The hands wrapped around her throat were cold and as hard as stone. No matter how Lois scrabbled, she couldn’t get them to let up on the pressure. Angelica was staring down at her avidly, as though waiting to see the last moment of life pass through her eyes.
Usually grabbing the thumb and pulling it up and back would pull someone off, but Lois couldn’t even move these thumbs. She felt her vision darkening around the edges.
She reached up to try to gouge at Angelica’s eye; the sensei had taught dirty street tactics as well as conventional Tai Kwon Do, with the idea that it was better to be alive than it was to be correct.
Instinctively, this caused Angelica to pull up and away, loosening her grip for the space of a moment.
That was all Lois needed to get her grip around a thumb and pull, lashing out at Angelica’s eyes again and managing to scratch the side of her face. Lois rolled Angelica off of her, and a moment later they were both up again and facing each other.
Lois was gasping for breath, and Angelica barely seemed winded.
“I’m going to enjoy the look in his eye after I kill you.” Angelica said, her demonic visage making her look more like the demon she was than ever before. “Seeing that hope die…It’s going to be hot when I make him…”
She must have seen the reflection in Lois’s eye, because Angelica dodged out of the way a moment before the fireball would have hit her in the back.
Willow already had another small ball of fire in her hand, and it was already growing.
Apparently deciding that Lois no longer rated as the main threat, Angelica raced for the wall leading up to the bleachers. She dodged another thrown fireball easily, and a moment later she was out of Willow’s immediate field of vision.
Lois began scrabbling around for her stake. She hadn’t come this far to let other people do all the fighting, even if she didn’t have much of a chance.
Angelica reached the base of the wall, then bent and leapt straight up. More than thirty feet, and then she was dropping to the bleachers.
Willow’s next fireball missed her, although it set several of the chairs on fire. Just as it seemed to be ready to create another huge scorch mark on the Astroturf, the ball stopped in midair and turned.
Angelica was in trouble.
Lois found herself being grabbed by younger Slayers, who pulled her to her feet. At least she’d found her stake; she didn’t even remember having dropped it.
“Let’s get out of here,” one of them was saying.
Although the vampires had taken massive casualties, the remaining Slayers were woefully outnumbered. They were still fighting in clumps, but Lois could see that it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.
One girl against the entire world. It really hadn’t been a fair idea. The swarming hosts of monsters would quickly overwhelm anyone.
Unfortunately, Lois didn’t have time to help them. Angelica was heading straight for Willow and Clark. If the fireball got to her before she reached them, everything would be all right. If it didn’t, Willow would be in trouble. Angelica was moving so quickly, that it would be difficult for Willow to follow her.
Lois couldn’t help the others. If Angelica got control of Clark, it was all over for everybody.
Glancing at the stake in her hand, Lois realized that there was no way she was going to be able to throw it far enough to help at all.
She stepped forward. She was going to have to follow and do what she could to hold Angelica off.
Her foot twisted as she stepped on something. Nimbly, she stepped off it and glanced down.
The flagpole lay where Angelica had dropped it. There wasn’t much left of the flag on one end. Much of that had burned or been torn in the middle of the earlier fight.
Bending down, Lois grabbed the pole, its sharpened end forward, and she realized that it felt right. Whatever gifts being a Slayer gave, knowledge of using long wooden things was apparently one of them.
She began to run, keeping her eye on Angelica, who was leaping from seat to seat, zigzagging up the bleachers like some sort of monstrous spider. The flames were having trouble catching up, and in several places small fires broke out as seats began to smolder and burn.
As Lois ran, she mentally calculated where she was going to throw. The trick wasn’t to throw where Angelica was, but rather where she would be.
The world seemed silent suddenly as Lois reared back and the makeshift spear left her hand. In the world of the ordinary Olympics, it would have been a prodigious, inhuman throw.
It moved through the air with the deadly accuracy of a guided missile, and Angelica apparently didn’t see it.
Angelica prepared to take her final leap, with both the spear and the fireball rushing up from behind her. With one eye on the fireball, Angelica had eyes for nothing else.
It was a surprise when her last leap toward Willow and Clark ended with her being plastered against some sort of invisible force field.
This resulted in her not being where Lois had hoped she would be, and the spear also clattered against the invisible field, falling to lie among the bleachers.
The fireball struck the field and exploded against it, leaving Willow looking visibly shaken. It too flew too high, and Angelica screamed in rage as she patted out the few sparks which had fallen on her.
