The Source of Our Power: Chapter 12

Jeremiah screamed in alarm as a blonde streak flew past the front of the car.

"Fuck!" He gasped out, eyes growing wider as another streak followed the first, trailing silky black hair and red lace-trimmed cape, the figure rolling easily across the hood of his car before landing gracefully and continuing on her way.

Jeremiah slammed on the brakes. "What the hell was-" he began, but his words trailed off into a sharp scream as a third streak – much larger than the first two – appeared. Jeremiah and Blaine were thrown forward with the force of the impact that followed, Blaine already reaching for the door handle as he began to register what was happening.

Almost as soon as he hit the pavement Angel was back on his feet, continuing his pursuit of the other two vampires.

Jeremiah turned to Blaine, his eyes wide with shock, but the passenger seat was already empty. Jeremiah swallowed and locked his car doors quickly, not moving from the spot.

"Angel!" Blaine screamed as he followed the other man.

"We can't let them get away," Angel tossed back over his shoulder without breaking his stride. "They've got Kurt!"

Blaine didn't answer. He simply picked up his pace, closing the distance between Angel and himself.

Blaine's heart was thundering in his chest, and it wasn't from the exertion of running. They've got Kurt. Blaine didn't want to think about what it meant. Kurt obviously wasn't with Tina or Quinn, so by "they" he could only assume that Angel was talking about someone else.

Someone like Dave.

Blaine forced down the wave of nausea that rose up to meet this realization. He redoubled his efforts, not wanting to waste any breath on a single syllable more, no matter how desperately he wanted to understand what was going on, what had happened, how they had managed to get Kurt out of the house and into Dave's hands.

Blaine didn't even want to think about what Kurt might be thinking, might be feeling. He refused to even let himself consider the possibility that Kurt might not be feeling anything at all anymore.

He ran faster.

Tina and Quinn were too far ahead of them for Blaine to see anymore, but Angel seemed to know what direction they had gone, so Blaine simply followed. For several moments the only sounds around them were their feet pounding hard against the pavement, and then the crunch as they hit the gravel path that cut through the woods, and Blaine's hard breathing and the near-audible pounding of his heart.

Suddenly Angel swore loudly and seemed to surge forward even faster. Blaine gritted his teeth as he pushed his body impossibly harder in an effort to keep up. Angel had obviously heard something that Blaine's ears were not yet able to pick up, and whatever it was, it definitely wasn't anything good.

Before long Blaine heard loud voices, followed by the slamming of car doors. Angel darted to the left and tore through the trees, not following any discernible path.

By the time they reached the road Angel had already slowed down.

Because he knew it was too late.

By the side of the road were two bodies. A middle aged couple, dead but not completely drained. Quinn and Tina had clearly not wanted to waste time. There were skid marks next to the crumpled human bodies.

Angel knelt and touched the tracks gently.

The silence around them was deafening.

When Kurt came to, the first thing he was aware of was the pounding in his head. He opened an eye and then clamped it closed quickly when white-hot pain shot through his skull, making him nauseous.

He was lying on his side, and as he began to gingerly experiment with tiny movements he encountered an overwhelming sense of restriction. Upon further experimentation, it became evident that his wrists were bound tightly behind his back, as were his ankles.

He at least seemed to be on a reasonably comfortable surface – a couch or a bed by the feel of it. Kurt tried not to pay too much attention to the excruciating the pain in his head. He felt tired and heavy and he wasn't sure he could make it to the edge of whatever he was lying on if he did actually end up having to vomit.

Soft voices wafted into his consciousness, muffled as if they were coming from another room. One of them had to be Dave, but Kurt couldn't even concentrate on being afraid.

Kurt let the voices lull him back toward sleep. It all felt so familiar – tied up and kept alive for no discernible reason while his fate was discussed just out of his earshot.

But he was alive. Alive, alive, alive.

