Part XX

Cassie started her mornings at WCI with a run. One lap around the grounds was about a mile. She wasn’t alone: some of the other Slayers liked to start their days that way too, but she was more likely to see some of the Watchers out running. Slayers didn’t really need to exercise to stay in shape, but Watchers did. When most of the Slayers went for a run, it was to burn off some excess energy; for Cassie it was almost a form of meditation. Running gave her a chance to think about what was going on in her life. To remember her mother, and her friends in Colorado. To think about what she was going to do next, or to just submerge herself in the run, and not think about anything.

She was on her second lap when she caught up with Jack and Andrew. Jack had made whipping Andrew into shape one of his personal missions. She slowed down to run with them for a bit. “Good morning, guys!”

Jack was looking relaxed, running at a slower pace than she knew he preferred, out of deference to Andrew. “’Morning, Cassie. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

It was actually starting to heat up into what the weatherman was predicting to a scorcher of a day. Andrew was already struggling: sweating, and gasping for breath. “Why do I have to do this?” he whined. “I’m never going to be able to outrun a Slayer, or a vampire. Why should I even bother trying?”

“You don’t have to outrun a vampire,” said Cassie. “You just have to be able to outrun the other people who are trying to outrun a vampire.”

“And you’re always going to be slower than the Slayers,” added Jack, “but that’s no excuse to slow them down any more than you have to. Come on, pick it up! Finish this lap, and then we’ll see how you do on the obstacle course.”

“I’ll see you guys later,” said Cassie, and she accelerated into a sprint, leaving Jack and the gasping Andrew in her dust.

About half of the WCI campus was wooded, and hidden away among the trees, far from the prying eyes of outsiders, was their obstacle course. Even the Slayers who didn’t like to run liked to come out here for exercise, or just to play. It was like a giant jungle-gym, laid out for people with super strength and speed, full of climbing walls, monkey bars, rope bridges, balance beams, and other things to challenge a Slayer’s abilities. They’d race each other through it, trying to find more inventive ways to navigate the obstacles.

Some of the obstacles required crawling through dirt and sand. After Cassie had run through it a couple of times, her sweating skin, and her running clothes were covered with grime, so her next stop in her morning routine was the showers by the pool. A quick turn under a shower while still wearing her running outfit washed the worst of the dirt away from her and her clothes; then a quick change into her bathing suit, for a dip in the pool. She dove in, and swam two lengths under water, before surfacing to take a breath of air. She swam a couple more lengths more leisurely on the surface to finish cooling down, letting her heartbeat slow, and her breathing return to normal. After her swim, she returned to the showers to rinse away the salty water, and wash her hair. She left the locker room ready for the day’s classes in magic, demonology, or ancient languages: whatever was on the schedule for today.

Sparring with other Slayers was nothing like sparring with Jack, or Sam. Cassie had always had to be careful when working out with them, adapting herself to work against people with merely human reflexes. She could let herself go when working with other Slayers, hardly holding back at all. She still had to hold herself back a bit, since even other Slayers were mortal, but she was still freer to let her full abilities show through.

She was still surprised by how much of an advantage the training she’d gotten from Sam and Jack gave her over the other Slayers. All Slayers had a gift for fighting, and the sparring helped to train it, but the formal lessons helped even more. Learning the proper forms, and techniques made them even more effective in combat. Cassie found that she was among the best in her classes, on a par with Vi and Rona, and the other Sunnydale survivors, though Faith could still whip her ass most of the time, when she was in town.

The one discipline in which she rose head and shoulders above the others was the quarterstaff. Teal’c's training had made her a master at fighting with it. According to Teal’c, her technique was now on a par with Master Bra’tac’s, and she excelled him in both strength and speed, though he had also warned her that sometimes experience counted even more than strength and skill. If she ever had the opportunity to actually test herself against Bra’tac, the wily old man might surprise her. He had forgotten more tricks than most other Jaffa had ever learned.

Cassie sat in the dark, and looked at the Powerpoint slide projected on the screen at the front of the room. It showed a picture of a spider-like creature beside a person, to give a sense of scale. The spider’s body was about two feet across. Its clawed legs had a span of over six feet.

