The Source of Our Power: Chapter 13

113 years earlier:

Faith sank down into the chair with a sigh. "How do you always have like, fancy antique furniture no matter how many times the places you live get destroyed? How can you afford it? Come to think of it, how do you even have money in the first pl-"

"Faith."

She glanced up at Angel and rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure it's Connor's. Why else do you think I'd be here?"

Angel sat down on the edge of his bed frowning. "But couldn't Robin-"

Faith gave a sharp laugh. "I think it's safe to say...yeah, no. Robin and me...it's been awhile. We're kind of taking a break," she muttered, finishing her sentence with air quotes.

"And apparently that break included seducing my son?"

Faith laughed again, even harsher than before, sitting up straight and giving him a hard look. "Are you serious right now? Have you met your son? Have you seen me, Angel? The kid was gagging for it. I've been practically beating him off with a stick for months. I guess I just finally figured, hey, who needs a stick when-"

"All right. I...I get it. But why are you here, Faith? Isn't this a conversation you should be having with Connor?"

"No. Connor doesn't need to know anything about this. No one does. I need your help and I know you can keep your mouth shut, okay?"

"Faith, what-"

"I was gonna get rid of it. I just...I can't be someone's mom, Angel, I'm not Buffy."

Oblivious to Angel's slight wince at the name, she continued. "But it's weird, y'know? I know it sounds retarded, but it's like this kid wants to be born or something. I had this weird dream, and..."

Faith sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. "I just...I had this weird feeling, and I wanted to see if the kid is right, you know, I mean, who knows what Connor actually is-"

"He's human," Angel cut in defensively.

Faith shrugged. "Okay, more or less, but Angel come on. The kid is literally demon spawn. You can't get pissed at me for being careful. I mean, Cordelia's whole mind-control pregnancy thing was pretty freaky."

"That's true," Angel muttered.

"Anyway, Red hooked me up with this Seer-"

"You told Willow?"

"Not so much. She figured it out. Read my aura or some shit. And she thought it was a good idea to come to you, so here I am. You gonna help me or not?"

Angel looked down at his hands. "What do you need?" He asked softly.

"I need to keep my daughter safe." The tone made Angel look up almost sharply, unprepared for such naked vulnerability coming from Faith.

"Yeah," she confirmed softly. "It's a girl."

"How do you..."

"I just do." Faith blinked rapidly, trying desperately not to let her tears take over. "She's gonna be fucking beautiful, Angel."

"Faith, tell me. What did the Seer uh...you know...see?"

"She's important," Faith answered with uncharictaristic softness, resting her hand gently on her own belly. "I don't know exactly why, but she is. But there's something else."

There was a lot else.

Some of it they learned during Faith's lifetime, and some of it Angel discovered in later years, and all of it made keeping the bloodline a secret more and more important.

The Summers would always be targets. That much could probably never be avoided. But if no one knew that Faith had had a child...

"No one's gonna remember I was the last lone Slayer anyway, Angel. The Council doesn't know Buffy died that one summer, and besides, it's not like anyone's gonna remember that I existed, is it? The most popular version of the legend these days has me written out completely." Her words had grown slightly bitter, but she smiled.

"Faith..."

"Nah, Angel, I'm five by five. Raven's got a family that loves her now, and no one would ever think to trace her back to me. She's safe. That's more important than posterity any day, right?"

Angel only met Raven once, the night he carried her in his arms and left her on the selected doorstep in a wicker basket. It was a classic for a reason, and Angel had always appreciated the classics.

She was two months old when that happened, an uncharacteristically quiet baby with a shock of black hair and enormous hazel eyes that seemed to drink in everything around her. Angel selected a family that was in the fold, but on its outskirts. A family that would know what to do with her if Raven turned out to be a Slayer, but not well-connected enough to truly investigate her origins.

A couple that had been trying to adopt a baby for months.

Angel slipped the right amount of money into the right hands, allowing the couple to navigate the complicated matter of Raven's adoption with shocking ease.

She was left with a pewter necklace on which her name was inscribed. It was the only thing Faith ever gave her.

Faith met her once outside of those first two months together. The girl was living in Manhattan and attending NYU, and she had a part-time job at a coffee shop near campus.

