A Few Key Sunnydale Alum

"My office. And they shouldn't be coming directly to this room; if anyone does, you call me."

As Connie and Brianna slip out of the room behind her, Emma turns and closes the doors firmly.

"We've got a good night's work ahead of us, ladies," she says. "Let's get to it."

They all nod, and the small group disperses in three directions.

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Philippus waits patiently for the promised sandwich, and considerately waits even more patiently for Melissa to eat it.

After all, she's going to have to render her unconscious, and the poor thing might as well be comfortable before recovering from that.

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Melissa eats hungrily, but her focus seems divided between the sandwich and the door.

"What do you think we're going to do with it?" she says at one point.

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"I can't imagine," says Philippus, welcome honesty like mint in her mouth. "It's a powerful artifact."

That sense of connection, the value the Council put on it. . . she mentally thanks Hera she was here on this world at all.

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Melissa's eyes flick to the door and away, to the door and away.

"Powerful, yeah," she agrees, turning back to her sandwich.

And adds with her mouth half-full: "Emma said they'll be able to mitigate it...."

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"What do you mean?" Philippus pretends a general air of watching down the hall for something interesting to happen.

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"Just now." Melissa shrugs, and takes the last bite of sandwich. "'S all I know."

She crumples the wrapper, looks about for somewhere to throw it out.

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"Thank you," says Philippus, shrugging. And punches her.

And then catches her before she hits the floor, poor child. This will just take a moment--

--the door doesn't open.

"Hades and Tartarus and all the pits below," she says, backing up a step and thinking. The next step is usually to break it down, but if it's warded as well as magelocked she's likely to get herself frozen or stunned or turned into something small. "Right-"

She has work to do.

The traditional place to hide unconscious bodies in Wolfram & Hart? The closet.

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The nearest supply closet is fortunately close. Melissa's limp body folds in under the lowest shelf with only a little difficulty.

The elevator around the corner dings just as she returns to her post by the door, and the sound of high heels clicking down the hallway is accompanied by the sound of heavy fabric brushing the floor.

Emma rounds the corner, followed by three figures hooded and robed in dark red. "Most of the framework's been set up already," she's saying over her shoulder to them. "If you want to check our preliminary work while waiting for the rest of your colleagues..."

The first robed figure bends its head in what looks like agreement, as they come to a stop by the locked doors. Emma reaches for the doorknob, shooting 'Ajani' a questioning look.

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"Bathroom," Philippus mouths. What? The girl had just eaten.

She's trying to get a sense of anything from the three figures. And no guard, which made things easier and more complicated all at once. . .

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The doors swing open, and Emma steps aside to let the robed figures into the room. They drift in past her, spreading out to take in the room; one gives a little ah of satisfaction.

At this close distance, their hands and faces are starting to be visible -- if that's what those disturbingly bright glints of blue-green iridescence are.

"Ajani --" Emma steps closer to speak in an undertone. "Keep the door open until Melissa gets back, will you? I want one of you inside and the other out, while they're here."

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It doesn't tell her much; she already had them down, mentally, as highly dangerous by use of magic. This is going to have to be a very fast maneuver.

She nods, curt and obedient. Very obedient. This is a lot simpler than her plan of "open up, the other guard's back and you should see her so you don't fry her accidentally." And she stays in the doorway as soon as Emma steps out. Nothing's going to get by her.

Until she's busy with other things, but by that point Emma's priorities will be readjusted.

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The three robed figures are carefully examining the pattern on the floor and the other things set up around it. Philippus is getting a closer look, this time.

The red smears aren't paint. The white powder isn't chalk: it's bone. Unlit black candles in shallow brass bowls stand at precise points on the pattern, smelling faintly of incense and sulfur. And on the table itself, on the black velvet altar-cloth, a bulbous pale root sits in front of the Scythe like the world's ugliest paperweight.

There's something genuinely hideous about that root; something about the sickly grayish color, the swollen shape, the cracked and flaking surface texture. Seen out of the corner of the eye, it seems to stir sluggishly, to swell and pulse as though breathing.

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The elevator makes a cheery bing! sound as it starts to descend.

The sound that sorceror 1 makes as he collides unexpectedly with sorceror 2 is more like a very unhappy THWAK. (In yellow with spiky black edges.) Philippus backhands the third one, grabbing his hood as she goes by and dragging him through the lines. Her axe, off-balance and black and what she privately has always considered to be ridiculously spiky, goes down through the center of the root, and she tosses the sorceror over one of the bowls as she scoops up the Scythe.

Then she grabs the table by one leg, pivoting and dragging it with her; she'll likely need a shield or a weapon. Or, if the sorcerors are down, she can just throw it over the rest of the design and call this little ritual about as disturbed as it can get.

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(It's not her imagination: the root writhes as the axe cuts into it, and there might be a shriek hovering at the edges of hearing.)

As she pivots, the table twists away from her hand.

One of the first two sorcerors is stumbling to his feet, raising his arm, hissing words in a language she doesn't recognize --

The table rises into the air, and slams broadside into her.

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Ow. She roars something in a language she knows quite well: "your father was Cerberus!"

She drops down below it, one palm hitting a clear spot on the floor, hooking the Scythe on her back, grabbing the table's underside, and slinging it his way. He'll at least have to reverse its momentum; she's already fleeing for the door, fleet-footed, blessed by Artemis.

She pauses long enough to kick another sorceror as he starts to rise. Stay down, thank you.

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Fleet-footed and blessed by Artemis she may be, but that won't do her any good in getting through a locked door.

The table crashes into the far wall, in splinters, and the sorceror that flung it is still standing, hand stretching towards her.

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No, it won't.

She kicks the door, figuring anything short of outright paralysis beats whatever magic is about to come her way. It cracks, but doesn't give, and she pivots and charges back at him.

First drop him; then get the door.

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Her first swing comes up jarringly against a barrier of pure force, sending ripples of sickly greenish light spreading through the room.

Meanwhile, the two other robed figures are slowly getting to their feet.

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Clearly the thing to do is throw one sorceror at the shielded one.

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Clearly!

The two go down together in a tangle of dark-red fabric, one crying out in a high-pitched whistling hiss.

The third lunges at her, fire flaring from its hands.

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Oh for--she doesn't have time for this.

She moves to the door in a quick rush, watching the flame, ready to evade, and rather hoping it sets fire to it. That won't be good for the locking spell.

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She really doesn't have time for this. Or much else.

The fire obscures her view of the demon itself, until it divides like someone sweeping aside curtains. And the demon's ... changed.

Red robes fall in a heap to the ground as something four-legged and gray-furred and feral leaps directly at her face.

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Oh come on.

She brings the Scythe off her back, bringing it around into the path of the creature.

It's the bracelets that betray her. They're of a different work and shape, but in this moment of practiced movement they feel the same. The Sycthe smashes into it flat-first as she spins, slamming it into and through the door with a most satisfying crash. . .

. . . but its claw tore through the skin at her elbow, the bracelets the wrong shape and thickness to protect at that angle.

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