Dead Man's Chest part 2, by dutchbuffy2305

Buffy flicked a dagger and a stake into her hands from her arm sheaths and kicked in the door on the left of the landing. This was nice, sturdy oak, probably a much older door, and dutifully slammed open with a broken lock.

"Twenty!" a Gurnenthar crowed and tossed a screaming red-faced Theo to a bigger version of its bat winged, ropy-tailed self. The Gurnenthar's horned head towered over them, brushing the ceiling. Buffy noted the black streaks it had left on the white stucco and her homeowner's hackles rose.

The Gurnenthar paid no attention to the irate mother storming up to him over across a strangely expanding stretch of floor and put the baby in a gilded cage. Buffy pumped her legs harder, but the Gurnenthar receded further and further away. Twenty little Theos of various ages squalled or screamed or kicked in their cages, stacked haphazardly against the far wall. Which was getting smaller and less detailed. The Gurnenthar was becoming taller, too.

"Where's Twenty-One? I'm on a schedule here," The Gurnenthar said sharply to the smaller version. The minion's tail spiraled nervously around its greenish-black leg.

Buffy readied her dagger for throwing but at the rate she was progressing that would be somewhen next century.

"Twenty one!" another Gurnenthar crowed as it crashed through the window. Shards of glass flew and Buffy's teeth gritted when she saw a small cut appear on her son's sweet plump arm.

"Buff! Your axe!"

Spike's voice thundered like Odin's and pushed so hard against her shoulder blades she almost stumbled.

Her beautiful red axe thwocked slowly through the air, like a helicopter in slow motion. He thought she should grab that? Impossible. The axe was headed for the big Gurnenthar, which had to be the one actually getting ready for his Ascension. A thick green arm blocked the axe easily and sent it spinning of in the direction of a gilded cage. It intersected Buffy's line of sight to the Gurnenthar Senior and snapped the feeling of insignificance. The sudden distance from her eyes to the floor made her dizzy for a whole fraction of a second, but if Alice could overcome that, so could she. She threw herself toward the cage, a mere sixteen feet now, and time stood still as she slid over the waxed floor to the cage with its surprised-looking little boy inside and the axe tumbling towards it.

#

Dawn returned downstairs from a last tucking in and regarded the slumped form of her boyfriend with approval. Poor Riley. He hadn't known where he was at from one minute to the next, but he'd rallied like a trooper. He'd make a good dad.

She squeezed in next to him and slung her arm around his neck while she thumbed the remote.

Riley woke up with a start and stared dazedly at the TV. "Holiday Inn? Again? I thought they aired that earlier this evening."

"Sweetie. This is earlier this evening. It's only nine-thirty. You saw the beginning and this is the ending."

"Nine-thirty? We have ten more hours to go?"

Riley watched the singing with big, stressed eyes. "Is Bing Crosby a demon?"

"Of course," Dawn said. "Half-Brachen. I thought you knew?"

"I didn't. Six billion people don't sound like enough to keep the demon hordes at bay, all of a sudden." He sighed. "It seems quiet now, doesn't it?"

"It sure does."

Dawn smiled at Riley and watched him lose the contest with himself in not glancing down at her cleavage. That was what it was for, but the silly darling still seemed to think he should pretend she was made of spun sugar and never had sexy thoughts.

He slid his arm around her and she got a thrill of pleasure about this big a guy holding her tight, all wide chest and manly shoulder muscles. Made her feel all womanly and tiny.

"How about we go upstairs?"

"What's wrong with here?" Dawn whispered. "The guest beds aren't that comfy. It's so romantic, with the tree and all... "

Riley was just admiring the way her bra pushed up her breasts, when a loud crying splintered the mood. "Fuck."

Not now, alas. The half-dressed little boy sitting at their feet cried with heartbreaking intensity. They didn't know why, but the ugly red gash across his ribs told a harrowing story.

"Sweetie!" Dawn said and held out her arms. "What's wrong, Theo honey? Let Auntie Dawn kiss your owies away...."

The boy looked frightened, as if he didn't know her, and faded away, still crying.

"I never saw that scar before. You?" Riley said.

"No. Riley, I'm worried. Please do up my bra again, because I think Spike and Buffy might need help."

"Aren't you a little quick to jump to conclusions? They've only been away two hours, even if it seems like twenty."

Dawn stood up and smoothed down her clothes. "I'm sure. Theo loves me, Riley. Did you see how he looked at me? That boy didn't know me. What does that tell you about his future?"

Riley shifted his pants into a more comfortable position and slow comprehension dawned on his face. "Spike and Buffy are dead?"