"Alive," Kurt whispered very, very softly, because he needed to hear the word, even in his own voice, just to be sure that it was true.

No matter how temporary it might turn out to be.

When Blaine and Angel returned to the house, empty-handed and miserable, it was to find Jeremiah softly conversing with Burt and Lauren, Burt's eerie calmness causing the other two to exchange frequent nervous looks. Burt's expression barely flickered when Blaine and Angel joined them.

"Tina and Quinn were..." Blaine swallowed, looked down at his feet. "They got away."

"Figured as much," Burt responded, his voice a little too sharp. "I don't see any hostages and I know you boys wouldn't be stupid enough to dust them when they've got Kurt, now would you?"

"Burt," Angel said softly, meeting his eye.

"What? You gonna tell me to calm down? I'm calm. I'm damn calm."

"Too calm," Lauren said pointedly. "Burt, you can't just..."

"Thirteen years," Burt said thoughtfully, his tone still chillingly even. "Thirteen years all I did was try to keep him from this, try to stop this from happening. I even let him take the damn Watcher exams, let him take on the prophesied Slayer, because I thought it would keep him safe. But it was all useless. It's too late." Burt took a deep, shuddering breath. "It's too damn late!"

And with that the calm was shattered, as Burt reached for the table lamp beside him and hurled it across the room with a deep howl of rage. Carole ran into the room but stopped in the doorway, silently watching him along with everyone else.

No one stopped Burt from upending the coffee table or smashing three delicate-looking glass vases against the wall. No one said anything, only moving to get out of the line of fire when necessary, allowing him to completely melt down. Burt pulled books from the shelves and threw them one by one, screaming about how useless they were, how they hadn't kept Kurt safe, hadn't kept his only son alive.

When he finally sank to his knees and allowed himself to be consumed by loud, choking sobs, Carole moved to his side and knelt down to hold him.

And that, of course, was the moment that Finn and Rachel chose to burst into the house.

"He wasn't at the graveyard," Rachel began breathlessly, "but we found-" she stopped short at the sight of Burt and Carole crumpled in the middle of the room, the state of disarray all around them, the stony expressions on everyone's faces.

Finn, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice anything other than Blaine and Jeremiah, who Blaine hadn't even noticed that he'd ended up standing next to in the course of avoiding flying objects.

"What the hell are they doing here?" He demanded through gritted teeth.

And then he lunged.

"Hello, boys!" Quinn called as she and Tina swept into the house. "Tell me we've still got a coed or two stashed in the basement, because I am starving!"

"Did you get him?" Tina asked eagerly as Dave and Jesse appeared at the top of the staircase.

"Come see for yourself," Jesse said with a smirk. Tina squealed with glee and bounded up the stairs and into the first bedroom on the left.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" she asked after taking a good look at Kurt sprawled across the bed. "You know the ritual won't work with dead man's blood, right?"

"He's fine," Jesse said dismissively. "A little concussed, maybe, but perfectly alive." He smiled broadly. "We should have a toast! To the end of the Rosenburg curse!"

"Maybe we should wait until the boss gets here," Dave said nervously.

Jesse rolled his eyes. I'm sure they – er, she won't mind if we start celebrating a little early."

Tina frowned. "No, but I think she'll want to see the kid in better shape than that when she gets here. Should we feed him or something? How often do humans need to eat? I honestly can't even remember."

"He'll probably be all right for a little while," Jesse said lightly, "though we will be wanting to feed him and clean him up within the next few hours, I imagine, if Mistress is still planning to arrive tomorrow. Maybe you and Quinn could give him a bath after you've both fed?"

"Why can't you do it?" Tina demanded. "If we have to go in there and put our hands all over him it's going to be pure torment, regardless of how recently we've fed."

"I'll do it," Dave volunteered immediately.

"No," Tina and Jesse answered sharply in unison.

"Dave, you are not going near that boy without at least one chaperone until after the ritual," Tina insisted, "and not even with an army of chaperones if he's going to be naked."

