Lucky number seven. Seven months trapped in the darkness, listening over and over again as forty-two others died at the hands of beings that seemed to need something more than just blood for their own survival. It seemed only fitting that, seven months after her escape from this terrible place, Kaylee had returned.

Achingly aware of the scars on her skin, hidden beneath her clothes, she stood beside Taylor in the grey forest, listening to the wind whispering through dead leaves as they looked up at the house that had given so much pain. It had taken months for her to be able to confront the memories that had allowed them to return here, to recall the route she had taken upon her escape. The house was run down, broken, each window a dark eye in the cracked, stained brickwork, staring back at them. It was midday, but the place seemed bereft of light already. She swallowed, stepping just a little closer to Taylor as behind them, Rufus and Shen Lei surveyed the building. It did not look inviting.

Those memories were far fresher for Kaylee than they were for Taylor, and yet, he remembered the seven months he'd been trapped in that house over seven years ago as if it was yesterday. Even after seven years, he had no doubt this was the place where his living nightmare had taken place. He wondered why he hadn't found it before. Maybe some part of him hadn't been ready - not until he'd met Kaylee. It had been her who'd led them here, after all, as if the memory of its location had been somehow blocked from his mind. Barely repressing a shudder, Taylor looked up at the house, almost feeling the evil and the terror like a blast of cold air chilling him to the bones. He felt more than saw Kaylee move closer, and his hand reached for hers, though his gaze remained almost transfixed on the building before them. "You don't have to do this," he told her quietly, almost wishing she'd never found it at all.

Her fingers wrapped themselves tightly into his, gripping with bruising force that she knew now he didn't mind so very much. "Yes, I do," she answered, just as quiet as him. "If I don't see it end, I won't ever be free of it." She tore her gaze away from the place that haunted her nightmares, turning her eyes to his face. "We're in this together now."

"We should just burn it to the ground," he replied quietly, for her ears alone. Though he trusted Rufus implicitly, he wasn't so sure about this plan of his, but Rufus seemed to think it wasn't as simple as all that. For the last seven years, all Taylor wanted - all he'd lived for - was to put an end to this place, so that no one would ever have to suffer what he and Kaylee had suffered again, and now that the time had come, he felt a mix of fear and dread and anticipation. But he hadn't come this far to turn back now. He wasn't going to let anyone else suffer like they'd suffered, if he could help it. "It's now or never then, I suppose," he mused, though in theory they had a few years yet before that nightmare played out again.

He and Rufus had been over it time and again, with his uncle certain that merely destroying the building where this ritual took place would only send the beings - whatever they were - to another location, impossible to track. That was why he was there with them, bag in hand, ready to perform spell that should reveal to them what they were dealing with. And, of course, Lei was there because frankly she could probably kill the whole lot of them without breaking a sweat, if it came to it.

Kaylee nodded, squeezing Taylor's hand tighter for a moment, and cleared her throat, looking back at the Watcher and Slayer.

Rufus nodded, his face pale but determined. "Let's get this over with, then," he said, and started forward, Lei close by his side.

"It's gonna be okay, Kaylee," Taylor promised, putting his trust in Rufus and Lei. He didn't think his uncle would allow them to come along if he didn't think they were ready or that they could handle whatever it was that was going to happen. He waited for Rufus and Lei to take the lead. Now that Kaylee had led them here, it was up to the Watcher and the Slayer to lead the way.

The door hung open invitingly, the open space inside lit by the piercing rays of light from the broken windows. What had seemed dark and forbidding from the outside was just ....empty ....once they were past the door. Still, Lei signaled for them to stay put as she advanced inside, her heightened senses alert for any sign that the creatures that used this place were still in residence.

Rufus stood deliberately in front of Kaylee, more concerned for her welfare than for Taylor's, though he wished there had been no need for either of them to come back here. He could see the bloodstains on the floor, claw marks that were uncomfortably familiar against the woodwork and crumbling plaster. "You don't have to come inside," he told them both in a solemn tone, his voice very quiet in the eerie stillness of the house. "Lei and I can do this without you."

Taylor gave Kaylee's hand a squeeze, knowing from the few words they'd just exchanged that they were of like mind in this. "No, we need to do this. We need to see it through," he replied for them both. It was, perhaps, the only way to end the nightmares - they needed to see it finished, once and for all.

