FIC: Whither Thou Goest... (Prologue)

[PB <pbnj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Whither Thou Goest...
Author: Pink Rabbit Productions
Archive: Pink Rabbit, A Slayer/A Hacker
Author's Notes: This is the latest sequel to Spin, Spinning, Spun Out, It
All Depends On Your Timing, and Interludis Neanderthalensis. It's not
finished, but I'm going to start posting in segments since it's getting
close to the end (probably).
Disclaimer: The characters and show all belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant
Enemy, Kuzui, and God only knows who else. This particular arrangement of
words in cyberspace belongs to me, however. Btw, it contains love between
two women, so if such things offend you, are illegal where you live or
somesuch, kindly don't read it and upset yourself, 'kay. It'll just make
life easier on all of us.
Spoilers: None that I can think of.
Rating: PG-13

Whither Thou Goest...

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee,
or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest,
I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge, thy people
shall be my people, and thy God my God.

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried the LORD
do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
me.

Ruth: 1:16-1:17

PROLOGUE

1615, Manchester, England

She was a slight figure, short of stature, slender, her once long blond
hair hacked short like a new penitent, her gown ripped and torn by rough
hands and the lash. Her arms had been twisted behind her and folded over a
heavy wooden pike pole, her slender wrists chained together in front.
Strangely, the heartrending sight softened no hearts amongst her captors.
They understood the need to make certain this one small girl could not
resist her torments if they were to have any hope at controlling her. Even
bound and beaten, she faced them proudly, standing gracefully in the center
of the pit, the bars overhead casting striped shadows across her slender
frame. Despite her situation, pale green eyes blazed with raw rage and she
showed no sign of fear of their control over her fate.

"You have been accused of betraying the Council, Slayer!" the senior
Watcher serving as magistrate over the proceedings charged, his voice more
than loud enough to be heard by the small crowd spread around the edges of
the pit. His heavy garb was ecclesiastical in appearance as befitted his
position within the ancient organization. The dark robes, trimmed in royal
purple, and thick fur moved with his broad gestures, making him seem larger
than life.

The girl lunged forward, though there was nowhere for her to go. The pit
and chains binding her wrists were more than enough to contain any efforts
she might have made to escape. "I've betrayed no one!" she snarled. "It's
your precious Watcher who betrayed me!"

"Lying bitch!" a heavyset man standing near the judge screamed. "She
murdered Elizabeth! Tricked her--"

"LIAR!!" the girl screamed back. "I LOVED HER!!!"

"SILENCE!!!" the judge bellowed, then waved to the guards who stood on the
edges of the pit. "Judgement has been passed." The sound of metal sliding
on metal screamed through the caverns as metal barred doors were pulled up,
opening the corridors to the cells hidden deep inside the caverns. "Your
perversity and your treason will be punished!"

The vampires that began to flow from the newly opened corridors were half
starved, bony and thin, their faces warped by the desperate demons that
lived inside their dead flesh.

Had her situation not been so desperate, the girl might have felt some pity
for them. Even for the undead she'd shown an oddly soft heart, but as it
was, terror made her heart hammer in her chest as she saw doom careening
toward her. There were more than a dozen of the creatures nearly all driven
to a frenzy by starvation.

She was a Slayer; inhumanly strong, unbelievably fast, trained to
fight--and to kill--and she used every skill beaten into her in the four
years since she'd learned of her perverse calling to the utmost of her
ability. Of all her captors, only one--a guard only a year or two older
than her twenty years--had done her even the smallest of favors. The pole
used to brace her arms back was wood and not steel and she wielded the
makeshift weapon with a skill borne of desperation.

Unfortunately, her abilities weren't likely to save her. Only God could do
that--at least that was the idea of the trial by combat--and even he would
have been hard pressed to rescue the desperately battling young woman.

Overhead, gasps could be heard amongst the assembled crowd, along with the
odd sound of a bet being made. The odds were not in the prisoner's favor.
Especially when she was momentarily overwhelmed by the thick--but
thinning--horde of her attackers.

But as they watched, more than a few council members could almost believe
that God had smiled on this Slayer. Despite being chained, outnumbered, and
beaten bloody, she fought like a lion, killing creature after creature as
they came after her, using her skills, and the clumsy weapon to dispatch
them back to hell.

Clouds of inhuman dust rose from the battle, obscuring their view and the
audience leaned farther forward in their seats, peering through the bars,
trying to find the slight figure of the young Slayer through the haze of
vampire dust with only flickering torchlight to aid them. Screams echoed
across the hall and more bets were made, the odds shifting with every
passing moment.

And then it all fell silent.

Breaths caught and the sound of voices died away, until the only remaining
noise was the occasional jingle of coins being readied to trade hands.

Thick vampire dust slowly settled, the torches casting unsteady light
through the hanging haze, until finally a silhouetted figure could be seen.