Angel regretted telling Faith about the coffee shop when she showed up at his apartment, clutching a half-finished bottle of Jack and trying desperately to pretend that she hadn't spent the last several hours crying.

The crux of it was, she was still named Raven and she still wore the necklace.

She always wore the necklace. This is something Angel was well aware of. He had been looking after her from the shadows her whole life.

Faith didn't leave Angel's couch for three days. When she finally pulled herself together she asked Angel to never tell her where to find Raven again. She couldn't see her again. She couldn't.

And she never did.

"So you threw Buffy under the bus to protect Faith's kid because she was your own flesh and blood," Burt spat. "You know, all these years, when you said you were looking out for Liz and Kurt-"

"I was looking out for Liz and Kurt. Burt, I had the chance to keep Raven safe. I had to take it."

Burt opened his mouth to argue further but Angel held a hand up. "Buffy's daughters had me and Spike and a wall of protections spells around her built by Willow Rosenberg herself. There have been numerous plots to kidnap, sacrifice and generally kill those with Summers blood. Knowing about Raven wouldn't have changed that. I admit that part of why I did it was selfish, but Burt – Connor was my son. I mean, if Kurt-"

"Okay," Burt said with an irritable sigh. "I get it. I still don't know that I like it, but I get it."

Angel gave Burt a ghost of a smile. "Thanks," he said softly.

"Okay, I'm really glad that you guys have worked everything out, and it's really fantastic news that I now have a prophecy and a ritual to deal with, which is at least two more things than I signed up for," Blaine added tightly, "but can we please just find Kurt? It's not like someone else is going to save him."

Burt squared his shoulders and nodded. "Yeah, kid. So the location spells we've already tried aren't working -"

"They've jammed his signature," Lauren confirmed. "They've definitely got a witch working for them. But some of the older spells might work, if we could get some DNA..."

"I'll get his hairbrush," Finn volunteered.

Burt clapped Finn on the shoulder. "Good thinking, kid. Jeremiah, why don't you run back to your place and grab some of the more obscure books. Bring Artie with you when you come back. Lauren and I will keep trying to break through the spell that's hiding him from us in the meantime. Blaine, take Angel and Rachel and do some good old-fashioned detective work. They can't have gone far. Ask around, rough up whoever you have to. Angel knows the places to start. And guys?"

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

"Let's not waste any more time, OK?"

Kurt pulled his knees to his chest and glared at Quinn, who looked utterly mutinous beneath the layer of bath foam that clung to her features.

"Hold still, you little bitch, or I'll-"

"You'll what? You obviously need to keep me alive and clean me up for something, so you'll probably get in trouble if you hurt me," Kurt answered coolly. "What you're asking me to do is make all of this easier for you, and I'm afraid I'm not feeling inspired to do that at all." Kurt traced a path through the bubbles on the surface of his bath water. "I honestly don't know why you can't just let me take a bath on my own, what do you think I'm going to do?"

"Don't worry your tasty little neck about that, sweetie," Tina said from the doorway. "Need some help, Lucy? Looks like he's just as fiesty as I remember."

"Yeah. Hold him under until he passes out so I can wash him properly. And don't call me Lucy."

"Now, now. If we do that, who's going to resuscitate him? Jesse isn't here."

"Of course he isn't," Quinn muttered bitterly.

"Do you know why the magics that can hurt you most are so deeply rooted in Christianity?" Kurt asked conversationally.

"Oh, this should be amusing. Why, sweetie?" Tina asked condescendingly.

Kurt continued to trace shapes on the surface of the bath water. "A lot of people think it's because Christian principles represent ultimate truth and good. But really, it's because the early Catholics had some of the most powerful warlocks in recorded history. A lot of people don't know that."

"Fascinating," Quinn replied in a voice that was equal parts hostile and bored. "Now can we-"

"Most of their spellbooks, in fact most records of their very existence were burned – and most of the warlocks themselves were killed by those of the very faith they sought to protect. But their magics were so strong that they continued on. The power of the cross to hurt your kind could just as easily have been bestowed upon any other type of symbol."

