They materialized in a large bank, an upscale one where the floor was tile mosaic, white with a vague fleur-de-lis design on it in blue, gold, and black. Now it was stained red, the fluid spread in even splashes that almost made a pattern overlaying the tiles. Logan counted seven bodies, mostly young adult, cut open down the center from scalp to crotch for maximum bloodletting. He could vaguely remember once being told that “blood magic” was the most powerful, and he knew this place just stank of power.

Mordred, who was standing right next to him, had time to say, “Uh oh,” before he was hit by … something. His head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor in a heap. “Nice one,” a man said, his voice gravelly and slightly inhuman.

He followed the sound towards a man standing near the chained front doors. He looked like a regular Human, hands curled into fists at his sides, but his eyes were pure black, and there were black veins visible beneath the thin skin of his face, pulsing with dark energy; it made it look like there were worms burrowing their way into him.

“Brendan was right,” Giles muttered.

So this was Broom, huh? Logan lunged towards him, preparing to pop his claws at the last second (no sense in spoiling the surprise), but Giles shouted, “No!”

He knew why the second he seemed to slam into an invisible wall, and slid to the floor barely two feet from where he had been. Faith came to his side, and asked, “You okay?”

His nose had broken on impact, he could taste the blood on his lips, but he could already feel the painful beginning of healing as his cartilage started to knit itself back together. “Just a little humiliated,” he told her, sitting back on his ass.

“We’re in a sacred circle,” Giles said, by way of explanation. “Or perhaps I should say unholy circle. We can’t get out.”

“Good, Watcher,” Broom said, his voice just a register above a snarl. “You … people are far more resourceful than I anticipated. You brought along a honest to god wizard, if I read his aura right, and you sent monsters after the monster.” He nodded towards the back of the room, and glancing that way, he saw that the Sisters, in full vamp face, seemed to be trapped in a room behind the teller’s cages. Presumably they were caught in one of these circles as well. “And then … whatever that is -” he hardly even needed to look to see he was referring to him “ - and a Stansin. You’re a Slayer, aren’t you girlie?”

“Eat me raw, you jacked up fuckhead,” Faith snarled, helping him stand up again. Logan rolled his head like he was working the kinks out of his neck, mainly so Broom didn’t notice how his nose was resetting itself. If he thought he was a “thing” now, wait until he saw that.

“I told you she’s a nasty one,” Angel said, punctuating the statement with a tiger’s growl. He came around from behind the teller’s cages with blood smeared across his mouth, his shirt open and purplish symbols smudged across his bare chest. Had Angel killed someone, or had he just had a little sip from all the available blood around here? He really didn’t know, but he hoped for Angel’s sake he just took a slurp from the trough. “She should be really fun.”

“I’m fun,” Helga pointed out, her tail twitching in irritation as she twirled the battle axe in her hands. “Me love you long time. Drop the field and I’ll show you.”

Broom snickered. “Oh, I’m sure you would. If I was that stupid, I’d deserve to get my head chopped off.”

Angel stood just behind Broom’s left shoulder, his expression seemingly stuck in a permanent sneer. “The wizard might be more dangerous than you think. He’s Mordred.”

“Mordred?” Broom replied curiously. “What, King Arthur’s bastard son?”

“He wasn’t actually King Arthur’s -” Angel began.

“”What do you plan to do with us?” Giles interrupted. He didn’t want Angel telling him who Mordred really was? Why? Oh, yeah - Mordred just appeared unconscious. But if Broom learned he was Merlin’s son, he might kill him while he still had the chance. He was a hell of a lot more powerful than he looked … or seemed, or acted. “Actually, what the bloody hell did you to do Angel? Did he kill your family or something?”

That pulled Broom’s attention away, and he leered at them. “Oh yes, this is the part where the villain tells our trapped heroes his huge, glorious plan, therefore buying themselves time for a rescue. What, you think I didn’t notice the little Brachen boy and the electric bitch weren’t here? And whoever that Human was, the one with the glass eye.” Xander, obviously. “No, that’s not what’s going to happen here, Rupert. But I will let you in on a little secret. There are Qutrubs in Los Angeles. There’s actually a rather large nest of them.”

Were the bodies on the floor moving? Not exactly; there were things moving in them, fine feelers of black and gold and yellow - or were they thin tentacles? - that took up the edges of the wound and started closing them from the inside. “You know how I know this?” Broom continued, smiling like his face might split in half. “I brought them with me. They have amazing loyalty, especially to the man that saved them from the brink of extinction, and then treats them to such fine delicacies.” Now the corpses started to move, as their wounds seemed to seal up completely. Clumsy limbs slapped the floor and eventually found purchase, the movements growing easier as the demons got used to their new homes. “I mean, they’re mundane to you, but they haven’t had Southern Californians before. To them, they’re a real treat.”

