Chapter
6.11
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002
Dawn stumbled unsteadily from one railway tie
to the next. The wound in her thigh was seeping blood, and even
though out here the night air was chill, her body was coated
in a cold sweat, the salt from which further aggravated her tender
flesh. She tried to keep her thighs from rubbing together as she
walked, but she was so tired and the monotony of putting one foot
in front of the other would lull her into numbness until the pain
brought her back.
So much of her concentration was swallowed up
by her effort to keep moving that it came as a shock when she
realised that she could no longer see the ties beneath her feet.
Her focus had been only on matching her steps to their even spacing
and the feel of their smooth, slightly oily, coolness beneath
her feet. She turned around and could see a vaguely lighter area
of night sky framed by the tunnel walls.
Looking back in the direction she had been headed,
she could see nothing. Not even a single feature was discernible
in the Stygian gloom. She forced herself to walk on into the velvet
darkness, her path chosen for better or worse.
What did she have to fear from darkness, for
she was Light, formed from the very Light of Creation? She felt
no pain, for she had no earthly form. She simply was and always
would be.
A frigid wind whistled from the tunnel ahead
of them, buffeting the bikers, as they not so much sped as motored
toward their goal. Travelling down the outer edges of the track
was like one enormous level gravel drive. Neither of the bikes
were designed with off-road use in mind, and if the men were to
risk too great a turn of speed on the unstable surface, it might
result in an accident that would prevent them from reaching their
goal. Yet, as the first gasp of air from the tunnel reached them,
Spike rolled back his right wrist and gave his bike full throttle.
Raising her visor, Buffy simply asked, "Dawn?"
Spike nodded. "She's bleeding." He
had to shout his reply as the speeding air through the tunnel
tried to snatch the words away. Wes followed closely behind, coming
up on the other side of the tracks, but the humvees had to slow
up, their width not so far short of that of the trains the tunnel
was designed for.
The time it took for them to traverse the tunnel
seemed to go on forever, and then they saw her. Silhouetted in
the beams of the bikes' headlights she stood frozen in the middle
of the track. Her stance was reminiscent of something in a Japanese
animé just before the monster breaks free of its human
shell. Her hair straggled around her face in sweat-soaked strands.
She held her arms rigid so that her wrists were almost six inches
from her hips, but then her hands just seemed to dangle there.
Her feet were about a foot apart and she swayed slightly as if
her legs didn't want to support her any more. The closer they
got the worse the picture in front of them became. First it was
the smears of blood on her thighs that they saw. Then, it was
the ragged state of her feet beneath their coating of oil and
dirt. The worst of all, the vacant eyes of someone completely
unaware of the world around them, they didn't actually see until
the bikes slewed to a halt just ahead of her. When their lights
illuminated her slack features, she didn't even blink.
Just as the four men had pushed the convertible
into position across the eastbound track and locked on the parking
brake, Lorne's cell phone rang. "Angel Investigations?"
None of the men knew why it had seemed more appropriate to push
the venerable old car to meet its doom, but somehow lining it
up there under its own power would have been like expecting it
to assist in its own demise.
"Angel?" Lorne held out his phone to
the vampire. "It's Spike, he rang the office number, got
diverted to me."
"Angel? We found Dawn. She's messed up bad.
She looks like Ronette Pulaski. You and your guys have got to
make sure that bitch goes down and find out what the hell they've
doped her with. She's not speaking. She doesn't have a clue what's
going on around her. It could be shock, but Klinger here reckons
that that train is basically a mobile lab where they develop antivenins
and antitoxins. That means it has a load of poisonous shit so
watch the humans if she starts throwing bottles, but they might
just have the antidote to that poisonous shit."
"Spike slow down."
"She dumped Dawn off the train, doped up
with god knows what, barefoot and half-dressed, to walk down the
line. She hasn't come past us, so she's headed for you, unless
you've already missed her. I am going to hunt this cunt down,
but for now it's my place to look after Buffy and Dawn, so I'm
counting on you to make her regret ever laying a finger on that
girl and to find out exactly what she did to her. Clear enough?"