Quinn sighed and rolled her eyes, raising an eyebrow at Tina. Tina smirked and advanced on the tub.

"The magics weren't lost completely, though. Some gypsy tribes preserved some of the simpler charms." As he said this, Kurt lifted his hand from the surface of the water around him, and there was a brief flash of indigo from the depths of the tub.

As the two women bolted toward him, Kurt looked up with a vicious grin. "Just call me Father Kurt," he said with a smirk, and splashed as much water toward the two vampires as he could. They recoiled, screaming, from what had effectively become a tubful of holy water.

Kurt threw even more water toward them, not stopping until they were huddled into balls, their flesh sizzling and the tiles echoing with their agonized wails.

Kurt leapt from the tub, pulling the robe Quinn and Tina had brought for him over his dripping skin. He scooped some water from the tub into a pitcher that had sat on the windowsill, and ran out of the room and down the stairs.

"Oh, I've heard of this place," Rachel enthused. "It's a demon bar, isn't it?"

"A little louder, Rachel, please. I'm pretty sure not everyone in a five mile radius caught that."

"Blaine, I know you're anxious about Kurt's safety, we all are. But that is no reason to be rude."

"Fine, I'm sorry, but this is serious. This isn't some fun adventure, Rachel. This is real. Kurt could be dead."

"He's not dead."

"You don't know that!"

"All right, both of you. Stop talking." Angel's voice was quiet but firm, and both Slayers fell silent, continuing to exchange slightly irritated looks. "Stay close and pay attention. This might be our only chance to find him."

The bar looked innocuous – if seedy – from the outside, and the bouncer at the door could easily have passed for human if those observing him didn't know to question it. After all, eyes that shade of orange could certainly be achieved with colored lenses, or maybe it was just the light. And the strange, coiling shadows underneath the the streetlight could certainly explain the flicker of what looked like a second set of eyelids...

Tinny music and the sounds of revelry wafted out of the crumbling brick building, growing louder as the three advanced down stone steps to the basement entrance.

"Is there something I can assist you with?" The bouncer asked, each s extending into a soft hiss. He was short, shorter than even Rachel, but solidly muscled and radiating an air of cool confidence. His skin was so pale as to almost look albino.

"Just stopping in for a drink," Angel said smoothly.

"I don't believe you three are on the guest list."

Angel smiled and slipped something into the man's coat pocket. "Why don't you check that list again?"

The man (or whatever he actually was) looked at Angel with disgust. "I don't need your filthy human money, bloodsucker. Now, if you're looking to rent out a couple of pretty necks, this isn't the place. We don't do that kind of business here."

"You think I'd let a vampire drink from me for money?" Rachel shrieked indignantly. "I'll have you know, sir, that I am a vampire slayer, as is my friend, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that I really don't appreciate the implication that-"

She let her voice falter as the three of them watched the creature before them begin to grow rapidly, his eyes glowing like living fire.

"We do not allow killers of our kind into this sanctuary," the creature (and he was looking decidedly less man and more creature with every passing second) intoned, his voice impossibly deep and seeming to reverberate through the very bricks and stone and pavement that surrounded them.

"We just need to ask some questions. We're not looking for trouble," Angel said steadily, neither his voice nor his composure changing in response to the increasingly unpleasant appearance of the bouncer.

The creature's face had settled into something that more closely resembled a stone gargoyle than a human man. "If you leave now, you may leave with your lives. But I will not allow you into this sanctuary."

"They – someone – has my Watcher," Blaine bit out desperately. "Please."

The bouncer stared at Blaine almost thoughtfully. "You are the boy Slayer."

Blaine nodded.

The creature leaned toward him. Blaine focused very hard on not flinching while still remaining ready to react. The bouncer closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"You are of demon blood."

"I...yeah. I guess I am."

The bouncer looked between Blaine and Angel almost thoughtfully. "Keep her under control," he said finally, standing aside to let them enter the bar as he began to shrink back into the form he had taken when they arrived.

"Keep me under control?" Rachel sputtered. "How can you – I mean, I'm the one who – how dare – I can't -"

Blaine bit his lip to suppress his slight smile as he followed Angel into the smoky pub.