"Or they will be if we don't act quickly. You get the car; I'll go get some books on Gurnenthar. I bet they didn't even take the time to look him up and just took some random weapons. Sounds just like them."

#

Spike had always figured vampire physiology was pretty straightforward, but he'd never felt his innards rise up and throttle his gullet before. The axe tumbled straight at the little Theo in the cage and Buffy would never make the crease in time. Her fingertips touched the golden wires, which burned, and the axe took off a slice of skin of her middle finger before it buried itself deeply in the floor. Pity about that beautiful hardwood.

She scrabbled to her knees, ruining the leggings in the process, and couldn't think why the Theos didn't simply jump away from the bad scary demon. The gold wire bars must be bespelled or something like that. She hacked off the lock from the closest cage and the little boy inside disappeared instantly. Sensible kid.

The head Gurnenthar bellowed in pain. "No! You will not hamper my Ascension! Juniors, get me another red-headed child!"

"Plenty more where they came from, boss," the little creature squeaked and flew off while still kowtowing to its master.

It slammed straight into Spike. He ripped off its head with his bare fangs.

"All juniors, go get more children!" the big Gurnenthar yelled. "I need spares!"

He turned his back on Buffy and bent down to open up a big carved wooden chest.

"Lords of the Ascension, hear thy brother's prayer! It is the season of Solstice and your brother is ready to be taken up into your realm! Hear my prayer!"

Spike tried to climb the Gurnenthar's neck but a flick of the big shiny wings threw him back against the door. Okay, Buffy wouldn't be trying the neck. Sometimes it wasn't so bad to be short. She hacked at its left hamstring and was rewarded with a bellow of pain.

"Harken, brothers, hearken unto me! This is my blood I spill! This is my sacrifice unto thee!"

Shit. Gurnenthar didn't seem to mind being without the use of one leg. Spike was tearing off a wing in a spray of green gore, and there went her new Christmas dress. She didn't mind as long has her shoes were okay, because they had cost a bundle.

She hacked through another mighty thew and figured that Spike now had the Gurnenthar. The cages. She had no time to fiddle with them. The axe sliced cleanly through a lock, but she barely missed the chubby little hands that were stretching out towards her in entreaty. "Mommy!"

Not with the axe then. A new flurry of minions flying in from all sides with arms full of squealing Theos made her business even more urgent. She grabbed her dagger and hacked at the next lock. What the fuck was the big guy doing now? Climbing into that chest? No way could they let him ascend. Every Ascension, the number of junior Gurnenthars multiplied exponentially, and even though math wasn't her strong point, from the dozens that were here now she guessed the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold the next generation.

"Spike! He's ascending! Grab him!"

Spike hung on to the torn wing as the great creature folded itself into the chest. It disappeared further than should have been possible and Buffy hesitated for one, two beats before she dove after Spike and just managed to grab his boot as it slid over the edge into nothingness

#

Riley threw on his jacket and ran to the car. It was a good thing he'd brought some stuff along. He fished his gun and Kevlar vest from the trunk and selected a few other choice weapons.

Dawn came staggering out the door, still in her black party dress and heels, carrying half a dozen bulky volumes. He helped her chuck them in back and slid behind the wheel.

"Drive. I know the address."

"Talk to me about Gurnenthar," Riley said, as he carefully navigated the slippery curves.

"Riley, we're not stopping for that red light, Just drive."

It went against the grain, but he consoled his conscience with the thought that they were on a mission and didn't have time for the niceties.

"Gurnenthars spawn in great numbers. Each year, the one that has managed to grow to the largest size, probably by devouring its siblings, is allowed to ascend to its brothers in heaven. The assumption is this is another dimension, since no mature/ascended Gurnenthar has ever been seen on Earth. " Dawn gave the book a quarter turn to look at the center fold. "Probably all the better, he looks enormous, and then the horn and the wings and the spiky tail..."

They drove up with squealing tires to a big fancy house. Gurnenthar must be loaded. He'd never be able to buy Dawn a house like this on his Major's salary. Now if he managed to make Lieutenant-Colonel...

Two sets of footsteps only led to the front door. Had all the demons been inside before the snow started falling? In Cleveland, that meant October. He ducked when a dark thing flew over his head and nicked his cheek with its tail. Oh. That was how they got in.

The door was open, in a way, and Riley wrenched himself through the child size gap that had been hacked into it.

"Stay back, Dawn," he ordered and readied his machine gun. No time for subtlety.

"Don't shoot Buffy!" she yelled below him as he ran up the stairs.

He heard the books thunk down.