“This is a Grimslaw demon,” said Andrew. “They are not native to this dimension. If you encounter one of these, it usually means that someone has summoned it.” He clicked the button on his remote, and the picture changed, showing the demon attacking the person. A jaw full of teeth extended from the centre of the demon’s body toward the human’s chest. Andrew waved the beam from a laser pointer over it. “It has an extendable jaw, just like an Alien’s, and its favourite food is human hearts. It just plunges that jaw into your chest, and rips your heart out, if you let it.”

Andrew clicked to the next slide. “The other main weapon in its arsenal is its webbing. It can shoot strands of sticky, black, web several yards, just like Spiderman, but it doesn’t have anything like his ability to make things with it. It mostly uses its webbing to tangle up its prey.”

Andrew’s demon lectures were always like this: full of references to SF movies, and comic books. It seemed that there wasn’t a demon in existence that Andrew couldn’t find some sort of parallel to in fantasy fiction, though for some of his descriptions he told how the real creatures differed from their fictional counterparts. He’d spent over an hour in one lecture explaining how real vampires were nothing like the creatures described by Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, or even Bram Stoker, though Stoker’s Dracula was based on a real vampire.

“Luckily, the Grimslaw is easily killed,” Andrew continued. “There is no need for any special weaponry.” He clicked ahead to the next slide, showing a long list of weapons beside the demon. “Knives, swords, axes and stakes all work well, though you will probably want to use something that lets you kill it without coming within reach of its claws. They can give you a very nasty gash if you let it get that close to you.” He clicked to the next slide. “This slide shows where the Grimslaw demon is vulnerable. The areas highlighted in red are the preferred targets, where it is most vulnerable. Its back is covered in a hard carapace, that can deflect most weapons, so it is easier to stab through its softer underbelly. Of course, going for the belly exposes you to attack from its mouth and claws. If you have a choice, and a good, strong, sharp, weapon, it is preferable to stab it in the back. If all you’ve got is a stake, you will have to go for the belly.”

Andrew clicked on to the next slide. “This is a Zirkilack demon. It has extendable claws, rather like Wolverine’s, but its are bone, not adamantium…”

Cassie’s roommate was named Donna, and she was from Drumheller, Alberta. Someone had thought that it was a good idea to put the two ‘Canadians’ together. Cassie had managed to bluff her way through using a mixture of the truth (She had been living in Colorado since she was twelve) combined with her faked Torontonian background. The only bit of Toronto that Donna had seen was its airport, where she had switched planes when she had flown down here.

On the morning of July 1st, Donna had declared that they needed to celebrate Canada Day with a road trip.

“Where to?” asked Cassie. “Windsor, or Niagara?” Windsor was closer, but Cassie figured that Niagara Falls was a nicer destination. Both were within range for a day trip by car, going in opposite directions around Lake Erie.

“I was thinking more along the lines of Columbus,” said Donna.

“Columbus?” asked Cassie. “As in Columbus, Ohio?”

“Any other Columbuses around here?”

“Why go to Columbus for Canada Day?”

“Because there are Tims in Columbus!”

“Tim who?” asked Cassie.

Donna looked at her in disbelief. “Tim Horton’s!”

“Who?” asked Cassie, though she had some dim recollection of having heard the name before.

“And you call yourself a Canadian!” said Donna. “Tim Horton’s! The world’s finest coffee and doughnuts!”

“Oh!” said Cassie. Now she remembered. She and her mother had eaten at a Tim Horton’s a few times, during some of her Toronto visits. She remembered them being okay, especially when compared to other fast food type places, but really not deserving of the sort of adulation that Donna seemed to be showing.

“Of course, it’s an American franchise in Columbus, so they might not be holding up the proper standard,” said Donna. “But I figure we’ll give them a shot. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll just have to get Jack to fly us across the lake.”

Jack had joined a local flying club, and he had become quite popular with the Slayers. He rarely went flying alone, there was always someone who wanted to go with him, and he was always happy to give some unofficial flying lessons. Some of the Slayers had even signed up for lessons with the club’s official instructors.

“Have you signed out a car for us?” asked Cassie. The Council kept a pool of vehicles available for the Slayers’ use.

“They’re all crap,” said Donna. Cassie had to agree with her. The Council’s cars tended to ‘practical’ end of the spectrum. “Why don’t you ask Jack if you can borrow his ’vette?” Jack had had his Corvette shipped to Akron, and everyone knew that Cassie was the only Slayer he’d let drive it.