Kurt had almost made it to the front door before he encountered Dave. Dave smirked, allowing his eyes to rake slowly up and down Kurt's form, the thin, soaked robe he wore leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

"Hey Kurt," he said, leaning back against the door. "Couldn't stay away, huh? I knew sending those girls to do a man's jo– AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

The scream tore through him as Kurt heaved the jug of water in his direction, the water splashing him full in the face and trickling down to soak his clothing. Dave fell to the floor, writhing in agony and tearing at his clothes as he bellowed, Kurt managing to push him aside and wedge the door open in order to slip outside.

Kurt hissed through clenched teeth as his bare feet made contact with cold stone walkway. He could see his breath escaping in plumes as he panted, running as fast as his legs would carry him, his body attempting to seize up and shiver uncontrollably and his teeth chattering loudly.

He didn't stop. It didn't matter that he was cold and wet and the late autumn wind felt like it was cutting through to his bones. It didn't matter that every part of his body was screaming at him to go back inside where it was warm, human sacrifice or no human sacrifice. He'd run through the cold night in order to fall directly into Jesse's trap – he could run now to escape it.

He would run until his legs stopped working if he had to.

Kurt was more than halfway to the main road that ran past the estate when he heard a bit of commotion behind him that could only be Quinn, Tina and Dave. He pushed himself even harder, biting his lip against the debris that cut into the tender flesh on the bottoms of his feet. He was nearly there.

Kurt burst onto the main road just in time to find himself nearly blinded by the headlights of a car bearing down on him. He willed his legs to move, but he felt completely frozen with shock. Should he keep running? Wave the car down? Let it hit him so he could sabotage whatever horrible ritual his captors had planned to use him for?

Before he could decide the car screeched to a halt in front of him, the suddenness of it jolting him off-balance. Kurt fell to the ground, bracing himself for the impact that never came.

Rolling onto his back with a groan, Kurt listened to the sound of a car door opening, and desperately willed his body to get up, to move, to run again if he had to. He slowly allowed his eyes to open and almost sobbed in relief when he saw who it was that was climbing out to approach him.

Blaine clutched the dashboard with white knuckles, straining so see into the thick, dark woods that bordered the road.

"Angel, can't you go any faster?"

"Yes, but that probably won't help us. We don't even know exactly what we're looking for."

"If that succubus had just given us a straight answer..." Rachel muttered.

"She was cursed to speak in riddles, Rachel. At least we know that Kurt is being held in East Lima," Blaine reasoned.

"Unless the caves of riches cradled by waves of elm referred to that new development over by Elm Circle..." Angel mused with a sigh.

"No, she specifically mentioned the Tree of Many Faces. That's got to be that hollow tree with the carvings inside that Kurt showed me," Blaine insisted.

Angel glanced over at him with a sigh. "I really hope you're ri-"

"WATCH OUT!"

Angel slammed on the brakes as someone darted out of the woods and onto the road. The figure stumbled to the ground mere inches in front of the car.

Blaine stared at the familiar face illuminated by the headlights. And he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He opened the door and broke into a run the second his feet hit the ground, the tears of joy and relief hitting him like a punch to the gut.

"Well, that certainly was a surprise," Sue Sylvester mused calmly as she peered down at Kurt. "You're quite a sight for sore eyes, Mr. Hummel. I'd say you look like a drowned rat if I didn't think the comparison would be offensive to the entire drowned rodent community."

Sue reached out a hand to help Kurt to his feet. "Sue," Kurt mumbled weakly. "They...the house. Vampires. There's a ritual and they..." his voice trailed off as two other people climbed out of the car. One was a red-haired woman that looked vaguely familiar.

The other was Jesse St. James.

Kurt stumbled backward reflexively. "No. He's – Sue, he's one of them, he's in on it, he's -"

Kurt looked around slowly, fighting the horrible realization that was starting to settle over him.

"You catch up yet, Porcelain, or do I have to start spelling things out for you?" Sue asked with a smile devoid of warmth.

Kurt swallowed hard, racking his brain for something, anything-

"It's over, Kurt," Jesse said, his grin smug and triumphant. "Now let's get you back inside. The last thing we want is for you to die of pneumonia."

