TITLE: No Mercy (X) 1/1
SERIES: Knight Consort - Chapter 6
AUTHOR: Don Bentley
E-MAIL: dbentley@albedo.net
SUMMARY: After having harmed Anya, albeit inadvertently, Xander is
running hard, and fast, and scared. Only problem is, he hasn't run far
enough.
RATING: NC17
TIMELINE: In the weeks following the season 5 episode, 'The Gift',
and immediately after Knight Consort chapter 5, "Sleep's Images".
SPOILERS: None.
*****
To the disinterested observer, and the Oxnard Galleria's food court was
filled to overflowing with disinterested observers, the young man was just
another diner eating his fast food meal amongst the small sea of uncomfortable
plastic and metal tables and chairs. Deliberately designed to discourage
loitering, thus spurring shoppers back into the stores, the tables were so
closely set together that private conversation was impossible, and the diners
were each treated to a barrage of personal exchanges amid the general babble.
"-God! My mother's so unfair! You know, she doesn't believe
me even when I'm telling the truth-" "-I said the dress *looked* slimming!
I didn't say that you were fat-" "-Kerry! Sit down! What
did I tell you about running around?-" "-Dude, everyone scores with
Bethany. Ya gotta ask her out, man-" "-Ohmigod! Phoebe,
look, it's Addison- DON'T LOOK!-"
Alexander Harris ignored the clamour about him, and concentrated instead
on finishing his meal. He ate because he was hungry. He barely
tasted his food, just wolfed it down, and tried not to think too far in advance.
Right now it was 'eat, then shop, then drive.' That was all the plan
he had at the moment. Eat, shop, drive. The destination would
come later, once he'd settled on a direction to drive. Not that he had
a lot of choice. He could go south or he could go east. To go
west in southern California meant to drive into the Pacific, and north...
well, north wasn't an option.
There was nothing left for him back north. Not back in Sunnydale.
Not any more.
In a single thoughtless moment he had thrown everything away.
He was gripping his soft drink cup so hard that the thin plastic top popped
off and a surge of soda splashed over his hand bringing him back to the here
and now with a blink of surprise.
With a giggle, a small girl of about four, dressed in a bright yellow sundress,
her round smiling face framed with unruly brown curls, handed him a napkin
from his tray. She had been sitting two tables down with her mother,
a harried looking woman whose attention was mostly focused on frustrating
a second child's bid for freedom as the squalling infant single mindedly tried
to claw its way out of its stroller. Smiling his thanks, he wiped his
hand clean of most of the sticky beverage, and nodded back towards the mother.
"You shouldn't-" he had to clear his throat- "You shouldn't be running around,
sweetheart," he said, his voice still scratchy from disuse. He hadn't
spoken since long before he had left home- Before he had left.
"Your mother might-"
"KERRY!"
Both Harris and the little girl looked over to see her mother rise from
her table and rush the few paces that separated her from her daughter.
Snatching her daughter's hand, she pulled her sharply back away from the stranger's
table, while flashing him a sharp look of mistrust and fear.
He gave her his best disarming smile, and was about to intervene on the
girl's behalf when the mother, leaving their meal debris on the table, unceremoniously
dumped a couple of small packages into the delighted infant's lap, and stalked
away, Kerry in tow. Somehow or other, she managed to weave the stroller
through the press with one hand, the other tightly clasping her girl's hand.
"I've had enough of your wandering off, young lady. You're getting
a time out when we get home-"
The rest was lost in the food court's dull roar as the mother steered her
way toward the department store, still lecturing even as the girl turned back
to smile and wave at her new friend before disappearing into the store.
Harris smiled back, even sketched a little wave of his own. Then,
as if a switch had been thrown, his smile vanished. The moment was
gone.
Rising, he walked his tray over to the waste bins, stopping to collect the
abandoned tray on his way. This tiny act of courtesy earned him a small
smile from one of the overworked and harassed cleaning staff. The smile
went unnoticed and unanswered.
*****
Dodging his way around one of the artificially cheerful store greeters that
lay in wait just inside the department store entrance, Harris stopped only
long enough to scan the store's floor plan. He needed pretty much everything:
towel, underwear, socks, soap. Everything.
Okay, menswear, bath and bed, and the pharmacy. Check.
He was cutting through women's wear when he absently wiped his hand, still
sticky with spilt soda, on his pants--
--he was standing in the hospital washroom desperately washing his hands
for what seemed like the hundredth time. He had drained and replaced
the water a number of times already as the hot water had cooled. His
hands were a mess. He had rubbed them raw in places as he scrubbed ever
harder, and had scalded them a bright red with the steaming water, but no
matter how hard he tried he could still *see*- could still *feel* the blood.