They made it to Columbus in an hour and a half, blowing down Interstate 71 at nearly 90 miles an hour. Between the radar detector in Jack’s car, and Cassie’s Slayer senses, she’d spotted any cops on the road, and gotten slowed down to a legal speed, before they’d spotted her.

The Canadian flag that Donna had attached to the car was looking a little ragged when they pulled into the parking lot of a Columbus Tim Horton’s for lunch. Cassie had to wonder what people thought of the flag, on a car that still had its Colorado license plates.

Cassie enjoyed her lunch, though she really didn’t think that it was all that special. Donna pronounced that her meal was ‘acceptable’ though not really up to the standard she expected. “Next time, I will get Jack to fly us across the lake,” she announced as they started the drive back to Akron.

One day, in the middle of August, Andrew came into the common room with a small box clutched in his hands, and a look of ecstasy on his face. Cassie looked across the room at Jack, and raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. Jack just shrugged in response.

“What have you got there, Andrew?” asked Donna.

Andrew was making a beeline for the rack of AV equipment. “A new DVD release. Just came out.”

“What is it?”

“A really cool TV show, from a couple of years ago. Only a few episodes were ever shown before the idiot network cancelled it, but they’ve released the whole season on DVD.” Andrew opened his box, and popped a disk out of its holder. He slid it into the DVD player, picked up the remote for the fifty inch plasma screen, and turned it on. The FBI warning showed up on the screen.

“They released Firefly ages ago,” said Donna.

“No, this is something else. Even better!” said Andrew, as he punched buttons on the DVD remote, trying to rush it past more warning screens.

“Good,” said Vi. “The captain in that series always gives me the creeps. He reminds me too much of Caleb.”

“This is going to be great!” said Andrew, as the Wormhole X-Treme logo splashed across the screen.

Cassie heard a groan, and a thumping noise. She looked around, and saw Jack, banging his head against the table in front of him.

They hit the condemned office building with two squads at dawn. One squad had gone down into the sewers to cut off the vampires’ underground escape routes. Vi had won the coin toss, so her squad went in at ground level, hoping to catch the vamps that nested here unaware, just after they had settled down to sleep the day away.

A bolt from Jack’s crossbow had taken out the sentry that the vamps had positioned in a deeply shadowed alcove outside the building, before it could raise any alarm. Then the Slayers moved in. Vi and Maureen took one door, while Cassie and Donna took another. Jack and Tim hung back with their crossbows, to pick off any vamps that tried to use the morning shadows to escape.

The southern and eastern sides of the building were bathed in sunlight, so they came in from the north and west. Cassie tried her door and found that its lock had been broken long ago. That was good, the less noise they made going in, the better. They didn’t want the vamps to learn that they were there, any sooner than necessary. “We’re ready,” she whispered into the microphone of her headset.

“Go!” came Vi’s answer back.

The door hinges squeaked as Cassie pushed it open. Donna went through first, with her crossbow ready. She moved quickly away from the door, making room for Cassie to follow her.

They were at the end of a long hallway, lined with doors. Cassie went to the first one, and pushed it open, quickly scanning the empty office, before announcing it was clear. Donna went to the next office, while Cassie kept watch on the hallway. They moved swiftly, taking turns checking rooms. They only encountered a couple of locked doors, that they broke open as quietly as possible. Vampires and homeless people had already been through this place, searching for anything that was worth stealing.

The building’s hallways were laid out in an ‘H’ pattern, and Vi and Maureen had been checking out the other leg. They met in the cross corridor, at the centre of the building. “Find anything?” Vi asked.

“Nothing,” said Donna. “This floor is clear.”

“Anyone feel anything?”

“Down,” said Cassie, and she saw Maureen and Donna nodding.

“So, we’re going down,” said Vi.

Jack hated waiting outside. He wanted to be in the thick of it, leading his team against the enemy, but it wasn’t his team. Now he understood how General Hammond must feel, staying behind in Stargate Command, watching teams go out through the gate.

He’d done what he could. He had helped to refine the Slayers’ small squad tactics, teaching them how to work together as a team. There really hadn’t been all that much to teach them, though. They had already had a pretty good grounding in the basics. There were gaps in their knowledge though: it was like whoever had set up their training had learned how to do it from a book. Jack had been able add some practical refinements, that only came from experience in the field, and to help adapt their tactics to the weapons that Slayers used.