"But I-"

"No buts. You are not biting him and you are not fucking him, and we know that one of those two things is going to happen if we leave you alone for five minutes. I've seen how you are with him. I've seen how you look at him. No way. You are not screwing this up for us again."

"I can't even fuck him? Come on! How's that going to affect the ritual?" Dave sounded outraged.

Tina looked him square in the face. "Are you honestly telling me you can fuck that kid without draining him? Really, Dave? You've spent the last three years with us, and you expect me to believe you've somehow developed that kind of self-control since the last time you had your way with a pretty boy, let alone one you've apparently been obsessed with since-"

"Okay," Dave cut in irritably. "I get it. But that doesn't mean I can't even be alone in the same room with him without-"

"No, Dave," Tina interrupted firmly. "Jesse will do it."

"It makes the most sense," Quinn agreed, ascending the stairs and sucking blood from her fingers. "There's still a couple pretty ones down there, Tina, if you're hungry."

"I can't," Jesse insisted. "Look, if this plan goes sideways for any reason, we don't want Hummel to know I'm involved. It's a basic safety measure."

"For you, you mean," Quinn said flatly.

"No, for us. Hummel trusts me. If he were to somehow escape, that trust will be crucial to getting him back again. The ritual isn't for three days, after all. A lot can happen in three days."

"Just so you know, Jesse, I know it's you out there and I've never trusted you," came Kurt's voice from the bedroom.

The three vampires laughed heartily as Jesse's self-satisfied smirk fell into a frustrated scowl.

Rachel was trying to distract Finn from realizing that she was in fact bodily restraining him while he stood in the living room and screamed at Blaine and Jeremiah (they'd found a little of Kurt's blood on his mother's gravestone, the place Kurt apparently always went when he was really upset, and Finn had his theories about who precisely was to blame). Blaine couldn't speak, his voice trapped in a state of shock, unable to stop his mind from running through a litany of things that were probably happening to Kurt right now, the ways in which he was being made to suffer. Dave was probably feeding from him, perhaps torturing him, possibly raping him. Blaine winced and hung his head, letting Finn's rage wash over him. It was no less than what he deserved. Maybe Dave had even turned Kurt already, that is if he didn't have to save him for that ritual that Quinn and Tina had been-

Wait. The ritual. How had Blaine forgotten that there was supposed to be a ritual?

Jeremiah cowered behind him while Finn yelled and Blaine tried to work out why this seemed important all of a sudden.

"The ritual," he said suddenly.

"What?" Burt and Angel asked sharply in unison, turning to look at him.

"I..." Blaine looked at Burt carefully. "I know you said it was probably just some kind of full-moon nonsense, but maybe...I mean, they were talking about a ritual when they almost got Kurt before."

Burt swallowed. "Yeah, it's...yeah. There's a ritual," he said, standing up and smoothing his flannel shirt. Carole rubbed soothing circles on his back and led him to the couch to sit down. He gave her a warm smile before continuing. "It's the whole damn reason they've been after Kurt all these years. It was the reason they were after Lizzy before that."

"Well, that doesn't change the fact that these two-" Finn began, pointing an accusing finger at Blaine and Jeremiah.

Lauren sighed. "Finn, sit down and shut up," she said in a bored but authoritative voice. Finn's mouth clamped shut and he moved to comply as if controlled by invisible strings, a look of pure shock on his face. "Now, Burt. It seems there's a piece of information you've been keeping from some of us. Care to share?" Her voice was still unwavering, but it softened slightly when she addressed Burt.

Burt looked around nervously. "All right. Look, don't get offended, the only other person here that knows about this is Carole."

"And me," Angel added quietly, looking strangely conflicted at the admission.

