Waking

Waking

The Seven were in a circle in the centre of the crater. Eyes closed, chanting in a language so ancient and obscure that even Giles couldn't recognize it. He had left the others - slayers, witches (no psychics on this trip) - elsewhere, fighting the abominations that the former hellmouth had spawned, that, he hypothesized, these seven waking dead had been a key part of creating.

As he approached the circle he drew his automatic and aimed it at the base of the skull of one of the Seven, a man his own age. He shot him, execution style. None of the others seemed to notice.

They were being used, Giles figured that much. He didn't know how they had been raised, or by whom, but there was nothing good behind it. They were more than zombies, they certainly looked as they had in life, but less than human, less than vampires even.

The next one was a girl. She might have been ten when she died. He shot her too, and she collapsed next to the man, blood and brains matting the fine blonde hair that reminded Giles of Buffy, in passing. The chanting continued.

Willow had suggested that there might be some way to help them, but it was an off-chance, and there was no telling if whatever had raised the seven could still control them for its own purposes. They shouldn't have been alive at all. Killing them was just setting things right again.

Two teenaged boys next. Perhaps they had been friends in life, attending Sunnydale High, leaving overdue library books upon their death.

They seemed human. It didn't feel like he was killing zombies, or demons. It felt like killing people. Which was exactly why Giles had decided that this wasn't a job for the Slayers.

By now, the chanting had stopped. The three remaining waking dead watched him, with wide empty eyes, though he avoided looking at their faces. A woman Joyce's age... Then a boy who might have been six, whose skull shattered like china. Neither of them did anything to stop him. One more.

Giles made a mistake. He looked at her face.

She was looking at the bodies on the ground with a vague kind of confusion. Tears were rising in her dark eyes, and those seemed to confuse her as well, as she tried to blink them back. Her mouth moved silently, as she attempted to continue the chant, but couldn't without her partners.

As Giles stared at her, the gun slipped from his hand. Her head snapped up, like an animal on hearing an approaching predator. A look of recognition passed over her face, followed by one of fear. Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed.

Giles caught her before she hit the ground. He cradled her; she felt light and fragile, like empty eggshells. He feared that by interrupting the ritual he had already sealed her death - how easy it was to ignore the inner voice that told him she should be dead, that he ought to kill her. But the fact that she was breathing weakly in his arms was suddenly all that concerned him, as he remembered what it was like to lose her. He picked her up and carried her out of the crater to where the field team had set up a medical station.

The medics on hand were surprised at the strange woman Giles brought to them. They cast questioning glances in his direction, but didn't say anything; for once Giles didn't flinch at the deference the new recruits showed him.

"Her vitals are really low," one of them informed him. "How is she even alive?"

"I don't know."