My Life is Different Ch. 08

And then the hooded guy had to go and ask, "Which prisoner did you want me to let go?"

"Which one?" Buffy asked, her voice thick with anger, "You've got more than one?"

I knew that tone. Buffy was outraged and indignant. Things were going to get messy, really, really soon. Holding one person against their will was bad. Holding multiple people against their will was unforgiveable, and Buffy was now honor-bound to kick this guy's ass.

"Show me," Buffy demanded as she stormed across the main lobby towards Mister Sinister, "Take me to the prisoners right now!"

The main lobby was at least fifty feet from front to back, but Buffy covered that distance in about two seconds, grabbed the hooded guy by the front of his robes, picked him up and pinned him to the nearest wall.

"Well, I could do that, I suppose," Mister Sinister said, "But there's kind of a problem."

"What's the problem?" Buffy asked heatedly, still holding him up with one arm.

"I don't really want to," he replied dryly.

And then in a loud voice he called out, "Bikkja! Brymja! Drengr! Freki! Ulfr!"

I had no idea what those words meant. They didn't really sound like a spell, and I told Buffy so. Buffy shook him like a terrier shaking a rat and demanded, "What did you do?"

Then we all heard it, growling and the sound of paws galloping across a titled floor.

"Wargs," Buffy's captive gloated, "They're not as big as Hjalmarr, but they're strong, they're fast, and they're smarter than Hjalmarr was. And when they see intruders in my house, they're going to eat you up like lamb pré-salé."

"Uh oh," I exclaimed. I'd read about wargs. They were like wolves, only bigger, stronger and more intelligent. And just as I was thinking that, a door on the far side of the lobby slammed open and five of them came bounding into the room.

"B! We've got company," Faith shouted and she rushed forward into the wargs, her battle axe at the ready.

Buffy released her grip on Mister Sinister and rushed into combat as well. The wargs were clever. They didn't attack one at time, they used teamwork. One warg would rush towards Faith and while she was intent on defending against the warg in front of her, a second warg would dart forward and take a bite of Faith on her flanks.

They worked fast, and they seemed to be able to communicate with each other through a series of growls and chuffing noises. And to make matters worse, they had superior numbers. There were five wargs and we only had two slayers.

Buffy seemed to take all of this in in the matter of two or three seconds, and then decided to use a different strategy than Faith. Faith had tried rushing into the wargs and swinging her battle axe in front of her, intent on slicing through any inch of warg flesh she could make contact with. That strategy wasn't working. The wargs were countering her with teamwork, extraordinary speed and hit and run tactics.

Buffy rushed at the wargs, but before they were able to close with her, Buffy made a spectacular leap, leaped completely over the warg nearest her and ended up landing on the back of another warg.

There was a howl of outrage as Buffy's fingers dug into the grey fur of the enormous beast, and then Buffy raised her battle axe and screamed, "Turn! Turn left! Go that way!"

Trying to ride the warg was about the most insane and outrageous thing Buffy could have tried. It startled the other wargs enough that Faith was able to take advantage of their surprise slide a deep gash into the haunches of one of the wargs when it paused to focus on Buffy's antics.

Another warg pounced forward and attempted to rip Buffy off of her perch, however Buffy swung her battle axe and blood spurted from its nose. The wounded warg howled and scurried away.

Considering that they were outnumbered five to two, Buffy and Faith were doing pretty well, however, I still wanted to help them. I wasn't tough enough to battle a warg, however it occurred to me that Mister Sinister might be controlling them with his staff, and if I could wrest his staff away from him, I might be able to control the wargs and stop them from attacking my girlfriend.

Okay, there were a lot of "ifs" in that plan, but it was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Now, I'm not very strong, and I don't know a lot about combat, but Xander told me that if you want to face off against a boy, the best place to hit them is in their testicles. Apparently, they're extremely sensitive, and even a weak blow to a boy's crotch will leave them in severe and incapacitating pain. Based on this knowledge, I ran forward and attempted to kick Mister Sinister in the crotch.

Mister Sinister had been focused on his wargs and almost failed to notice what I was up to. When he noticed my charge, I was just inches away. Then he took his staff and he swung it at me, causing me to arch backwards to avoid being hit. I evaded the blow, but I arched back so severely that I lost my balance and ended up falling flat on my ass.

Then Mister Sinister pulled back his hood, showing me the angry face of a boy. He couldn't possibly be older than twenty or twenty-one. He was only slightly older than Buffy and me. I had to quickly remind myself that he was still dangerous. He might be young, but he had sicked wargs on Buffy and Faith. And he was probably responsible for that giant attacking us outside on Franklin Boulevard.

"This is stupid," Mister Sinister yelled as he glared at me, "I am not going to be threatened by three little girls!"

Then he pointed the tip of his long, wooden staff at me and I could see carved runes on the staff glowing white-orange with some sort of mystical heat. I could smell some sort of wood-smoke and I knew what Mister Sinister was going to do before he actually did it.

"Bål," he screamed at the exact same moment that I kicked out with my left foot, knocking the wooden staff sideways and ruining his aim.

A lance of flame as thick as my wrist lashed out from the tip of his wizard staff. If I hadn't kicked it aside at the last second, he would have cremated me.

Instead, his shot went wide, traveled almost fifty feet across the lobby and hit one of the wargs instead. There was a loud "Whump" as the warg's grey fur was ignited a loud howl of pain as the warg's fur, skin and muscle tissue began to burn away like cardboard and wrapping paper.

There was a moment of stunned silence and the wargs stopped attacking Buffy and Faith and instead focused on our black-robed wizard.

I don't know how he had been controlling the wargs before, but apparently igniting one of the wargs with an orange and white ball of flame was enough to break that control. They apparently held a grudge against anyone who set one of their brothers on fire. The four remaining wargs growled in unison, sounding almost like the revving engines of a motorcycle gang and then they advanced, two wargs flanking him, one attacking from the front and another coming at him from the rear.

Mister Sinister managed to fire off one more fireball before he was set upon, however that only neutralized one of his attackers. The other three wargs tore him to shreds within a matter of seconds.

Once he was dead, the three remaining wargs circled the bloody mess on the floor and would took turns baring their teeth at us.

"I don't speak wolf," Faith finally said, "But I think they're trying to tell us the battle is over, as long as we don't try to take their kill away from them."

"Their kill?" I asked.

"The wizard guy," Faith elaborated, "They killed him. They get to eat him."

"I've got no problem with that," I replied softly, "I'm more of a coffee and donuts kind of girl. If they wanna eat freshly-killed teenage wizard, I'm totally cool with that."

The wargs continued to growl at us, but we kept their distance and they didn't attack. Faith led us cautiously away from the wargs and eventually found us a door that she was pretty sure led down to the basement. The door was locked, but Faith simply grabbed the doorknob and yanked the doorknob and the locking mechanism out of the door with one loud, wrenching pull.