Kurt closed his eyes and tried not to cry as the air around him rang with hearty laughter.

Blaine ran and threw his arms around her with a level of force that would have instantly knocked the wind out of any run-of-the-mill mortal girl.

"Britt. Britt, oh my god, you're alive, you're all right, Brittany I couldn't – I didn't–" Blaine didn't care if he was babbling through his tears because his friend, his sister, his Brittany was there and she was going to help him save Kurt, and everything was going to be all right.

Brittany held Blaine tight while he wept. She didn't say anything for a long time, rocking him gently with softly closed eyes and a sweet smile, pressing feather-light kisses to his forehead.

Everything was going to be all right.

"Blaine," Brittany murmured into his hair with a happy sigh. "I missed you too." Blaine couldn't help but laugh through his tears at that, because it was so simple and so perfect and so Brittany, and it somehow made everything a little less horrible. He was so absorbed in the fact that something had gone right, that there was someone he hadn't lost, that he almost missed what she said next.

"Blaine. I know where Kurt is."

His head snapped up, his eyes meeting hers. "How? I mean – scratch that. Is he OK?"

"He's...alive," she said carefully. "But Blaine, we have to hurry."

Kurt finally lost the battle that raged inside of him and began to cry.

His hands were bound again, and he had been clothed in another robe. It wasn't warm enough, and the material was so light as to be almost sheer, but it was dry. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself to defend against Dave's eyes boring into him with unmasked hunger, but his arms were bound once again. He was thrown into a corner of the dining room, gagged and trussed up like a holiday turkey while Sue berated Quinn, Tina and Dave for letting Kurt escape.

"Sue, how were we supposed to know that a bath-" Quinn began to protest irritably, lightly touching the rapidly-healing skin on her face.

"He's a gypsy. What did you expect him to do? Maybe you should try drinking from someone with a brain for a change. It might help."

Quinn glared at Jesse. "Well, you'd think someone who understood witchcraft would think of that, wouldn't you," she answered dryly.

"Now, now. There's no need to place blame," Jesse said smoothly, flashing a grin to everyone in the room. "He's back now, and I think we've all learned what he's capable of, haven't we?"

"Well, I'm not a witch," the red-haired woman said firmly, "but if I may?"

She flicked her wrist, a small ball of green energy settling in her palm.

"Help yourself," Sue assented as the woman approached Kurt.

She crouched down until her face was almost parallel to his own. Her smile was one of the most horrible things Kurt had ever experienced.

"Well, look at you," she cooed softly. "You have no idea how long I've been looking for you." She trailed a perfectly-manicured fingertip along Kurt's cheek, gathering his tears. She pushed the fingertip into the ball of energy in her other hand and stirred it counter-clockwise, murmuring unintelligible words under her breath. The ball began to gleam golden.

The woman smiled, pulling her fingertip out of the ball, a thin film of golden-green moisture clinging to her flesh. She closed her eyes, sighed happily, and slid the fingertip into her mouth.

And screamed.

"You idiots!" she bellowed, shooting to her feet, spitting and grimacing as if she'd tasted something utterly disgusting. The ball of energy fell to the floor and shattered like glass. "You can't even...Sue." Sue's eyes widened with apprehension. "This is not the boy."

"That's impossible!" Tina wailed. "This is the Summers-Kalderash boy. I know it is! I'd know him anywhere!"

"Perhaps he is," the woman said, her voice shrill with faux-cheer. "But this is not the boy I seek. The boy we seek. He does not carry the blood of the last lone Slayer."

"How do you know?" Quinn asked with narrowed eyes. "If you're not a witch..."

"I'm not," the woman cut in sharply. "The Lord has simply seen fit to equip me with particular abilities."

She gave Kurt one last look of disgust before shaking her head and striding briskly across the room. "This was a waste of a trip," she muttered. "I don't like having my time wasted."

"We'll find him," Sue promised quickly. "If I have to kill every Slayer alive to do it, I will find him. Sue Sylvester doesn't lose."

"What should we do with this one, though?" Dave asked, his eyes burning even hotter across Kurt's body.

Tammy waved a hand dismissively as she and Sue walked out of the room. "Kill him," she replied.

Dave smiled.