Rufus nodded, not liking it but abiding by the decision that was clearly shared by the young couple. "The spell should reveal what we are dealing with," he explained for the twentieth time. "Just an image, though. It isn't a summoning. We're here for intel, not to fight. Not this time." There was a creak as Lei, having finished with the lower storey of the house, began to climb the wide staircase. She was definitely thorough.

Taylor nodded as he and Kaylee followed the other two inside, hand in hand. He stifled another shudder as they moved a little farther into the building, seeing the blood and the claw marks and remembering. Somehow it looked different in the daylight - less formidable, but it wasn't so much the house that was evil as what abided within.

Kaylee's trembling was palpable only to Taylor as they stepped inside, remembering each and every person who had suffered and died in this house not so long ago. She drew in a slow, staggered breath as she looked around at the high ceilinged room, at the windows she had never seen open before, at how spartan and forgotten the place seemed. It had taken almost four hours to reach here from the nearest village on foot; she had no idea how she had done it alone and injured.

Rufus knelt in the middle of the floor, examining a darkly stained patch on the boards with a curious frown. He drew a fingernail over it, inspecting the flakes that came off. "Better luck than I'd thought," he said quietly. "Some of this blood isn't iron-based."

Taylor came to a halt a few feet away from Rufus, watching what he was doing with interest. He'd been taught some of the spells Rufus was accustomed to using and found the small clue his uncle had found interesting. "So, they bleed," Taylor said, assuming the blood Rufus had found on the floor didn't belong to any of the victims, who they had learned were always red-blooded.

"It looks like it," Rufus mused, intent on the flakes of dark blood he had gathered into his palm. "Odd, that actually looks black to me. More like an ichor of some kind rather than blood." He glanced up at Taylor, wondering if his nephew had any ideas on the subject as above them the floorboards creaked in places under Lei's feet, declaring the Slayer's progress through the house.

"Okay, so what bleeds black blood?" Taylor countered, stepping closer and letting go of Kaylee's hand so that he could kneel down beside his uncle and examine what he held in his hand.

With Taylor no longer holding her hand, Kaylee's hands dropped to the hilts of the machetes she bore strapped to her thighs, turning to watch the room as the men discussed what had been found. It wasn't that the house felt evil, or even that she felt watched. It was more than something felt ....off.

Rufus brushed the little flakes around his palm as he and Taylor considered this evidence. "Some form of dimensional creature, perhaps," he mused. "Certainly not anything with iron in its blood, which suggests not of this plane of existence."

"Demons of some sort maybe," Taylor suggested, shifting the weight of the katana that was strapped across his back. Not the kind that one usually thought of as demons though - certainly not the kind that tried to seduce you in your sleep. "But why the hell were they here" Did someone summon them' Is it some kind of curse that needs to be fulfilled every seven years?" Taylor leaned back on his heels, arms resting against his knees. He and Rufus had been over a dozen or so theories in the past, but they had never quite been able to come to a definite conclusion. "It seems obvious that the victims are some sort of sacrifice. What if there's some sort of demigod that uses demons to do its bidding?" He glanced over at Kaylee a moment, just to make sure she stayed close and didn't wander off, a little reassured to hear Lei moving around on the floor above them.

"It could be that this place is linked in some way to a form of dimensional prison," Rufus conjectured thoughtfully, his impressive knowledge of all things dark and dangerous coming to the fore as he considered the options. "If so, it is entirely possible that whatever is imprisoned there has the ability every seven years to reach out and summon minions to this place in order to feed. We know they aren't so dependent on the blood as they are on fear."

As he spoke, Kaylee swallowed hard, not more than three steps from them, recalling the utter terror that had clouded her mind for months in this place. "Seven is a powerful number," she offered in a soft voice. "Seven levels of hell, for example."

"Okay, so, whatever is trapped in here is feeding on fear, while the minions are feeding on blood," Taylor theorized. They'd been over this enough times before that they were in pretty close agreement with at least that much. "And they let one victim live because?" he asked. This was always the part that tripped him up. Why leave anyone alive, except as a witness to the terror"

"Possibly some kind of link is forged over the seven months with the mind of the one who survives," Rufus mused, leaning back as he brushed his hand clean. "The nightmares, for example. It could be that even a small amount of fear is enough to keep whatever is feeding off it alive until the conditions are right for another ritual."

Taylor nodded grimly. That certainly made sense, though it didn't bring him much comfort. He had often thought those who'd died there to be the lucky ones, while he and Kaylee were doomed to re-live their ordeal over and over in their heads. "So, how do we destroy it?" he asked, though they'd been over this all more than once. "How do we break the link and stop it from happening again?"