A collective gasp went through the audience of Watchers as their victim was
revealed to their avid eyes.
The Slayer stood alone, her head bowed as blood streamed from a dozen small
wounds. Her wrists were slick with crimson, and as they watched, she slowly
worked one free of a manacle, drawing more blood and scraping the flesh of
her already battered hand. The chain fell away with a startling clank, but
she only lifted her arm from its braced position where it had been wrapped
around the pole, then slowly straightened it, working tortured fingers with
careful precision.

> > From his place on the mezzanine, the magistrate gestured to the guards
positioned around the pit and crossbows were raised, the bolts sighted on
the slender figure below.

If she was aware of this latest form of stalking death, she showed no
outward sign.

The members of the Watcher's Council all stared at the girl in mesmerized
awe, hardly able to believe that the doomed Slayer had survived. Scarcely a
one of them could even draw breath as they watched their prisoner pull the
pole across her back free and drop it to the dirt before methodically
beginning the process of removing the remaining manacle.

No one knew quite how to respond when she began to sing, the sweet sounds
of a madrigal--a sad tale of lost love--slipping from her lips to float up
through the chamber.

"She's mad," someone murmured somewhere in the crowd, and more than a few
who overheard the comment nodded in agreement. Not surprising, really,
considering what she'd been through. It would be a sad loss, they all
agreed, but not unpredictable. Unfortunate as it was, she would have to be
dealt with. The world could not do without a Slayer. At least this way she
could be buried in consecrated ground.

And then her wrist slipped free of the rough-edged metal and the chains
fell to the dirt with only the faintest jingle as the links tumbled into
each other. For a long moment, she just stood there, her head still down.
Of course, it was a wonder she was still on her feet at all.

As if driven by the very silence and stillness of the girl, her former
Watcher suddenly lunged forward, his portly frame, ungraceful at the best
of times, trembling with uncontrolled rage and something else--fear. She
had passed the test. That possibility had never occurred to him. "Destroy
her!" his screamed, his voice threatening to crack with panic. After all,
he had brought the full weight of the council's judgement down on her
narrow shoulders and it was no secret that an angry Slayer was a dangerous
Slayer.

"Silence!" the Magistrate bellowed, still watching the girl with intense
eyes. "Tell the Council, child, have you been adjudged innocent of the
charges?"

She toed the wooden pole lying at her feet, flicking one end upward to
catch it easily. Still singing, her voice clear and sweet, she slowly began
to roll it between her fingers then over the back of her knuckles, her pace
leisurely.

More voices mumbled about her obvious insanity.

And then pale green eyes lifted from under thick lashes and a smile lifted
full lips. Narrow shoulders shook with soft laughter, and then suddenly the
girl's chin slowly lifted, the song trailing off as she drew breath to
respond. "Not exactly," she drawled as the blood running down the graceful
arch of her throat was revealed to the watching crowd. In an instant, while
her audience was paralyzed with shock, she hurled the pole like a javelin,
sending it straight through the magistrate's heart in one fell swoop.

Crossbow bolts were fired, but none reached her heart as she plucked them
out of the air with fine-boned hands and flung them back at the guards,
easily piercing the thin armored chestplates they wore and then the hearts
beneath.

As panic reigned, she easily broke through the slatted wooden bars meant to
keep her in the pit. They were designed to contain vampire strength, or
Slayer strength, but not Vampire-Slayer strength.

And then the killing began in earnest....

The slaughter took no more than an hour as she moved through the caverns
with demonic precision, leaving the hand hewn walls and carved stone floors
drenched in blood and littered with body parts. She turned no one, instead
tearing them to pieces with a brutally efficient ferocity borne of both
training and inherent skill. The demon inside wanted nothing left of her
earthly predecessor's tormentors.

At last, she stood in the storage room where the remnants of her life had
been gathered and used as evidence against her during the trial, careless
of the dead left in her wake, physically sated, but.... She stood before
the paintings stacked against one wall, reached out, touched the top one,
pulled it forward to study the ones behind it one at a time, and finally
curved fine boned fingers to the entire stack. As she left the storage
room, the paintings in hand, she spared a glance for her former Watcher
where he hung impaled on the spikes of a large free-standing candelabra.
His screams had provided the soundtrack for much of her killing spree,
though he'd finally fallen silent. She paused when she stood before him,
eyeing his florid, blood spattered face. "Poor Freddy," she drawled and
reached out to trail a finger through the crimson streamers on his face.
"Your nasty little bit of revenge didn't quite work out the way you
planned, now did it." She tasted the blood on her fingertip and made a
face. "You really should have cut back on the alcohol my friend." Then,
laughing, she turned from her former tormentor and walked away into the
night.

TBC

--"If I was all that fond of real life, I would never have majored in theater"

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