Part Three – The Cult’s Lair.

“Trapped!” said Ian angrily. “Well it’s been nice knowing you both”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Dawn asked Willow, hurriedly.
“There is, but I don’t know if it will w**k” Willow replied glumly.
“Try it anyway!” Dawn insisted as she heard a loud bang.

Willow stared at the wall of flames separating them from the Car. As she did so, her eyes turned bright green. The effect took a little while, but eventually Willow managed to create a gap in the flames. As the gap appeared, Dawn and Ian ran through it. Willow made sure that it would still be there until she passed through the flames. Eventually she did and they all jumped into the Car and sped through another wall of flames being fortunate not to set the Car alight. They sped away from the Gas Station seconds before it exploded. The force was terrific and the Car barely managed to keep ahead of the fireball that the explosion generated. After driving for another few seconds, it died down.

It had happened again. Twice now he had lost the mortals. He was helpless and powerless to do anything this time, so he gathered his fellow Vampires and, as the lead Vampire, created a Wormhole to transport him and his fellow Vampires back to face their Master’s wrath.

They were on their way again. The Gas Station had been a minor de-tour from Ian’s planned route, but now there would be no need to stop again.
“I guess that makes it three attempts on my life so far tonight” Ian joked.
“Ha! Beat that easy. I’ve had at least thirty so far” replied Willow, also joking.
Dawn however was far from amused. She had grown tired of the chase and was dreading the return of the Mole creature as soon as the Vampires returned to the Hellmouth. Either that or something more deadly! She checked her watch. It was seven pm – still at least ten hours of darkness remained until the sun would begin to rise again. That meant ten more hours of tense travelling ahead. Then Dawn began to fall asleep.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. That nasty alarm signalled that it was time for Dawn to wake up.
“Not already!” she thought before stopping the alarm before it drove her up the wall. As she did so, she managed to push it off of the bedside table and onto the floor.

Dawn slowly got out of bed and put the alarm clock back onto the bedside table. It was half past five in the evening, which meant that she had about an hour to get ready before Xander drove her to the nightclub where they worked. She opened the bedroom door and walked wearily towards the bathroom. When she got there, she found it locked.
“Grr!” she said, loud enough for whomever was inside to hear.
“Just a minute” replied Andrew’s voice from within.
Dawn waited impatiently outside dressed in nothing but her underwear.

What seemed like an eternity later, Andrew unlocked the bathroom door and emerged. He looked at dawn, leered and decided to tease her
“Looking great Dawn” he said.
Dawn wasn’t amused, so she clenched her fist and punched him in the stomach, which winded him. Then she stormed into the bathroom.
“Stupid prick!” she cursed as she ran her shower.

After spending fifteen minutes in the shower, she took her towel and dried herself before peering out of the door to ensure Andrew wasn’t waiting there with a camera. She then got dressed and ready for w**k. Just as she did so, however, Dawn heard a lot of discussion occurring downstairs, so she went down to find out what it was about.

A ghastly sight met her gaze as she stepped into the lounge. Buffy, Anya and Willow had come back from a surveillance operation very badly injured. Buffy herself appeared to be bleeding heavily from the stomach. Dawn stood there in shock as she asked what had happened.
“We were out spying on them and they came out for us. Loads of them came from all directions. We tried to hold them off, but it was no use, we had to run for it. Buffy got it worst though” explained Willow.
“We need to get you three to Hospital” said Giles urgently “I’ll call for an Ambulance. Dawn, I need you to get a dry, clean cloth and press down on Buffy’s wound, you need to stem the bleeding”
Dawn did as she was told and did what she could to keep her sister alive before the Ambulance came for her. There was relief all round when three Ambulances finally did arrive. Buffy, Anya and Willow were all taken into separate ones and were sped to Hospital.

As they sped off, Giles looked at Dawn and Xander purposefully.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine” he said “You two better get to w**k. It will help you to take your mind off what had happened”
Dawn was about to protest when Xander put his arm around her and let her to the Car. Throughout that night, she was worried about Buffy.

Dawn felt a large jolt. She awoke instantly and took one long panic stricken look around her. To her relief, there was nothing wrong- just the uneven road surface.
“Are we there yet?” she asked still half-asleep.
“Not quite. There’s still a way to go yet” answered Ian
“Oh” Dawn replied as she sat up and settled down again.

