Spike closed his eyes and tensed.
“Close your eyes, baby.”
The zombies fell upon them…
…and then they were obliterated in a shower of gore and vegetation.
Spike gaped as a glowing specter tore through the zombies that had been about to kill them. Arms flew off, heads flew free, and when the ghost would fly through them, they simply disintegrated into mush.
The zombies began to fall back, but, by then, it was far too late.
More ghosts came then: two, five, ten, twenty – it was an entire tribe of spectral warriors. The rain had begun to trickle off with Dracula’s sudden absence, but Spike could clearly hear the falling water boil away as it fell through the ghost’s incorporeal bodies.
If these guys are warriors, I’m the fagging Queen, Spike thought in confusion as he got a really good look at theose incorporeal bodies.
Ghostly men, women, and children of all ages were moving amongst the zombies. They were dressed in strange, rural clothing: kerchiefs and shawls, flowing dresses and silk scarves, and he watched the phantoms slaughter the zombies with an odd sense of detachment; much like shock.
Suddenly, his brain kicked back into reality with a gruesome jolt - shock could no longer protect him from the events of the last few seconds.
“BUFFY!” Spike called out again. Looking down, he saw that he still had the Slayer’s head in a death grip, ready to snap her neck rather than let the zombies have her. Hurriedly, almost guiltily, he shifted his grip from “ready to kill” to cradling her head, desperately trying to save her life. His other hand clamped down on the oozing wound. He couldn’t believe her little heart was still pumping, Slayer’s strength, no doubt. But even a Slayer’s heart would stop when drained of enough blood. He knew that first hand.
Oh…bloody, sodding, pissing Hell, why didn’t I think to do this before: compress the damn wound, make a tourniquet, SOMETHING?! /I> Spike thought to himself furiously as he worked to keep what little blood was left in his lover’s body in it.
Another thought answered him inside his head, Because you were too hungry for the kill, mate, you always were a stupid git when your blood ran hot.
“What would it take to get you to SHUT THE HELL UP!?” the vampire roared to himself.
From above his head, something roared back.
“What the hell?!” Spike cried as he jerked his head up to see just what exactly had made that sound. When he finally saw it, he quickly wished he hadn’t.
A monstrous, winged… CREATURE… had swooped down from the sky and was in the process of decimating the masses of zombies the ghosts hadn’t quite gotten around to destroying, yet, and, it appeared to be having a good time.
It was enormous: eight feet tall, not counting the wings, thickly muscled, teeth the size of knives, and talons the size of scythe blades. It swooped and strafed the remaining zombies, slicing them in two, biting their heads off completely, or picking them up with its large talons and dashing them against gravestones, trees, or each other, hard enough to shatter their bodies completely.
“Ohhhh… bugger,” was all Spike could say at the sight.
A few minutes later it was all over.
The zombies were gone - wiped out or escaped into the night, Spike didn’t know or really care at this point - the phantoms had now all gathered around Spike, trapping him up against the large gravestone he and Buffy had taken refuge against. They stared blankly at him, no readable expression or comprehension in those dead eyes. They looked haunted, as if Spike were the ghost and not vice versa.
The winged beast roared again, loud as a lion and ten times as mean. It came to perch on the gravestone, its talons digging in like it was soft as clay. Spike got a nice close up of the monster as it craned its head and peered down at him, growling softly.
It had huge, wolf-like ears and smoldering, yellow eyes that glowed faintly. A mane of coarse black hair, just like a lion’s, framed a face that was dominated by a pronounced, bat-like nose and large protruding jaws, which sloped down into a chin that, had it not been so overwhelmingly terrifying, would have given it a surprisingly snooty profile in his mind.
The wings loomed large and dark over Buffy and Spike, curling inwards and penning them all in, like a cocoon. The ghosts formed ranks, blocking all chance of escape.
“If you’re going to kill us,” Spike said to the monster, resigned but unafraid, “get it the sodding hell over with, you great poofter.”