Jack knew that his knowledge of things military was a continuing source of speculation among the upper echelons of the Council, but so far they had seemed to accept his explanations for where it came from, without asking too many questions about it. They seemed to be used to the idea of kids having abilities beyond what most people would expect. At first they had listened to his suggestions for how squads of Slayers could work together with a healthy level of caution, but they had listened, and tried out his ideas in training exercises, and when they worked there they had adopted them into their standard procedures.

Now they sought out his advice for how to handle any new situations that cropped up. It was very gratifying to know that they trusted both him and his judgement that way, but it was still frustrating that when it came to the actual fighting, he was strictly second string: left waiting on the sidelines until the main action was over. When he heard Vi give the order to hit the vamps in the basement, he wanted to be in there leading the charge, not left outside watching for any vamps that might try to escape.

Cassie and Donna moved silently down the west stairwell into the basement. They paused at the fire door at the bottom, to wait for Vi’s signal from the other stairwell to continue. When it came, Donna eased the door open as quietly as she could. That was one of the things that Jack had taught them. Before he’d come along, they would have smashed through the door, and come in yelling. Jack had pointed out that it might not seem very sporting, but it was usually best to kill as many of their adversaries as possible, before they even knew you were there. Come in quietly; take out any sentries before they could detect you; if possible, kill them in their beds, while they were still sleeping. Never give the opposition a break.

The basement was dark, but there was enough light for the Slayers to see. They moved quickly from room to room, searching for the vampires that they could feel were there.

Cassie could feel that they were getting closer. She opened another door, and was assaulted by the sewer smell. She thought at first that they’d found another access to the sewers, that hadn’t been shown on the building plans that Andrew had obtained for them, but then she saw the people chained up along the wall.

Cassie’s crossbow came up, and she fired, almost before she was even consciously aware of the vampire that was coming toward her. She was aware of the second vampire that was dusted by a bolt from Donna’s bow. There were more vamps in the room, but they were dusted within seconds.

“Six vamps down,” Donna reported over her radio. “We’ve found their larder. Some of their victims are still alive, we’re going to need transport for them.”

Cassie moved to the people chained to the wall. Some of them were slumped lifelessly on the floor, but others were still alive, and looking at her with a combination of hope and fear in their eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she told them quietly. “We’re going to get you out of here.” She put her hand to the neck of one of the unmoving bodies, lying in its own filth, to check for a pulse. She couldn’t feel any, and the body felt cold to her touch. She shook her head at Donna, and moved to the next one, while listening to Vi and Maureen’s voices on the radio reporting the dusting of more vampires. Rona’s squad had come up from the sewers and joined in the cleanup.

It turned out that a couple of the unconscious people were still alive. They got priority transport to the nearest hospital, after they had been broken free from the chains binding them.

Jack got the Air Force Times newspaper delivered to him weekly. He liked to keep up to date on what was happening in his old service. He was pleased when he read that General Hammond had received his third star, but he wasn’t so sure about him being transferred to the Pentagon. He could only hope that what the paper said about his new duties, heading a new department which was responsible for international cooperation, was some sort of cover story for what he was really doing. He wondered who would be running the SGC with George gone. Cassie got some letters from Sam that mentioned that the project had been taken over by a civilian, named Elizabeth Weir, but Sam couldn’t go into any details. She did seem to be cautiously approving of her.

A couple of weeks later Jack was sitting in the lounge, reading his paper. Cassie was there, poring over some demonology books with Andrew. A couple of other Slayers were watching TV. Jack flipped through the paper to the section that listed promotions, to see if anyone he knew was there. He was pleased by one name that he saw. “Hey Cassie! Did Carter tell you she was getting promoted?”

Cassie looked up from her demonology books. “No. She did? Really?”

“Yep,” said Jack. “She really did. She’s now Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter.” Cassie came over to have a look over his shoulder at the paper. Jack kept reading down the list. He froze at the next name that he recognized. “No! They wouldn’t! Someone’s gone insane!”

“What is it?” asked Cassie.

Jack pointed to the name: “Brigadier General John J. O’Neill.”