#

A short burst of machine-gun fire and then another. It couldn't be babies crying, could it? It was just a demon trick to lure in unsuspecting victims. The Daa Chang, if she remembered correctly. And she should, because she'd aced that exam. Dawn was on her knees in the downstairs halls, frantically rifling through the priceless volumes spread all around her. "Gurnenthar dimension, Gurnenthar's home, rules of," wasn't getting her a thing, so she returned to "Gurnenthar, Ascension of." But she'd read that already, and it didn't seem to be doing a thing for her.

"Dawn!" Riley bellowed from upstairs. "Get the wire cutters from the trunk!"

She didn't much like being Girl Friday to the big lug with the gun. She'd handled that way better in the Chena Hot Springs Ice Hotel last years, when they were all still thinking Buffy was only pregnant with twins. She ran back outside, adding another two tracks to the four already there and sprinted upstairs with the big heavy tool.

"Oh!"

That was just unbearable. Dozens of cages full of cute little freckled faces smeared with tears and crying wordlessly or calling out for uncle Riley. Three or four small batlike creatures lying in spreading pools of chartreuse gore. Riley looking heroic and a little splattered. My God, he'd risked firing the damn thing with kids in the room. What if they'd been hit? Or if the bullets had ricocheted?

"Riley, are you out of your mind?"

"Dawn, empty those cages. I shot one and the kid in there disappeared like this. Let's get rid of them quick before the auxiliary troops come flying in. Duck."

She ducked and a good thing too because Riley shot the thing that had been poised against the ceiling right above her. A lime green splash landed in her cleavage and burned a little.

She stumbled over to the cages and started snipping off the locks with the enormous clumsy wire cutter. Riley was right; the Theos went straight home.

"Go home to mommy and daddy! Right now!" she told them sternly and the older ones nodded.

One little guy fell out of the cage and clung screaming to her calves. Dawn hoisted him up to her hip but had to put him down again. Too many Theos to go. She worked frantically at opening all twenty-one cages, trying not to look at Riley when the gun went off. Trying to trust that he wouldn't shoot her, which she knew he didn't want to, but in the heat of the moment...He'd looked so much more frightening and martial than she'd always pictured him. Strapping and easily led, she'd described him to a friend. This was different. This was a man who knew his business.

She cut open the last cage with cramping, shaking hands and was relieved to see the baby pop out of existence immediately. The cutter clattered to the floor and she turned to Riley. The death count had gone up and so had the amount of gore burning spirals in the wooden floor. This house was going to be hard to sell.

"Riley?"

"Over here, Dawn. I think this is where the big guy went. All the minions are trying to get into that big chest here."

She approached it cautiously, stepping around the pools of ick, and peered inside. The howling nothing that greeted her peeled her eyeballs like grapes and rolled them in sand.

"Ouch. I guess that is a portal to the Ascended dimension. But the book says he has to shoot back the spawn or there will be no next generation."

Riley drew his head back so quickly it would have been funny in any other situation.

"Ew," he said when she looked at him reproachfully.

"Riley, the ew is not important right now. You have to follow him, or we have to follow it in to burn the spawn or kill the Ascended Gurnenthar or something. Nobody in the whole world has let a Gurnenthar ascend since the dawn of time. We're not going to be the first."

"How about we rescue Spike and Buffy?" Riley said.

"That goes without saying," Dawn bit back.

It was almost like there were having their first fight, and she didn't even want to fight. There was nothing to fight about! Not now, when she'd sort of had that revelation about him and loved him m ore than before. Come on, it was Christmas. There would be no fights. She suppressed the memory of her parents' Christmases forcefully.

"Okay, I'm going in," Riley said. "You're not." When she opened her mouth to protest, he said, "Someone has to take care of those kids, Dawn."

Dawn's eyes shot full of tears. No, that couldn't; be true. Not that she wouldn't do it, but that would be so wrong on so many levels. "It's Christmas! Father Christmas loves them. He'll help them if we can't."

A neigh sounded from outside and an enormous horse came in by way of the broken window, putting the finishing touches on the wreck of the window frame and part of the wall as well.

"You rang?" Santa Claus said and laughed heartily at his own joke. "Off with you, lad. I'm really being too busy to be making house calls."

A jaunty adult Theo jumped off from behind Santa  Claus's broad back, and waved hello.

"Don't go in there, Uncle Riley. Gurnenthar's dimension has a different time frame. Don't wanna do a Rip van Winkle on us, do you?"

His words were flippant but he looked pale and worried.

Dawn's stomach lurched. "How much of a time differential?"

TBC