"Keep hold of it," Rufus told him quietly, his eyes on Lei's back as she walked down the dimly lit staircase. It was no secret that he worried about her as much as the others. "The flares give us a chance to see a room and have both hands free, for now. You may need the flashlight later."

From the bottom of the stairs came another crack of sound, and the fizz as Lei threw a second flare, illuminating the room ahead of her. "Okay ....that is disgusting."

Kaylee blinked in alarm. "If she says something is disgusting, it's probably pretty bad, right?"

"She doesn't scare easy, if that's what you mean," Taylor replied from behind Kaylee as they advanced slowly down the stairs behind the other two. Every now and then, he pause to look behind them or to listen to make sure they weren't being followed, but it seemed to him the farther along they went, the creepier the place got.

As they descended into the bowels of the house, Kaylee could feel herself growing more and more tense. There was no natural light down here, no illumination at all apart from the flares that sizzled, adding yet another layer of spooky to the place. Reaching the bottom, she looked around, vaguely sickened by what she saw.

Lei had spread the remaining flares around the room, revealing it to be a large space, as spartan as the rooms above. No furniture to clutter the floor, but the walls were coated in what could only be flesh and bones ....the last mortal remains of the people Kaylee had been imprisoned here with. And in the middle of the room, subject to Rufus' intense scrutiny, was a complex sigil, painted onto the stone floor in blood and ichor.

"Bloody hell," Taylor muttered as he let his gaze wander over the room and its contents, unable to stifle the momentary shudder, his stomach threatening to reject whatever remained as yet undigested. He wasn't normally one to cuss, unless the occasion warranted it. "What's it mean?" he asked, forcing his gaze to focus on the sigil at the center of the room.

Rufus was scowling at the sigil, twisting his head this way and that as he deciphered what he was looking at. "Behold, the mortal touch of the Unnamed One," he read slowly, squinting as he pulled a small maglite torch from his pocket and twisted it, shedding light on the garbled words. "Millennial prisoner, the Fear-Eater, we served and shall serve ....until ....buggeration. Lei, move your foot." The Slayer gave him a flat look and very deliberately walked across the sigil to get out of his way.

Despite herself, Kaylee snickered, covering the expression with her hand. Well, it was one way to get rid of some tension, anyway.

"The Unnamed One?" Taylor repeated, searching his memory for some forgotten reference. "Sounds like something from a bad horror movie," he remarked. He was glad Kaylee had relaxed a little, but he wasn't going to relax until they were finished here. "This place give me the creeps." And that was an understatement.

"Thank you," Rufus muttered at the Slayer, resuming his study of the sigil. "Let's see ....Seven years and seven days shall pass, and the door shall be weakened. We shall bring him sustenance. They shall embrace the darkness, and when the moment comes, he shall once more be free." Oblivious to Kaylee's suddenly very sharp gaze on his back, he sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Well, that's nice and clear."

"Actually..." Taylor started, narrowing his eyes as the meaning behind the cryptic and creepy words sunk in. "The Unnamed One - whoever or whatever he is - obviously requires sustenance every seven years, and that sustenance seems to be fear. I'm not so sure about the part about him being free. Maybe the ritual has to be repeated so many times before he's freed, whatever he is." He glanced at Kaylee a moment as if something else just occurred to him. "Like Kaylee said, the number seven is powerful, magical. Maybe it's supposed to happen seven times, with seven different survivors, but how are we to know how many times it's happened already?"

"I think we can safely say that it hasn't happened often enough," Rufus mused. "Millennial prisoner, it says here. That suggests that whatever or whoever it is has been behind bars, as it were, for a lot longer than this world has had a population to feed from. That could be why it can only feed even seven years, perhaps the conditions have to be exactly right or it just doesn't have the strength to reach through the portal." He frowned thoughtfully once more. "Well, breaking this portal is definitely our first step."

Okay, well, that shot that theory all to hell, but Rufus was the expert here, not him, and Taylor wasn't about to argue with him on any point. He couldn't help but feel uneasy though. There was something jarringly familiar about this place, and he wondered how many of the captives that had been held here with him were now gracing those walls with their flesh and bones. The very thought of it made him shudder.

For her part, Kaylee was forcing herself to look. She forced her eyes to travel over the blackened flesh, the slimy viscera, and remember that once they had graced real, live people. People whose names she knew, people who should still be alive. And slowly, the fear started to burn away as she grew angry. She didn't even jump when Lei gently touched her shoulder.