The creature’s bloody lips pulled back into a grin, exposing, huge, gory teeth, and then it growled loud enough to shake Spike down to his bones.
“Showy. Gypsy. Tricks?”
Those huge jaws were made for biting the heads off zombies, not speech. Still, Spike understood the garbled words clearly enough.
“You son of a-!” Spike didn’t get a chance to finish his curse as the thing threw back its head and howled, long and loud. The howl became the sound of deep, rich laughter, the huge wings swooped up and folded, bending impossibly backwards upon themselves with a loud crack. More noises followed. Wet breaking sounds came in a rush that set the blond vampire’s teeth on edge.
As the mangled wings simply, dissolved into mist, a man was revealed grinning fiercely.
“Permit me to introduce myself,” Dracula said with a toothy grin, the large batmonster teeth rapidly shrinking to normal. “I am Dracula.” Then he got a look at Buffy and hissed in rage.
“You FOOL! What have you done?” snarled the Count as he gnashed his fangs and leapt down from the gravestone. The ghosts cowered away from him, but Dracula passed through them without heed and backhanded Spike across the face so fast and hard that his brain hadn’t fully understood he’d been hit until he was sailing through the air.
Spike tumbled to the dirt but quickly sprang up, growling like a dog at Dracula, his face shifting back into its demonic state as the other vampire scooped up Buffy.
“You wanker, don’t you touch her! You’re completely out of your head, she’s not Elis-“
“You will not speak that name!”
Dracula’s voice boomed with power and Spike felt his blood freeze under the command. He couldn’t even blink, couldn’t speak or scream as the Romanian vampire leaned over Buffy’s still form. Spike didn’t even know if she was alive, though he thought she was, which is why, even now, he struggled against the other vampire’s magical control over his blood.
Dracula brought corpse-cool lips close to Buffy’s face. He caressed her face, which was cold as death crept into her body, and gently cupped her chin to turn her head from him. He lay down upon her, resting his face against hers, cheek to cheek, with his mouth inches from her soft lips, and only a few more inches from the softer curve of her pale throat.
Spike grit his teeth in impotent fury, the noise of them grinding nearly causing him to miss what happened next. As if sharing an intimate secret with a long-time lover, Dracula began to whisper to the Slayer.
“You think you know. What you are. What is to come?” Dracula’s focus intensified on the woman, a hair’s breadth between them. “You haven’t even begun.” He then placed a tender kiss upon the Slayer’s ear.
If Spike were human, he would have been having a seizure at this point in his loathing of what was happening before him.
“My blood flows through your veins, Buffy, and it will heed my command,” Dracula quietly assured her as he placed a pale hand lightly on her chest.
Buffy began to moan softly. Spike couldn’t tell if it was in pleasure or pain, and it made him grind his teeth even harder. There was a gentle thumping sound and if Spike had not been paralyzed, he would have gaped openly at the sight of Buffy’s heart beating, visibly, up through her body. He watched in awe as slow, steady movement bulged the shirt up and out, making it gently rise and fall. The heartbeat became stronger and he felt a surge of joy at the sight.
Buffy moaned slightly and then opened her eyes: her expression glazed and far away, much like the gaze of the ghosts that were still watching them.
“Vlad?” she asked and startled both vampires – she now had a subtle, eastern European accent and her voice had taken a strange lilting quality Spike had never heard before.
The other vampire, however, had heard it before, and he went stark rigid at it. Spike had never, in all his un-life, seen the ancient vampire so utterly shaken down to his very core. Dracula gripped the gravestone to steady himself. It began to crack and crumble underneath his grip, raining down dust and pieces of stone upon them both. He didn’t even seem to notice as he whispered in a shaky tone, “It cannot be.”
Buffy’s only response was to begin humming dreamily. The humming reminded Spike of Dru, which made his skin crawl. He pushed past the memories and thought the tune sounded familiar and then he placed it – Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. The humming stopped abruptly as Buffy began to cough violently; blood flew from her lips to splatter against the Count’s bare chest.
