Conversationally, she said, "You know, I very much want to rip your head off and spit down your neck." She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms over her chest. "But I'm really trying to quit the killing rage thing – it's almost as bad for you as smoking."
The male vampath started to rise, chunks of his flesh falling away to reveal ghastly holes where the gunpowder had driven shrapnel into his body like thousands of tiny scalpels. Spitting teeth, Gareth said, "I cannot die, bitch – but I can kill. I know –" He choked on a gobbet of blood. "I know how to make you hurt – how to make it so that death is a blessing."
Elizabeth sighed. "Guess I'm gonna have to fall off the wagon again." Pushing away from the doorframe, she walked into the room and grabbed Gareth's head in her hands. She looked into his eyes and said, "Sayonara, sadist." Endorphins aided by symbiotic strength pumped through her. Twisting and pulling, Elizabeth ignored Gareth's feeble attempts to fight back.
The wet, tearing sound the flesh and bone made was almost as satisfying as the scream of sheer and utter terror the vampath made as he died.
Tossing the head aside, she looked down at her clothes and said, "Damn. I hate washing blood out of linen." Later, when she was safely ensconced within her apartment, she would fall apart – for now, she needed to deal with the remains of the evil vampath.
Elizabeth was whistling cheerfully while standing over a bar-b-q grill when Dersk arrived. Chunks of Gareth were slowly burning to ashes when the half-demon wandered into the backyard.
"It's a little early to be having a cook out, don't you think, Doc?"
The vampath dropped the lid on the grill and shrugged. "I dunno – it's never too early for a good meal. Though I wouldn't exactly label this one good, or meal. Call it – insurance. Hard to come back if there's no body, you know?"
Nodding sagely, the half-demon said, "Hey, I got a bottle of some blessed water in my back pocket – you want?"
Laughing, Elizabeth said, "Sure, why not? Can't hurt me, might do some lovely damage to Mr. Fuck Face's unimmortal soul." She accepted the grimy bottle with a pointedly curious look.
"Don't ask and I won't gross you out with the details. Suffice it to say that my night was probably almost as fucked as yours." Dersk shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. "So – you think Kate will go for making us dinner when we get back?"
The vampath smiled. "Only if we both bathe, change clothes and pitch in with the cutting, slicing, dicing and chopping of whatever green bits she wants us to consume along with the gargantuan slabs of meat that will hopefully kill the rotten taste in our mouths."
Dersk sighed. "Can we stop and pick up some beer? I feel the need to drown my sorrows in a drunken stupor."
Glancing sideways at the half-demon, Elizabeth said, "Surely it wasn't that bad?"
Dersk closed his eyes and shuddered delicately. "Oh yes, it was."
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