"Stay angry," the Slayer advised. "It helps."

Taylor wished he could take some of that same advice. He felt like he'd been angry for too long. He was tired of being angry. He'd let himself feel something by letting Kaylee in, and with that came fear, though not for himself, but for her. If Taylor felt anything right now, it was disgust, not only for what had happened here and for what remained, but for having been part of it. He secretly wished he could have done something to save even one of those victims, but maybe he could at least help do something to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. "Remember what they said?" Taylor reminded Kaylee. "Embrace the dark. We're not gonna do that anymore, Kay. We're not gonna give in to the darkness."

With her jaw set hard enough that she was actually shaking just a little, Kaylee turned to look at Taylor. "No, we're not," she agreed, and there was a hard note in her soft voice that hadn't been there before. "And when we're done, we're going to burn this place to the ground." She wasn't entirely sure what Rufus was doing, kneeling down and muttering to himself as he rummaged through his bag, but she had learned to trust in the Watcher over the past months.

"Damn straight we are," he said, with a determined tone in his voice. They'd both rest easier once this place was nothing more than a memory, but like Rufus had said, they had to find out its secrets first and figure out how to stop it from happening again. Taylor wasn't quite sure how they were going to do that, but that was what this was all about. It was what the last seven years had been about. "And we're gonna be married. Don't forget that. The light at the end of the tunnel," he reminded her leaning over to brush a kiss against her forehead, protective and tender. That light was slowly getting closer and closer, but they weren't there yet.

At Taylor's kiss, the hard edge of her anger softened, back under her control as she sighed softly, much to Lei's apparent disapproval. But Kaylee needed to stay soft, at least for Taylor, or these creatures would have won. She smiled for him, trying to ignore the nauseating smell all around them. "I'm holding you to that," she murmured to him quietly, adjusting her grip on the machete.

Taylor ignored Lei's look of disapproval. Anger had its place, but as much as he respected Lei, he didn't want Kaylee to become like her. He kissed her again and turned to look over at Rufus. "What do you need us to do, Rufus?" he asked, wanting to help, needing to help, to keep himself busy, especially in this place.

Rufus looked up distractedly. "Mmm' Oh ....put your Latin to good use," he suggested, handing a book that was a lot heavier than it looked into Taylor's hand. "There's a sealing spell in there somewhere ....about two thirds of the way in, marked with a big green pentagram. We're going to block the doorway and destroy the sigil, if I can find that bloody acid." He turned back to rummaging through his bag once again.

Taylor took hold of the book and crouched down beside his uncle so that they could both make use of the small bit of light Rufus held in his hand, rather than rummage in his pack for his flashlight. "I think I know the one," Taylor said as he flipped through the pages, in search of the particular spell.

"Good."

As the two men worked, Kaylee took to imitating Shen Lei, circling the room warily, learning its dimensions as she moved. She couldn't have said quite why she was doing it, beyond citing that ever present feeling that this was all too easy, somehow.

As for Taylor, he trusted Rufus implicitly. It wasn't so much a feeling that this was too easy as it was a feeling of wanting it all to be over. He would have walked through fire if Rufus had thought it would keep Kaylee safe. "Ah. Got it!" Taylor said when he found the right page - the one with the green pentagram. He understood what it was they were trying to do - seal the portal so that no more evil could come through. Whether or not it worked was another story. He held the page open with a hand while he looked to Rufus to see if he'd found what he'd been rummaging in his bag for yet. "You ready?"

The Watcher nodded, finally coming up trumps with a couple of bottles of undiluted sulphuric acid. "This should do the trick," he agreed, rising onto his feet again. "Kaylee, sweetheart, you get to play with this."

The young woman looked surprised as the bottles were pressed into her hand, glancing swiftly to Taylor before looking back at Rufus.

The Watcher smiled gently. "You both need to see this ended," he explained in a quiet tone. "This way, you both will do it, together. When the sigil starts to glow - and it will, believe me - you throw that acid onto it. Just try not to get it on yourself or any of us." He patted her shoulder gently.

The muffled response sounded moderately filled with expletives, but discernible among the curses and the banging against that upper door was the repeated bellow of "Light, you need light!"

"No sh*t, Sherlock," Kaylee muttered, twisting her machetes in her hands. She was feeling more confident now she'd managed to kill one of the little things that had tortured her for so long, but the darkness was still oppressive, flirting with her memories, trying to bring them back to the fore. "Please tell me we're near the pack."