Burt looked at him. "Yeah? Huh. Well, I shouldn't be surprised. Makes sense that you'd know. You were around when the whole thing started..." Burt looked around the room. "We found out about the ritual about a year before Lizzy died. Some folks in the demon world discovered that there was a way to reverse the Change, make it so there was only one Slayer in the entire world to worry about instead of thousands. Thing is, the ritual is pretty tricky. It can only be performed when Jupiter is in Scorpio, which only happens every twelve or thirteen years. And they need the blood of the last lone Slayer, and the only person left who can give them that is-"

"Kurt," Blaine whispered. Suddenly he remembered Burt's panic when he had mentioned Quinn and Tina's names, how he had been desperate to pack bags and move house, but Kurt hadn't let him.

Why hadn't Kurt let him?

"We have a few days until Jupiter goes into Scorpio," Burt continued, "so at least we know Kurt's still alive. For now, anyway."

Blaine remembered Kurt's story about the Unholy Trinity keeping him in a cold crypt overnight when he was little, the fact that Kurt couldn't explain why they had bothered keeping him alive at all.

"Kurt didn't know about it, did he?" Blaine asked suddenly, looking over at Burt. Burt shook his head.

"But why – I mean, how could you keep something like that from him? " Blaine demanded, trying not to sound as angry as he was starting to feel. "He just thought they were out for revenge. He didn't realize how serious-"

"Because Kurt's too damn noble for his own good," Burt snapped defensively. "He's the last one left of that bloodline. If he...if he weren't around for them to sacrifice, the threat of the ritual would be gone forever and the Change could never be reversed. If Kurt knew that, I wouldn't put it past him to..." Burt couldn't finish, fresh tears springing to his eyes. He buried his face in his hands and heaved a shuddering breath.

Blaine finally allowed himself to drift into an empty chair, letting Burt's words sink in.

"He's my son," Burt continued shakily. "And even if it was selfish to-"

"It's not selfish, Burt," Carole countered quickly.

"It's not," Blaine agreed, heart clenching with the idea of Kurt finding out about the ritual, choosing to end his own life rather than make the world suffer, as if the world wouldn't suffer for losing someone like Kurt.

"Yes it is." Blaine looked up in surprise at Angel. "But it's not as selfish as what I've done."

Burt's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, fuck, something else?" Finn muttered.

"I didn't think it would come to this. They knew about the ritual, but they didn't know..." Angel looked Burt squarely in the eyes, as if they were the only two people in the room. "I tried to keep them both safe, Burt, I did. But I had a son too, and Blaine...he's my kin."

"What are you getting at here, vamp?" Burt asked, his tone growing cold. Angel didn't flinch.

"What I'm getting at is that we need to find Kurt now. The ritual may not be for three days, but they'll kill him a lot sooner if they find out that he isn't the one they're looking for."

"If you're implying Kurt isn't a Summers-" Burt started, his tone dangerous.

"I'm not implying that at all," Angel replied patiently.

"Whatever your big reveal is, could you spit it out sometime this century, Monsieur Melodrama?" Lauren demanded. "I'm aging here, even if you aren't."

Angel glanced at Blaine with a somewhat nervous expression that Blaine couldn't read. "The big reveal is that Summers blood won't work," Angel said, "because Buffy Summers wasn't the last lone Slayer. Faith Lehane was."

Blaine knew that he probably looked just as confused as everyone else in the room.

"I'm quite sure you're mistaken about that, Angel," Rachel piped up. First of all, Faith Lehane couldn't have been the last lone Slayer unless all of the documented history on the subject is either false or missing some kind of major-"

"It is," Angel interrupted firmly.

"And second of all," Rachel continued, raising her voice and giving Angel a hard look to let him know exactly what she thought of being interrupted, "Faith Lehane never had any children."

"That's not true either," Angel replied, looking at Blaine. "She had a daughter."

Blaine swallowed thickly and raised his eyes to meet Angel's gaze. "Named Raven?" he guessed with a steadily sinking feeling in his gut.

"Named Raven," Angel answered with a nod.