Summary: Willow is approaching our fair land - where there are vampires to be dealt with, and a loan warrior by the name of Marcus is just the man for the job ...

Over the Atlantic Ocean, approaching England

“Oh dear.”

Sheila Rosenberg rummaged methodically through the contents of her bag, agitatedly searching for both the passports she was sure were contained within. She found a half-used lipstick, a hair-tie, some tissues, but not the vital documents.

I must have packed it in the suitcase. She swiftly realised the absurdity of that assumption, for she had handed it to the document to the customs officer back in the States. He had returned it to her, and she had boarded the aircraft.

“Oh …” Shelia resisted the urge to indulge in profanity. An article in Mothering America had emphatically stated the severe detrimental effect upon the human psyche that arose from utilising obscene expletives. The man who had written the piece possessed enough letters after his name to copiously fill two lines of text, so, she reasoned, he had to know his stuff.

She already contemplated with a cold dread the British Custom guards despatching her back to America on the next flight. The sheer ignominy of it al! Shelia called loudly for a steward. A young man in his early 20’s came over, and inquired what the problem was.

“One of these thieving –” she paused “-individuals has stolen my passport. Kindly conduct a search of the aircraft immediately.”

“Madam,” the perplexed steward intoned, “surely you should check your hand luggage before we instigate a –”

“What do you think I’ve been doing, you ignorant little man?” Shelia replied angrily, exasperated with the steward’s clear ineptitude. “I want a search, immediately. I’m not some little woman you can push around, you know. I have my rights, and am fully prepared to ensure they are respected.”

A look of clear indignation crossed the man’s face, and he mouthed what appear to be “Psycho”. However, he had no desire for a scene, especially as his shift ended with this flight. So he nodded sycophantically to Shelia, and moved off to the front of the aircraft.

“Would all passengers please check their seats and possessions for a United States passport in the name of ‘Shelia Rosenberg’?” it intoned to the passengers.

“The steward returned, accompanied by his supervisor, a woman only a few years older than he was.

“Ah, now I’m getting some acknowledgement of the gravity of my situation,” Shelia addressed the woman, who responded in a broad Scottish brogue.

“Lass, we’re doing all we can. But I nay think anyone here has your passport. They’d have naught to gain from it, would they?”

The terrible realisation dawned on Shelia that the passport was in all likelihood mislaid somewhere in the JFK airport. In which case, her trip would be hurriedly curtailed.

“Oh holy –”

Before Shelia could utter the expletive, her adherence to Mothering America’s advise now dispelled, she heard a commotion behind her. She turned to see a girl, well into her teenage years, rushing down the planes isle. Her red hair was jerking uncontrollably about her shoulders, brushing about the neckline of her blouse.

“Mum, mum, you gave it to me, remember?” The girl had now reached Shelia, and suddenly it dawned on her.

“Willow, the passport?” Anyone else would have thanked the girl, but Shelia knew better. Casual praise proved perfunctory to a child’s development, and could give an unhealthy boost to a still-forming egotistical complex. Doctor Obadiah Schwaltz had stated this at the conference on the developing psyche of the child she had attended last month. She was now doing her best to subscribe to his theories, although in reality she had been doing a more than adequate job for her daughter’s entire life.

Shelia took the document from the girl beside her, and then tersely told her to return to the cabin class seating.

Willow left, yet again dwelling over the unfairness of it all. Her mother apparently still believed any form of praise to be supercilious where she was concerned. She would have fought back a tear, had she not long resigned herself with tired apathy to her mother’s multitude of idiosyncrasies.

She knew this would be a holiday to others among her peer group. But for her, it would be another round of seminars, symposiums and conferences, where her mother would yearn for more knowledge, more theories to aid in her “development”.

“Not that she actually does jack to help me when I need it,” Willow muttered dejectedly, thinking of her near perpetual misery at Sunnydale High. This time a tear did form, and she made no effort to fight it.

Upon landing at Heathrow, the two of them waited a good half-hour to clear the various checkpoints, and collect their bags. Shelia had packed her usual array of books, papers, and anything else that could that could conceivably serve to elucidate upon the “child psyche”.

Willow ended up hauling the majority of the luggage to the exit, Shelia walking ahead, quite oblivious to her daughter’s burden. Upon reaching the taxi terminus, Shelia immediately made a beeline towards an unoccupied black cab. She rapped curtly against the passenger window, only have it wind down, and a young Asian man smiled affably towards her. Unlike Willow, Shelia had completely forgotten that British vehicles were all right-hand drive.

“Where you heading Love?” he inquired, pulling himself straight in his seat.