Dawn's blood.
The blood of the fifteen-year-old girl he had tried to kill. He had
actually tried to bring the tower down with her on it. He had tried
to murder a little girl. Joyce's daughter. Buffy's sister.
Buffy's blood.
The blood of the friend he hadn't been able to save. He hadn't stopped
the portal from being opened, and he had failed Buffy.
So much blood on his hands... too much blood--
--he was knocked out of his trance as another shopper, an obese older woman,
brushed up against him as she pushed her way down the aisle, greeting him
with an impersonal obscenity.
"Damn it," he sobbed as the reality of his self-imposed exile reasserted
itself.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking uncontrollably, twisted
into claws that pulled and tore at each other as his body replayed his memory
in concert with his mind.
Quickly, and with a fervour that bordered on desperation, he scanned the
signs hanging from the ceiling...
There!
Willing himself not to break into a dead run, he walked for the washrooms,
not taking his eyes off the sign, terrified that somehow even this temporary
sanctuary would be pulled from him at the last moment.
He pushed his way around a small knot of employees clustered around a customer
service desk, not giving them a thought as he homed in on the washrooms.
He didn't even register the low urgent whispers as a supervisor briefed the
others, and answered their questions.
"-Karen, check the change rooms. Jim, Alan, you two stay with her.
Bill, go an' give 'em a hand at the galleria entrance-"
"-look like?"
"-four years old, yellow sundress-"
*****
The washroom was off the main sales floor, down a short corridor, and beside
a pair of large double doors sporting the usual 'employees only' signs.
He was just about to shoulder his way into the washroom when a commotion from
behind the doors caught his attention. At first, he thought nothing
of it; someone was probably just moving stock about, and anyway it was just
his imagination threatening to run away with him. After all, it wasn't
like demons lurked around every corner, was it?
Then he heard a high-pitched shriek, a sound of distress that was cut off
almost immediately.
He pushed his way through the double doors. The commotion was much
clearer; he recognized the sounds of a struggle, and followed them into a
smaller storage area off of the main warehouse.
"Be a good girl, d-d-don't make me have to punish you."
A man, maybe thirty years old, maybe a bit less, skinny, and of medium height,
normal looking, all things considered, was struggling with a child.
With a shock Harris saw that it was Kerry, that the man was half-pulling and
half dragging the little girl towards an outside door. He wasn't having
an easy time of it, trying to keep her silent, while at the same time fending
off desperate, but ineffectual, blows.
Without conscious thought or planning, Harris closed the distance between
him and the would-be abductor in a couple quick strides and, grabbing him
by the shoulder, pulled him around, and punched him in the stomach.
He put everything he had into the blow, his strength and his weight, and his
frustration and his rage. The man doubled over and dropped to the concrete
floor, his hold on the child broken. He writhed on the floor, capable
only of incoherent gasps and moans of pain as he struggled to catch his breath.
Ignoring the man for the moment, Harris held his arms open towards the little
girl.
"You'll be okay, sweetheart," he said as she sobbed and threw herself into
his arms. "I promise."
He lifted her up in his arms and pushed his way back through the doors,
back towards the sales floor where he was greeted by a sales associate, a
woman whose first impression was obviously not favourable. She started
to take a deep breath for a scream for help, when Harris forestalled her
by moving to pass the girl to her.
"Take her to her mother," Harris said as the saleswoman reflexively reached
out to take the girl from him.
"NO!" Kerry screamed as she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her
face against his neck as she wept.
"It'll be okay, sweetheart," Harris whispered as he untangled her arms from
his neck and passed her to the saleswoman. "You'll be okay. The
police'll be here soon, and they'll protect you. It's what they do.
Okay?"
Kerry nodded and wiped her nose with her hand. She was unsure, but...
"'Kay...."
"Don't be afraid," Harris urged her, then added. "That bad man?
He won't hurt you or anyone else again."
"Promise," she asked through a sniffle.
"Promise," he smiled at her and brushed at the tears that stained her cheek.
"Can you be brave?"
Kerry wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, and though she was still
visibly upset, set a grim and serious expression on her young face as she
nodded her assent.
"Good girl," Harris turned away from her, but was drawn back when Kerry
lunged out of the woman's arms and gave him a hug.
"Thank you, mister," she said into his ear.
"You're welcome," he whispered back.
Gathering Kerry up in her arms, the woman turned back towards the sales
floor, but stopped and looked back at Harris. "The police have been
called. They're on their way. Is he... is he still back there?"