Angelica was screaming in rage now. Before Willow could stop her, she leapt. Instead of leaping futilely at Willow, she leapt even higher than she had before. So high did she leap that instead of hitting the dome, she went over it.
She was behind Willow now, facing Clark.
She gestured, and Lois could see Willow’s eyes widen in comprehension as Clark turned and flicked her in the head with his finger.
Willow collapsed where she stood, and with her, the shield fell.
Lois reached the wall leading up to the bleachers and she leapt. She was over the top and onto the front row even as Angelica leapt toward the witch.
The crossbow bolt that flew toward Angelica was a surprise. Glancing back, Lois could see that Faith and Buffy had somehow made their way back to the ground level and were even now trying to save their friend’s life.
Seeing that Buffy had grabbed one of the flame throwers, Lois threw herself flat as a gout of flame flew over her and headed straight for Angelica and Clark.
Clark didn’t move, but Angelica shrieked and ducked and dodged.
Wherever she went Buffy’s flames followed her. Lois grimaced as she felt drops of burning fluid hit her back, blistering. She crawled quickly, thankful for the dividing wall.
She stopped as she reached the aisle, watching Angelica move. All it would take would be one misstep, and it would all be over.
Angelica didn’t even have time to call out to Clark to save her. It was taking all her concentration to keep away from the flames, which were even more deadly to her than to a human being.
It wasn’t until the flames stopped that Lois realized something was wrong.
The fuel was out.
Angelica stopped and grinned in triumph. She was near Clark again, and she said something to him.
A moment later, Buffy and Faith’s unconscious bodies were lying beside Willow’s, with Angelica standing over them.
Lois exploded into motion. She was halfway up the bleachers before Angelica noticed her, and when she did, she grinned.
She bent down and grabbed Buffy’s Scythe. She stopped for a moment and stared at it as it seemed to twist in her hand of its own accord.
That moment was all the time Lois needed. The flagpole lay where it had fallen, and Lois picked it up and threw it as she ran.
This time there as no shield to stop it. However, Angelica looked up a moment before it hit her and managed to twist out of the way.
It didn’t hit her heart, but it pierced her side, and blood welled up from the wound.
Angelica shrieked, enraged. For all that she liked to brag about being better than other fledglings, smarter, more in control, in the end, she was like the rest of them.
A creature of rage.
She lunged forward, but Lois had been watching her fight. She was tiring now, slower than she had been. The cumulative effects of all her wounds were bringing her speed down to something hat Lois could handle.
It wasn’t always speed that won fights. Lois’s sensei had drilled that lesson into her time and time again. There was always going to be someone stronger, always someone faster. Fighting smarter was the only thing that could bridge that gap, and even then not always.
Angelica came flying toward her, but for all her speed, she had to move more than ten feet.
Lois only had to move a few inches.
Lois stepped quickly to the side and jabbed brutally upward. Angelica twisted again, and the stake missed her heart, but plunged deeply into her chest nonetheless. It wrenched out of Lois’s grasp, leaving her weaponless.
Angelica lashed out as she passed, and Lois felt her head rocked back from the force of the blow.
The punch wasn’t as strong as Lois had been expecting. Angelica was fading, and her sudden rush had placed her further down the stairs than Lois.
Angelica froze, staring at her, and Lois felt a wetness on her upper lip. She lifted her hand and it came away red.
A single drop fell from her hand, and suddenly, incongruously Lois thought she could hear the sound of chimes.
Stiffening suddenly, Clark gasped. An expression of sudden joy appeared on his face, which lit up.
He was free.
Angelica glanced back at Clark, and then toward Lois, and for the first time an expression similar to fear appeared on her face.
Lois couldn’t help the savage grin that appeared on her own face.
Clark vanished, and the sounds of the sonic boom washed over them. The sounds of fighting from below stopped.
Lois was facing the football field now, staring down at Angelica and the scene down below.
The girls had been herded toward the pile of burning debris that was all that had been left of the stage. They were all together, facing a horde eight times their size.
None of that mattered. As Clark plowed into the crowd, Lois heard Angelica making her move, trying to take advantage of Lois’s distraction.
She’d expected it, and as Angelica tried to charge up the stairs toward her, Lois stepped back and kicked her in the face.
Angelica fell, and this gave Lois time to turn and run up the stairs. She reached down even as she felt Angelica’s hand on her ankle, and a moment later she had the Scythe in her hand.