“London,” Shelia curtly informed him. She reached to her side, and began to extract several notes from her purse.

“No love, you only pay when we get . . . wait a minute.” The cabbie eyed the money, and Willow groaned audibly. Shelia, with typical inattentiveness, had not converted any currency stateside. She was about to inform her mother of the location of the nearest beuaru de change when her voice, heavy with a rancour the girl dreaded, interrupted the cab driver.

“What do you mean, not legal tender? I’ll have you know there’s 200 dollars here.”

“Look, this ain’t America Missus, it’s the UK. We do not accept dollar bills as currency. Now, do you have any pound notes? Should only come to around 40 quid at any rate.” The driver’s smile had faded, although as yet, nothing but clam apathy had replaced it.

Shelia soon rectified that.

“Now listen here, I am not enamoured with your tone.” She was now going full out, and woe betide anyone attempting to interrupt her. “You should be addressing me in a far more obsequious way, I am a paying customer after all. You can change the currency yourself, that’s not my job. I expect a full service here. Where’s the famous British hospitality? You are not performing your duties anywhere near as adroitly as I require.”

The cabbie had endured more than enough from the woman. He flipped two fingers up at her, added the appropriate words, and drove off to find a fare that wouldn’t induce him to possible homicide.

Willow slumped to the floor, wondering if it was appropriate to feel such odium towards her mother. She concluded that it was not, but the emotion continued unabated.

The other taxi drivers at the terminus had witnessed the events, and ensured they, literally, steered well clear of the obviously deranged woman. Mothering America’s advice now disregarded, Shelia directed a deluge of expletives, of the kind normally reserved for High School football teams and US Marine units, towards the assembled vehicles. She compounded the vocal abuse by jabbing upwards with her middle finger at periodic intervals.

If her first outburst had not achieved it, this protracted action served to place an invisible barrier around the woman, every cabbie now acting as though some unbearably mephitic cloud was arising from her, which wasn’t awfully far from the truth.

Willow sighed in resigned dread; this would be a long, long day.

* * *

Timing, Marcus knew, was everything.

Pre-emptive action was all but useless if the timing was wrong. And what Marcus was about to undertake required the most precise timing.

His left hand slid along the heavy shotgun in his grasp, coming to rest on the pump. Whatever lay ahead of him, he contemplated grimly, he was prepared for it. He jerked back the pump, sending a satisfying cacophony of sound echoing around the gutted hulk of a once proud building he was now entering. His informants had assured him the nest was here, but he was becoming increasingly sure they had erred.

His every footfall beat down upon the hard concrete below, providing further clarification of his entry into the undead’s lair.

“Come on, you crinkle-faced bastards, show yourselves.” His trepidation had overwhelmed him. A fatal flaw, but the words could not be retracted now.

His intended prey happily obliged him. Figures rushed from shadow to shadow, the factory’s dark hues serving to conceal their bodies. They emerged as far into the vestiges of the daylight as their physiology would allow, and Marcus knew his informants had been correct. As regards to location, that was. He realised immediately that he was vastly outnumbered.

“Shit,” he cursed ruefully. The weapon was brought to bear, and he fired. A vampire jerked violently back, his head cleanly torn from his shoulders. The carrion disintegrated, the unique howl deafening as its structure lost all cohesion. All that hit the floor was a multitude of still vaporising particles.

Marcus dropped swiftly to one knee, discharging his weapon twice in rapid succession. Another howl sounded, the contents of the vampire’s skull thankfully vanishing in complement with its body. One of the creatures was now mere yards from his position, its demonic features snarling down at him. A single blast tore open its chest, the contents spewing over the “woman” directly behind him. The heart was thankfully included among the lost organs, resulting in immediate death.

Marcus continued to work the pump, and discharged through the still evaporating corpse. The female vampire screamed in pure agony as the shell eviscerated her where she stood, intestines pouring from her as she fell.

The frontal assault now dissipated, Marcus swiftly determined that his left flank was the most vulnerable. He spun on one knee, firing into the face of his nearest assailant. It was snatched away with the shell, the skull caving in as the deadly projectile worked its horrific work. The head disintegrated, the decapitated carrion following several seconds later.

Three more vampires were dispatched with the shotgun before the ammunition was expended. Marcus rapidly discarded the now useless weapon, and thrust his hand into his long duster. What he extracted filled every member of the undead present with a cold dread.

It was a Japanese katana, exquisitely crafted over 1000 years previously, its metallic sheen glittering in the few chinks of sunlight that penetrated the factory’s roof. It exuded a deadly beauty, practicality and grace combined in the weapon’s unique and deadly fashion.