Taylor actually chuckled a little at the shout that came to them through the door, or maybe at Kaylee's response to it. At least, he'd thought enough to pack a flashlight. Taylor swung the light toward where Rufus had left the pack, relieved to find it was within a foot of where they stood. "It's right there! Grab it and hand it to me, so I can light the flare."

Swearing as much in relief as with consternation, Kaylee sheathed one of her blades and lunged for the pack, yelping as another clawed hand grabbed at her hair. "Get off, you sick little bastard!" She swung around with the bag, and was very satisfied to hear a thump as it made contact.

Just as Kaylee grabbed the pack, Taylor swung around, just long enough to snatch the pack from her and hand her the flashlight. "Keep shining it around. They're afraid of the light," he instructed, pausing just a moment too long to move his gaze over her and make sure she was okay. He was rewarded for it with a sharp pain in his right calf as one of the things raked his leg with its claws, cutting through denim and flesh. He cried out, more in alarm than in pain and tried to yank his leg away, but before he could assure Kaylee he was okay, he seemed to disappear into the darkness.

"Taylor" TAYLOR!" Kaylee's panic filled the cellar as she screamed, fear over-taking anger at the thought that Taylor was gone. She fumbled with the flashlight, sweeping the beam back and forth all around her, searching for him as panicked tears started to flow. "No ....no, no, no, Taylor, please," she whimpered, backing up until she felt the slick slime and ooze of the wall at her back. "Please ..."

From the darkness, came sounds of a scuffle, along with the sound of Taylor's muffled voice cussing up a storm. "Get off me, you son of a bitch!" he could be heard shouting, albeit a little muffled and strained. It wasn't until the light from the flashlight swung his way that the creatures scurried away again, a few of them kicked out of the way by Taylor's foot, as he struggled to his feet. He caught one with the blade as he swung it at their retreat with a sickening thud and a spray of gore before it disappeared into the darkness. He shuffled back toward the safety of the light, dragging his left leg, the pack thankfully, swung across a shoulder. "Rufus!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. "You better hurry the f**k up!"

Panic-stricken, Kaylee almost missed him, swinging the flashlight back toward the sound of his voice as he fought off his attackers. She surged forward from her sticky press against the wall, forgetting the danger for a moment, overwhelmed with relief at the fact that he hadn't been taken away from her. "Oh, thank gods," she breathed, deliberately swinging the beam of the light all around them as from above, Lei replied to Taylor's shout.

"Then you'd better unlock the f**king door!"

He was breathing hard, and his leg felt sticky with blood. He thought from the way it was hurting, it might be broken, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. "I'm getting to it," he muttered under his breath at Lei's response from the other side of the door. "Stay against the wall and keep the light shining," he told Kaylee and he rummaged around in the pack for the one of the remaining flares, going mostly by feel. "Fucking bastards. Not going down without a fight," he muttered, more to himself than to her.

One hand curled into his jacket, Kaylee dragged Taylor to the wall beside her, not giving herself a moment to consider the fact that he didn't seem able to use his leg. This had not been the plan; serious injury had not been on the cards. She could feel blood seeping down her leg from her own wound as she swept the beam of light back and forth, swallowing down her renewed fear as whatever the things were that wanted them leaped backward out of the flashlight. "What now?" she asked, trying hard not to whimper. She didn't want to let him down.

He bit his lip to keep himself from crying out as she dragged him over to the wall. The last thing on his mind was worrying about her letting him down; the most important thing on his mind was getting her out of there alive. And he wasn't too keen on the idea of dying either. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but he was feeling a rush of ideas, knowing he had to not only think but act fast if they were going to get out of this alive. "I need to light some flares," he replied, without explanation. It was obvious by this time that they were afraid of the light, and that it was keeping them somewhat at bay. "And then you need to get to the door and get it open."

"Me?" The word was a squeak if disbelieving sound as her head turned to look at him in shock. He wanted her to leave him there, alone and injured" She shook her head vehemently. "No," she refused. "I'm not leaving you here with these ...these things all around you! Never."

He sighed in exasperation and pain, knowing they didn't really have much time to argue about it. He'd just have to appeal to her logic and common sense. "Kay, I'm no good. I'm pretty sure my leg's broken. I can't get to the door fast enough, but you can. I'll light the flares and try to hold them off long enough so that you can get the door open."