"Crystal."
"Right then, good luck."
Angel leapt into the convertible and drove it
off the tracks. "New plan, guys. Dawn isn't on the train
any longer. I figure, Connor and I can probably catch a free ride
without too much difficulty. Fred, you drive the truck. When the
train goes past, just turn onto the tracks and follow on behind,
I'm hoping Gunn and Lorne can make the jump to the caboose. There
is a woman on that train, name of Sam Finn who has been ...basically
she has Dawn so messed up on whatever they gave her she doesn't
even know where she is."
"The lab could apparently be full of various
toxins and hopefully their antidotes. We need to find out what
this woman has done to Dawn and how we can undo it. We've got
a better chance of catching her unawares this way. If we block
the track there's a chance she'll ditch the stuff we need before
we can get to her."
Angel looked around the group. "I want you
all to be real careful. These guys are humans, but they think
that gives them the right to kill anything that isn't—"
"Angel, man, we been through this. Sam woman,
evil, needs to be interrogated. Other soldiers, potentially lethal,
but we have to try to not play too rough, even if they kill our
friends. We get."
The lights on either side of the crossing started
to flash on and off and then the bell began to sound as the barriers
dropped down to block the passage of any cars until the train
had gone through. Finally, they heard the train's whistle and
then it was speeding past them.
As the train passed over the level crossing, Angel
began to sprint along on its left, Connor doing much the same
on its right. Angel was surprised to see a sliding door standing
open even while the train was moving. He made a leap and grabbed
the rail next to the door, pulling himself into the very section
of the train where he wanted to be. Connor was less fortunate
and made a leap to the top of the final car. Once there, he knelt
down and leant over the end of the car above the point where a
ladder made its way onto the car's roof. He reached down ready
to offer a helping hand to Gunn and then Lorne as they made the
jump from the hood of Gunn's pick up truck. Once they were safely
aboard Fred dropped back with the truck, but still kept pace.
Sam was just washing the last of Dawn's blood
from her hands as she heard the voice from behind her.
"I'd like to be the first to offer my condolences."
"Really, and why would that be?"
"Well, you've lost your little scheme. One
way or the other you've lost your husband, and if you," Angel
lashed out from his seemingly relaxed position to drive the heel
of his hand into Sam's nose. He didn't quite use enough force
to drive the bone shards into her brain, but then he had a hundred
years of practice to fall back on. Without any apparent break
in flow he continued his chat. "don't tell me, now, exactly
what you did to Dawn Summers, you can say goodbye to anything
that passes for a face."
Spike moved to get in the backseat of the humvee
with Buffy and Dawn, but the slayer gently pushed him away.
"Wes can follow us to the hospital. He'll
help with what needs to be done. Take the orbs, just in case Riley
does switch sides, take Willow and do what you have to do."
"I have to be with you. That's what family's
meant to do."
"Spike, she hurt Dawn. We need to find out
how. Go kick her lying ass till she tells you how to fix her.
Then, kick it some more, just for me. And then, just so long as
there's enough left of her to stand trial afterward, you do whatever
the hell you want. You hear me?" She craned her
neck to whisper the words in his ear too quietly for the vehicle's
driver to catch and then she kissed him goodbye. "Sam thinks
I'm going to be too busy looking after Dawn to come looking for
her. Prove her wrong."
Spike stood up and gave a remarkably authentic
looking salute. "Yes, ma'am," he replied before pushing
shut the vehicle door.
Buffy rolled down her window, "And as soon
as you've done that, soldier, I recommend some R & R. Go see
your family. They'll be waiting."
"Sounds like damn good advice to me. I'll
be with you soon, love. Watch over her for me."
Less than a minute later the convoy was now back
on the road. This time Willow rode behind Spike, and they were
short one humvee and one bike. All that mattered to Spike was
that he had Buffy's blessing, Red had the barrier spell ready,
and he intended to catch up with this Sam before Angel and his
crew had all the fun.
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