“Jesus!” gasped the vampire closest to Marcus as the warrior bolted upright, and swung the weapon at the creature’s neck. His head was removed in a single stroke, the name of his foremost fear ironically the last words he would ever utter. Marcus followed through with the stroke, reversing its momentum to decapitate the vampire that had emerged to his right.

That left seven opponents dispersed around him. Three wisely ran, not wanting to risk their immortality in combating this spectre of death facing them. The remaining creatures encircled Marcus, each one vowing to avenge their fallen comrades.

Their newly arrived nemesis was more than happy to oblige them.

He went into a flowing, rapid kanta, his sword moving as if it was one with his graceful body. The result was two further dead, and one maimed. The vampire fell back screeching in agony, its right arm cleanly severed. Marcus made the rapid decision to finish it off in preference to his remaining able-bodied opponent, and took a clean swing at its neck. The severed head rolled to the final opponent’s feet, evaporating over his toe-capped boots.

He looked Marcus in the eye, the warrior noticing the creature had yet to reveal his demonic visage.

“Congratulations my friend.” The tone was ethereal, mocking. “You’ve dispatched my entire clan in less than 15 minutes. Not one of them under 100, yet you took them all in less time than is required to ravish a good whore. You are to be congratulated indeed. Of course” – the vampire’s face morphed into its terrible mask – “recompense on your part must now be extracted.”

The beast was circling Marcus, who suddenly realised he had made a grave miscalculation. A sword, as finely crafted as his own, was withdrawn from the vampire’s flowing coat. It was Celtic, fine pagan symbols beautifully crafted upon its hilt.

“I received this as a boy,” the vampire reminisced. “I used it to massacre my entire family once I was sired. Their blood flowed plentifully that night, my new brothers were extremely grateful. You would have liked them, I’m sure. Such a shame you’ve just gone and slaughtered them all.”

The vampire was balancing the weapon carefully in his firm grip, his conversation remaining eerily nonchalant. “Do you know who I am? My age?”

“Sweet FA to both,” Marcus replied tersely. “I just knew you were here, so I came –”

“And butchered us,” the vampire finished for him. “You were lucky, my friend. I am old, and they were older. I was sired in 856 AD, in what you know as Ireland. Those who attacked you were ancient; some sired prior to when even the Christ walked the earth. You won because they were unprepared, entrenched in their ways. They did not comprehend the power a modern firearm could impart.”

“And you?” Marcus’s hands were releasing beads of sweat, which ran in tiny rivulets along his sword. He was looking for an opportunity to strike, which was yet to arrive.

“I have fought many battles, ancient and modern. I’ve drunk blood in Agincourt, Gettysburg and Iraq. And now, I shall drink yours.”

Marcus knew that this was it. The creature slunk forward, and then lunged. The tip of its sword was directed straight at Marcus’s neck. He dropped, the ancient steel whistling above him. The man flung himself sideways in a rapid role, just as the vampire’s foot paid him a glancing blow to the jaw. If his reactions had been any less honed, he knew that the bone would have shattered.

The sword was swung in a brutal arc directed at his gut, sending Marcus sprawling backwards. The weapon missed its target, and instead drew a stream of blood from his thigh. He threw himself upright, parrying the next blow expertly with his katana.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Marcus gasped as he parried two expertly calculated strokes. His opponent was good, very good. Obviously an expert in centuries of swordcraft, and now Marcus, with his mere 10 years of experience, was expected to defeat him.

The two men battled on for the next 5 minutes. No quarter was asked nor given, and only their immense skills prevented either one delivering the vital crippling blow to his opponent. Blood began to congeal on the ground; spurting from each in brief specks as a multitude of flesh wounds were inflicted.

There was no way, Marcus knew, he could win this fight.

And he would have been correct, had it not been for the shaft of wood that embedded itself in his opponent’s back. The heart was pierced, eliciting his last, terrified words. The vampire muttered a phrase in his native Gaelic, and then disintegrated.

The soft tissues exploded to dust, which swirled around the evaporating skeleton as it tumbled to the ground. It lay there momentarily, before it too evaporated, joining the vampire’s allies in the ether.

Marcus stared in abject amazement for a few brief seconds, before turning to meet the eyes of his savoir.

“What the bloody hell do you think you were playing at?” Rupert Giles lowered the crossbow, the realisation dawning on Marcus that he was in serious, serious trouble.

He thought despairingly of what he could possible say to explain himself, but only one phrase came to mind.

“Oh, bollocks,” he muttered.

© Byron, 2000