It was unnaturally warm in her grasp, and she could feel its humming contentment to be back in the hands of one for whom it had been meant to be used.
Before she could do anything about it, Lois was jerked back and down, and the weapon flew out of her hand. She twisted, and a moment later Angelica was on top of her again with her hands around her throat.
Angelica leaned forward, her face a monstrous testament to her true nature.
“I’ll get it all back.”
“No you won’t.” Lois said, gagging.
Angelica’s eyes widened as she felt Lois grab the stake still in her chest. A simple twist and a shove was all it took.
“I’m sorry.” Lois said.
A moment later there was only dust in the wind.
At least now the Cortez family would finally be able to mourn their lost daughter. They wouldn’t have to be afraid to open their door at night. They wouldn’t have to live in terror.
At least not any more than anyone who was aware of the truth of the world.
Lois heard a stirring sound from behind her. Buffy and Faith were slowly starting to move, although Willow was still out.
“Is it over?” she heard Buffy ask, in a voice that sounded almost disappointed.
“Well, B.,” Faith said. “At least you got to burn some things.”
Lois slowly started to sit up and look around.
The stadium was a disaster area. There were huge portions of Astroturf that were smoldering and blackened.
Burning seats in the stands left an acrid smell of burning wood and smoke, as did the still burning stage.
The damage was likely to run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.
It was worth every penny.
The world was safe, and Lois had Clark back.
The vampires were gone from the field, either slain or having fled, and Clark was flashing back and forth, taking the most heavily wounded of the Slayers into the sky, presumably heading back for the hospital.
Buffy and Lois were checking on Willow, who had finally begun to come around.
Lois overheard Buffy say, “What do you think the chances are of getting some more fuel for those things?”
Glancing upward, Lois realized that Buffy was staring at the fallen flamethrowers.
Apparently her reputation as a pyromaniac was well deserved.
A moment later, Buffy was at her side.
“Are you all right?”
Lois nodded. She’d have bruises on top of bruises in the morning, but luckily none of it would last long.
There were benefits to being a Slayer. It wasn’t all just nightmares and death and terror. Sometimes it meant being able to make a difference in the world.
It was something she’d always wanted to do.
“Angelica?”
Lois shook her head and gestured at the few remaining pockets of dust around her. The wind had finally begun to pick up.
“So Clark’s free.” Buffy said quietly. She stared out onto the field, undoubtedly worried about casualties.
Lois nodded. Of all the people she’d helped, he was the one she felt most grateful for. She’d never known anyone with so much potential for good. He made her want to be someone better than she was, and she felt that when she was with him, she was.
“You’re lucky to have him,” she said quietly. “Don’t let him go. You never know how long you have…” The pain in Buffy’s eyes was unmistakable.
Lois smiled up at Buffy and said, “I’m sorry for everything.”
She’d judged Buffy and the life she’d lived without having a clear idea of what it was like. She still couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to have been alone, to have known that in all the world there was no one else like you.
Or perhaps she could. She’d felt that way in the first few days after coming back from the Congo, but Clark had begun to fill the empty place that had been left in her heart. Without him, Lois didn’t know if she’d have had the strength to see it through.
“Do the nightmares ever go away?” Lois asked quietly.
“That’s what we do.” Buffy said. “We make them go away.”
Buffy helped Lois to her feet, and the two of them surveyed the destruction below.
“Well, I didn’t burn the whole stadium down,” Buffy said. “Maybe Willow won’t be too angry.”
“Just try not to start a fight on the Statue of Liberty,” Lois said. “I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet.”
“We got off on the wrong foot,” Buffy said. “What with the suspiciousness and the hellgod thingie…”
Lois nodded in agreement. There was so much she had to learn about what it meant to be a Slayer.
There was a dark part of her that would always crave the violence. She’d already been something of an adventure junkie before.
Any advice on how to manage it all and still have time for an ordinary life would be tremendously helpful.
Lois’s head snapped around as she saw Clark slowly coming in for a landing. She was never going to have an ordinary life, and somehow, that made her glad.
Beside her, Buffy sighed. A moment later Lois could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance. Apparently the sounds of fighting and the smoke hadn’t gone as unnoticed as everyone would have expected.
Buffy stiffened, and a moment later she was striding down the stairs barking orders at the remaining Slayers.
A Slayer’s work was never done.
Clark landed beside her, and Lois hugged him tightly. Absently she noted that the wound at his side had finally healed over.
At least Lois would never have to do it alone.