As the former dead got to their feet, blood soaked and making noises that sounded like a growling kind of clicking, there was moment from the far side of the room, and they all saw what must have been Qutrubs outside of their Human shells. They looked almost like skinks, long and slender, but with shiny carapaces - brown and black looked to be the most common colors - bullet shaped heads and compound eyes, moving on what seemed like dozens upon dozens of whip thin tentacles - slash - legs that undulated like seaweed in a tidal pool as they slid across the tiles towards them. They made hardly any noise at all as they moved, and they were amazingly fast; they were also at least two feet long, a rather large size for bodily invasion. They chewed their way in, didn’t they? Yeah, that was probably it.

“But as you can see, there’s too many of them, and not enough hosts. What to do, eh?”

“You monster,” Giles replied, with as much anger as he’d ever heard from him. All it did was make Broom’s smile wider.

“Everybody, behind me and Logan now,” Helga ordered, stepping towards the Qutrubs and raising her battle axe. “Logan, lock and load.”

Right - you could kill them by slicing them into pieces. But could he and Helga get them all before they got to Faith, Giles, and Mordred? Well, they had no choice; they had to try. He popped his claws and joined her, and out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Broom start a bit. “What the hell are those?” he exclaimed. “You some kind of Xentroph demon?”

Angel answered for them. “They’re claws, and he’s Human … kind of. He’s a mutie.” He leaned in and staged whispered, so they all could hear it, “We need to kill him first.”

“Over my dead body!” Faith shouted angrily, and pulled a knife from her boot. Okay, there were three of them armed - that made the odds a bit better. Not much, mind you, but it gave them made an extra minute of demon free existence.

“Die in whatever order you wish,” he said nonchalantly. “No skin off my nose. And when do you think your friends will arrive? ‘Cause my friends outside are getting hungry.”

Logan was mildly relieved they weren’t expecting a rescue. Maybe they could keep the fatalities down to a minimum.

****

L.A. traffic was just so much fun, Xander thought he might plotz. (And he was always disappointed to use that word since Willow told him it wasn’t dirty.) Because of people driving like they were re-enacting key scenes of The Road Warrior, he almost lost the evil lawyer assault vehicle three separate times, but luckily he had seen The Road Warrior enough times to keep up. He even found himself saying, in the worst Australian accent imaginable, “Bullets! Get the bullets!”

God, he was such a geek it was horrible; no wonder he had a hard time keeping a relationship going. But at least it kept him entertained in his pathetic loneliness.

Although night had begun to fall in earnest, he was sure he wasn’t delusional when it seemed like the evil lawyers were heading towards the ritzier part of town. Xander had begun to think that evil might have owned the richer parts of town, but they only mucked about in the poorer parts, following the simple rule of not shitting where you were eating (so to speak). But maybe some demons didn’t have that kind of foresight, or just didn’t give a crap.

They eventually turned down a street just southwest of Rodeo Drive, a place where the businesses were upscale car dealerships and financial institutions of some vague, indeterminate source. But he was fairly certain the big building at the end of the street was a bank, and a rather fancy looking one at that; it was like a cathedral to the god of money (if there was such a god …and there probably was, as there seemed to be a god for every damn thing, including dryer lint and pubic lice). The funny thing was, while there appeared to be lights on in the bank, the rest of the street was strangely unlit, which was really not typical for the better parts of town. In fact, it was so out of the ordinary he felt a shiver down his spine - something bad was happening here, and it was on now.

He picked up his phone to call Giles again (why hadn’t he gotten back to him yet?) and that’s when he discovered his cell phone wasn’t getting a signal at all. But that was okay, because as soon as he got within fifty meters of the joint, his headlights died, and his engine died, leaving him to coast until he pulled the emergency brake. What the fuck was this? Some kind of energy dampening field?

(And they said watching Star Trek would never teach him anything.)

The evil lawyer assault vehicle had clearly suffered the same fate, as it nosed up against the wall of the Mercedes dealership to stop itself, and the back opened and guys in black body armor boiled out like angry ants. They looked to be carrying serious weaponry, but he couldn’t recognize the make and model in the dark.

He was far enough back - and it was dark enough - that they didn’t seem to realize he had been following them, but almost instantaneously some of them hit the asphalt, writhing as if under attack or in pain, and others started shooting down at the ground, muzzle flashes lighting up the night. What the fuck was this? He didn’t see anything, not even movement in the dark, but that didn’t mean anything.