There was a certain level of dramatic irony in keeping both himself and the creature beside him waiting. Their master had left them there for at least fifteen minutes by now. Was he going over their respective punishments in his mind or was he preparing their execution? What he did know as lead Vampire was that the punishment would be severe and it would not be pleasant.

Their master finally emerged from a tunnel in the dimly lit cave. The cave itself was lit by a single blue light being emitted by a stone of some kind placed in the centre of the cave. The six feet tall skeletal being walked towards them.
“You have both failed me” it breathed, barely audible.
“There is a punishment for those who fail” it continued.
It tossed a stone into the blue light. The blue light caused the rock to break into tiny fragments and caused the light glowed red momentarily as it broke the stone up.
Both the lead Vampire and the Mole-type creature beside him had got the idea.
“So far we have killed the Slayer, two watchers, one witch and a Human, but you have both allowed three others to escape!”
“We are sorry master” replied the Vampire “We…”
“Silence!” snapped the Skeleton. “They are dangerous. They must be killed”

The Skeleton gestured to a group of Vampires to restrain both the mole creature and the lead vampire. When they had done so, the Skeleton pointed a bony finger at the Mole-like creature.
“You have drawn attention to yourself. More Humans will learn of our location because of your foolish actions – they should have been killed before leaving the parking lot” it said
The Vampires holding the mole creature thrust it towards the blue light. It screamed as it slowly melted away in the now red glow.

When it was over, the Skeleton turned to the lead Vampire.
“You have failed me on three occasions. When you killed the watcher Xavier, you failed to ensure that no-one else was alive at the house. In your haste to leave, you left a Human alive. They you failed to kill this Human and the two others from the battle on a second raid. As if that wasn’t foolish enough, you let them go again on a third occasion at a Gas station. I shall waste no more time with you”
Like the mole-creature before him, the lead Vampire was tossed into the blue light and he perished.
“Zeladin. You shall replace him”
“Yes my Master” replied a tall, blonde-haired vampire.

“Not far now” said Ian cheerfully, thinking that their ordeal would be over as soon as they had met with the Vampire cult.
“Ian, are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” asked Willow, who was getting a little less comfortable with the idea of meeting the cult.
“I am sure” he replied before laughing at the panicked expression on her face.
“It’s not funny!” snapped Dawn “We’ve spent hours running away from the Hellmouth and its people. I don’t want to get caught up in anything else!”
This took the smile off of Ian’s face.
“If we’re going to defeat the Hellmouth, we are going to need help” he replied
“Who said anything about defeating the Hellmouth?” shrieked Dawn “I vote we get on a plane and get as far away from here as possible”
“And just how do you propose to do that?”

Dawn explained to Ian that they could drive back to San Francisco when it was light, collect their belongings and get on a plane. The remaining items and the rent would be a problem, but Dawn wasn’t able to take much with her to San Francisco anyway. Most of the house’s contents had been hired as they had never intended to stay after defeating the Hellmouth.

Ian was about to reply when he spotted the place that the cult frequented during the night.
“We’re here” he said, delighted.
The lair wasn’t as warm and welcoming a sight as Dawn and Willow had hoped that it would be. For a start the run down building didn’t appear to be lit and it looked as though it was paying host to some messy squatters shortly before the local Mayor and the Police would round them up and force them away before demolishing the now empty, ageing building themselves.

When they got out of the Car, Dawn and Willow looked at each other feeling confused. They had instinctively grabbed their weapons – something that was encouraged by the eeriness of their surroundings.
Ian marched up to the front door and rang the bell. There was no reply.
“Right. Let’s try round the back. Dawn, if you can stay here and watch out for any trouble. Willow and I will go around the back” he said.

Unwillingly, Dawn did as she was told and turned her back on the front door.
“Why do I have to get pushed around?” she said quietly to herself.
From behind her, the door was carefully opened. A short teenage boy wearing a dark hood that concealed his face crept up behind Dawn and grabbed her from behind. Dawn screamed as he opened his mouth near her neck.

End of Part Three.

wow nice escape :)

oh dear, what up for dawn now :fear:

Thanks :)

Find out about Dawn next week...

:thumbsup:

Brilliant, cant wait for the next part.


Haze

Thanks :)

I'll probably post it on Friday as I go home on Saturday