"Yeah. I'll... ah... I'll go get him."
The woman nodded, and with a small smile of thanks, rushed away onto the
sales floor.
As soon as she and Kerry were out of sight, Harris turned back into the
storeroom to find the man had managed to rise and had almost made it to the
exit. Without a word, Harris walked up and snap-kicked the man in the
small of his back, a vicious and economical blow that drove him back down
to the floor with a howl of pain.
"P-p-please," the would-be molester gasped between laboured breaths.
"I-I'm sick... on a... a p-p-program-"
Ignore the pleas, Harris reached down and pulled him to his feet by a handful
of hair- then delivered a savage palm-heel strike to his face. Part
of his mind cheered as he felt the man's jaw dislocate under the blow.
Harris followed through with a knee to the groin, and, once the man was back
on his knees, he kneed him in the face, a brutally economical blow that rewarded
him with the satisfying 'crunch' of broken cartilage.
At that the 'fight' became a disjointed series of blows as Harris methodically
set about beating the child molester cowering at his feet.
"...p-please..."
The appeal for mercy, whispered through the broken teeth and swollen lips
of a man who had only minutes before been trying to carry off a four year
old girl, only resulted in a stepped up tempo as Harris fell on him in a renewed
frenzy.
A rib or two giving way, cracking beneath his boot--
--Anya cut, and bruised--
Teeth, blood, and mucus spilling across the floor--
--Willow and Tara, exhausted, barely able to stand, but desperately holding
onto each other--
An arm twisted out of its socket--
--Buffy sprawled across a pile of debris, not moving--
--Dawn, bleeding and in tears over her sister's body--
Blow after blow after blow, and a face was soon unrecognizable beneath the
blood and the swelling. Pleas for mercy were now nothing but wordless
moans from a body too shattered to even raise an arm in self-defence--
--Anya lying on their living room floor, scrambling to get away from him,
shouting at him to stay away from her, her eyes wide with fear--
Two strong arms snaked around Harris' chest and pinned his arms to his side
as he was pulled away from the molester, and before he could resist, a pair
of hands had grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Enough!" commanded a gruff voice. "That's enough!"
Harris shook his head, trying to clear it as he focused his attention on
the man standing in front of him.
The voice relented, and grew softer. "The bastard ain't going nowhere."
Two men, wearing dingy coveralls that marked them as store employees, warehouse
workers, had pulled him off of the whimpering wreck cowering on the floor.
The one holding Harris in a tight bear hug was a large man, half a head taller
than him at least, though he was younger, a teenager still. The other
man was black, over fifty, and with close cropped silver hair. He was
a big man himself, and a middle-aged paunch couldn't hide the muscles, or
the power of a man accustomed to being in charge.
"You gotta get outta here, son," he said, his voice still soft as he looked
into Harris' eyes. "Cops'll be here any sec now-"
"What? No!" objected Harris in confusion. "Uh, I... uh, don't
I have to give a statement... I'm a witness. Testify-"
The older man shook his head. "Probably got him on camera. Lots
of them out on the floor. Won't need you, son, not to put him away.
'Sides, you'll only get into trouble."
He nodded at the molester lying in a pool of blood and vomit. "See,
I got a grandson. Five year old, cute as a bug. I understand.
Really. But the cops? They can't," he looked back into Harris'
eyes. "Go with Jason here. He'll get you out to the parking lot.
Don't worry, the cameras back here don't work."
Jason tentatively released his grip on Harris, obviously ready should he
try to go back after the molester.
He didn't.
"Go!" the older man ordered. His coveralls had the name 'George' embroidered
on a pocket.
"Yes, sir," Harris said as he let Jason pull him towards the exit.
"Hey!" George called as the teen ushered Harris through the door.
Harris turned back. "Sir?"
George raised a hand in salute.
"Semper fi, Mac. Godspeed."
*****
The large tarot cards dwarfed the delicate hands that shuffled them, and
after a moment's meditation, the woman drew and laid the first card down in
the small pool of light cast by the room's single candle. She breathed
a small sigh of relief.
Knight of Wands: absence, flight, darkness, a dark young man.
The second card. She frowned, fear clouding her face.
The chariot reversed: riot, quarrel, defeat.
With an effort, she laid down the third card. Her expression lightened
slightly. Thank the Goddess.
The High Priestess: mystery, the future as yet unrevealed.
Setting aside the rest of the deck, she picked up a small address book and
flipped through its pages.
*****
Cruelty deserves no mercy.
proverb
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