He decided to get out and see what was up, swinging his car door open, but as he blindly set his foot down on the pavement, something crunched under his foot. Looking down, he saw he had stepped on something unfamiliar; it looked like a big, snake like bug with maybe a hundred thin legs, some of which were curling around his sneaker, like it was going to push him off its back. A demon? Probably - and if not, it was an alien of some kind, and years of bad horror movies taught him no bug like alien was ever good.

He raised his foot, and stamped down on it repeatedly with all his strength, until its guts squished all over the street. His foot slid slightly as he got out, and slammed the door shut so none of the buggers got in. He went back to the trunk and opened it, as that’s where he had his tool kit. In the bottom of his kit he had some random weapons, including stakes and holy water, but he wasn’t sure that would work against big bugs. What the hell did he have that would?

Wait - were these Qutrubs? Giles had said they looked like centipedes crossed with squids, and these pretty much fit that description. Did that mean that stamping on them was only a temporary setback to them and nowhere near lethal? Shit. Why didn’t he carry a machete or a sword or something?

He took out a crow bar, and a battery operated nail gun. If he couldn’t beat them to a paste, maybe he could nail them to the street.

Now he could hear screaming, and he could see the soldiers for the evil lawyers were being attacked by the creepy crawlies, even through the body armor. They were shooting, but either they were crap shots or the bullets didn’t hurt them; either way, the group was struggling. Some were ripping the bugs off companions, and others were stomping on them, which seemed to work better than shooting them.

Xander caught the movement of one coming towards him, and he took aim and fired. His first nail missed, but the second caught it dead in the middle, and for a battery operated gun, it was powerful enough to stick it to the pavement. It writhed, trying to free itself, but so far it had no effect. He started “nailing” every one he saw, and when he ran out of nails, he tossed it aside (if he lived, he’d go back and get it later) and started beating them with the claw end of the crowbar, which only punctured their carapaces when he put force into the swing.

One of the soldiers (or whatever they were) must have noticed him, as he came up and snapped, “Why are you out of your armor?”

This is where bullshit and a rapid, clipped tone was probably best deployed. “’Cause it ain’t helping, is it? Your guys got knives on ‘em?”

The soldier/guard/ whatever the hell he was looked like a mere boy, probably younger than him, which was a distressing thing to realize. Was he actually that old? Shit. “Who are you?” he asked suspiciously.

“Harris, Tactical Division,” he bluffed. Did these people even have a tactical division? He hoped so. “Tell your guys they have to cut these to kill ‘em; they’re Qutrubs, they don’t go down easy.”

Whatever the boy was going to say, Xander’s words made him pause. “You know what these things are?”

He scoffed in disbelief. “Of course I do. You don’t?” He figured humiliation would make the boy wilt and not question his authority further. He had a Jonathan quality about him, in spite of the modified assault rifle he was carrying.

He was right. The soldier/guard looked away, presumably at the continuing battle, so Xander couldn’t seem him color in shame. “Guys, knives only! We gotta cut these things, now!”

Those still alive and not being gnawed on by the Qutrubs seemed to listen to him, and they put the guns away, pulling out huge versions of military style K-Bars, only ones large enough to gut an adult pig. That should certainly kill a few of them.

He was about to ask the kid if he had a spare one when they were both tackled.

They were grabbed by Humans, both fellow soldiers (or whatever), but the blood coming from their mouths and noses, as well as the strangely blank look in their eyes, seemed to indicate they’d been taken over by the Qutrubs.

Xander tried to fight the guy, even though he was almost two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, but the guy wasn’t actually trying to hurt him. Weirdly enough, he was content to pin his arms down with his hands, and his legs down with his knees. The same was true of the soldier who’d grabbed the Jonathan like group leader. He wondered why, until he saw a couple of nice, long Qutrubs, their copper colored carapaces barely visible in the dimness, undulating towards the both of them.

Oh crap.

16

It was clear they were going to lose. The only question was when.

It made Logan frantic to think he might survive this all by himself, so he quickly sliced up as many as he could, leaving claw marks in the tiles. The Qutrub seemed to start avoiding him, but Helga and Faith weren’t giving them an easy time of it either. Yet Qutrubs were quite literally dropping from the ceiling; even if they did cut up as many as they could, they would drown in them eventually.

Although Broom - or whatever his name was - was enjoying the show, he and Angel took to talking amongst themselves, and were luckily looking away when Logan felt something tug on his leg. He pivoted, his claws dripping gore, but it wasn’t a Qutrub crawling up his calf - it was Mordred, still laying flat out on the floor, but looking up at him imploringly. “Cut me,” he mouthed, holding up his hand.

Logan wondered if one of the Qutrubs had gotten past and burrowed into him, but he remembered what he’d thought earlier, about blood magic being the most powerful.

He obeyed, and sliced a claw shallowly across his palm. Mordred grimaced in pain, but then said something that sounded inhuman and slammed his palm down on the floor, at the edge of the circle.