She frowned, only just remembering to keep sweeping the torch back and forth. The light was the only thing keeping them both from being ripped into tiny pieces, she was sure of it. As much as she hated it, though, he was right. They had to get that door open, and to do that, she would have to leave him here. "Fine," she said reluctantly. "But don't throw the flares too far away from yourself. I've got the flashlight, I'll be okay."

"I'm right behind you, believe me. I do not plan on dying here!" It would take him a little longer to get to the door - too long to be much good - but he could watch her back and keep her safe. Wasn't that what he was here for, after all" "Give me a second to find the flares," he told her, awkwardly shoving the katana into scabbard so he could rummage in Rufus' pack for the remaining flares.

"You had better not die, I won't forgive you if you do!" she informed him, blissfully unaware of how ridiculous this exchange was when in pitch blackness and surrounded by hissing, sibilant things that wanted to make them suffer.

"Just get the door open and don't worry about me!" Taylor retorted. If they hadn't been in such dire straits with their lives hanging in the balance, he might have taken a moment to kiss her, but as it was, he just wanted to get her out of there. "Ready?" he asked, not waiting for an answer before bending and snapping one of the snap flares Rufus had packed, along with a lot of other stuff Taylor had no time to sort through.

Whether she was ready or not, she didn't have a choice. As the red light flared once more, smoke drifting about, she became aware of a press of small creatures shrinking back from the illumination. "The light ....take away the light ..."

"Not a chance," she snapped back at them as they retreated from the illumination, passing the beam of the flashlight toward the stairs. They looked dark and foreboding, but at the top of those stairs was a door behind which an angry Slayer was just waiting to be unleashed. "Here goes nothing." She pushed away from the wall, forcing herself to walk, not to run. She wasn't going to show these things her fear, even if they already knew she was frightened.

So long as Taylor had the flare in his hands, the things that lurked in the dark kept their distance, but not so with Kaylee. With the space partially illuminated, he could make out shapes moving in the shadows, trying to skirt around him and cut Kaylee off. "Kay!" he shouted, "Run!" Why the hell was she walking" Was she mad" He pushed off the wall, and lobbed the flare toward her, in hopes of frightening the things away, which left him momentarily in the dark.

"Taylor, what are you -" She twisted, looking back over her shoulder as he threw the flare. "No, don't!" But it was too late. He was in darkness, and she was torn, hearing the creatures around them hiss in delight. She couldn't help him, much as it pained her to admit it. But she knew someone who could. With the flare lighting the way halfway up the stairs, she took to her heels, running upward.

He didn't plan on being in the dark long, as he had another flare ready to go in his hands, but before he could snap it and get it lit, the monsters in the dark were on him, scratching and clawing and tearing and trying to drag him away into the darkness. It was hard to tell what was going on in the darkness, but there were muffled sounds of a struggle, cloth tearing, Taylor's voice shouting in anger and pain, joined by unearthly moans and groans as he fought back. And then, there was a shot - like a gunshot - and something full of light and heat shot across the room, terrifying the things that were trying to drag him away.

The sounds of pain and anger from behind her made Kaylee's panic rise to the fore once again, and she accelerated, knowing full well that only one person was going to be able to turn the tide in their favor. Stumbling up the stairs, she tripped over her own feet, and for one, heart-stopping moment, fumbled the flashlight. It went out, plunging her into thick shadow, but a moment later her fingers found the switch and pressed it on, shining it toward the door to see how far she had yet to go. The darkness seemed thick, almost alive, peeling back from the beam of the torch to reveal the broken door. Just as Kaylee felt a plethora of little clawed hands grasp hold of her legs and pull, the door burst open, and Shen Lei - quite possibly the angriest little woman in the whole of creation - erupted down the stairs, swinging her sais to deadly effect as she plunged into the ritual room beyond.

While Kaylee was fumbling up the stairs and just before Lei broke into the room, Taylor managed to get another snap flare lit, further driving the monsters away into the darkness of shadow. He half dragged, half stumbled toward the stairs before collapsing in a heap on the ground. It was hard to tell in all the confusion what kind of shape he was in, but it didn't look like he was moving.

The clawed hands released Kaylee as Lei charged them, their numbers nowhere near enough to save them from the enraged Slayer as she laid into everything small, hooded, and inhuman she could reach. Kaylee was crying, finally, shocked by how close she had come to being pulled into the darkness again, her hands stinging with splinters from her rough journey down the stairs at those little hands. From above her, she heard footsteps thundering down as Rufus ran after Lei, but instead of stopping to look to Kaylee, he ran straight for his nephew.