Broom’s head snapped around as the spell of the circle immediately collapsed.

Logan didn’t wait. He launched himself towards Broom, while Helga took a chance and threw her battle axe. Broome shouted a spell that sent the axe boomeranging back, and Angel met Logan in mid-lunge, the two of them colliding in air and slamming back to the Qutrub littered floor.

Angel had grabbed his wrists and was trying to hold them away from him, clearly aware of and afraid of the damage his claws could do to even an undead body. The funny thing was, Angel was so incredibly strong right now, he could actually do it; Logan couldn’t wrench his arms from his grip. But Angel was on top of him, and he was so concerned about avoiding his claws, he’d left his body wide open.

Logan rammed his knee right up into his nuts - fair’s fair; he’d done that to him earlier - and wedged his leg up, kicking Angel off him. But Angel held on to his wrists, and the two of them went rolling across the floor as they struggled for supremacy, not so much a fight as a wrestling match. The mystical equivalent was also occurring between Broom and Mordred, with some assistance from Giles, but Broom’s mystical force field was holding, protecting him from harm, and while Hel and Faith were still battling the Qutrub, it was once again clear they were going to lose badly, miserably.

Was that gunshots outside? Logan was fairly sure he heard faint bursts from automatic weapons beyond the thick walls of the bank. Were those Broom’s men, or someone fighting Broom‘s men? Who did they know who had automatic weapons? He’d loosely trained Bren how to handle a gun (Scott frowned on firearms), but he’d never taught him how to handle an assault rifle.

A mystical wind was kicking up inside the bank, tidal surges of pure power, and Logan decided to give it one last shot. “Angel - you’re his bitch! His fucking lackey! Aren’t you better than that?”

But his yellow eyes were hard and empty - he was gone, utterly and completely. “You’re going to die, mutie.”

Logan knew then what he had to do. He struggled in vain against Angel’s grip, and told him, “You ain’t man enough to kill me.” He snapped his head up, smashing his forehead square into Angel’s face.

Angel knew he’d probably do that, but Logan had moved fast, and although Angel had pulled away, he still caught the blow on the bridge of his nose. His nose shattered, blood pouring out of the nostrils.

He snarled, a noise just short of a dragon’s roar, so full of rage and pain that Logan wasn’t honestly surprised when Angel twisted his arm around and used his own claws to slash open his own throat.

****

Giles felt so drained he was pretty sure he was going to pass out. He was trying to force out all the energy he had, shoring up Mordred’s attack, but Broom was so gifted with black magic it was like smashing his head repeatedly against a brick wall, and he could feel each blow physically, his life force starting to drain away along with his will to fight. Even Mordred seemed shocked, but he wasn’t back at full power; since what he called “the incident”, the Powers That Be were giving him his power back in increments. He was nowhere near full strength, and probably never would be again.

He was aware that Logan and Angel were fighting, but he wasn’t paying attention as the two wrestled and scrambled to get the upper hand on each other; Angel could finally overpower Logan, and right now it seemed like the perfect stalemate.

His vision was starting to blur, black spots pulsing in his peripheral vision, and when he heard Faith scream, “No!” it took him a moment to look around.

Faith had already raced across the room and kicked Angel in the face, sending him sprawling, but Logan remained flat out on the floor, his throat a crimson mess. His eyes were open, but staring up at nothing as his claws automatically retracted inside his hands, a sight that was never less than eerie.

Was he dead? Good lord, it looked like he was. Angel had cut his throat with his own claws?

“Logan?” Faith asked, and sounded desperate. She probably meant to kneel down, but Angel was up and moving to attack her.

A mistake; a big mistake. Even though her back was mostly turned towards him, she whirled into a kick and caught Angel full in the side of the face, the combination of her power and his momentum sending him flying across the room. He hit a desk so hard he totaled it. “You killed my boyfriend!” She shouted angrily, charging after him. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

Giles felt himself fall, and put out his hands, but to his surprise he found he’d simply been pulled down by Helga. She proceeded to pull Mordred down too, trapping them both in the circle once more. “What the hell are you doing?” Giles exclaimed, although he was so weak it was just a squeak.

Broom looked down at them, his black eyes almost glowing with triumph. “So, Stansin, you’ve decided to go with a dignified death?”

She glared up at him, and to the surprise of all of them, she was smiling. It was rich, triumphant, sharp as a razor blade and as cold as ice. “You’re kidding, right, you two bit hack? This is my jungle, baby. And you’re gonna die.”

Confusion briefly distorted Broom’s expression, and while Giles felt the same way, realizing with a sudden clarity that Helga was right.

Broom had trapped them. But she and Logan must have come up with a trap all their own.