Dracula went berserk.
“No! You shall live!” he screamed. His face contorted into an expression that wasn’t even close to human or sane. He tore her shirt open, exposing her. For a minute, he stopped and frowned at something, then, with a scream, he reached down and tore something from around Buffy’s throat with one hand and drove the other into her chest.
Buffy screamed suddenly as the pounding of her heart increased ten times in speed and power. Her ribs cracked from the strain of it, and she whimpered in pain as Dracula’s magic forced the combined power of their mixed blood to sear through her veins, blasting through the valves in her heart.
Her heart swelled up hard through her chest and Spike could hear the sound of her ribs now breaking from the power of it all. Buffy began to sweat profusely, soaking her shirt in perspiration, blood, and tears as she thrashed and cried.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she whispered, thrashing like a little girl in a bad dream.
“YOU WILL LIVE, I COMMAND IT!” Dracula continued to shout, pinning her down underneath his weight. Blood began to well up from the five holes his fingers were now making as they dug into her flesh. His other hand grabbed her wrist and bent it all the way back, pinning her down. The wrist snapped, Buffy screamed, and still the vampire would not relent.
The ghosts began to wail in phantom agony as their master became more and more agitated, that same agitation allowed Spike to rally against the power that held him silent and paralyzed. He could feel it begin to weaken now that the other vampire lost apparently all semblance of self-control. He began to work his tongue around his mouth and, worked the muscles in his neck and jaw, trying to pry his mouth open enough to speak.
“C’mon, Spike, do not bollocks this up!” he growled through gritted teeth, and was taken aback when he realized he’d been able to speak, albeit only through a closed mouth like a ventriloquist, but still able to speak.
Dracula had dug his fingers so deep into her flesh that it looked like he was going to dig his way to her heart and physically massage it into life. Buffy was howling and screaming in pure torment; her back was contorted so severely that it looked ready to break and it was forcing her to press herself harder against the Count, lewdly like a tortured love. Her eyes had rolled back into her skull, and she was coughing up blood at a prodigious rate.
“Going to kill another one, are you Drac? Four dead girls weren’t enough?” Spike yelled with all his might through his paralyzed mouth.
The effect was instantaneous and just as dramatic as the previous shift in Dracula had been: he fell backwards, away from the girl, tumbling unceremoniously on his backside and staring wide-eyed in horror at Buffy’s still, bloody body.
“What have I done?” Dracula whispered in shock.
“She’s not her, you stupid horse’s arse!” Spike shouted. His lips could now move, but the rest of him was still stuck in a position between a crouch and standing.
Dracula shook himself from his own paralysis and stalked over to Spike, smashing a fist into the Englishman’s face with a snarl. The blow sent the blond vampire flying through the air to land on his back on a gravestone, making him cry out in pain - the impact had nearly shattered his spine, and his newly-restored jaw now felt like broken glass.
“You do not say her name! You never say her name!” Dracula roared at Spike, grabbing him by the throat, swinging him around, and slamming his skull hard enough into a gravestone to topple it with a thud.
Spike lay there, paralyzed and helpless. Dracula loomed over him like a furious storm cloud. The Romanian Prince shifted his glance then from glaring at the other male to focus on something on the ground – the headstone he’d knocked over. He laughed and reached down to effortlessly hoist it up for Spike to see.
“I cannot comprehend why you bore this all the way from London: a completely fallacy to serve as a headstone for an empty grave,” Dracula sneered as he held up Emily’s grave marker. “But, as I remember, you always did prefer a pleasant fiction to a harsh reality.”
“I wasn’t the only one, you ponce. Remember Jules?” was all that Spike said.
With a crash, Dracula brought the stone down on Spike who gasped in pain.
“That is on your head, William! I gave her unto you as a ward and you failed to save her from Heinrich’s pet Slayer. Your failure, not mine! Her blood is on your hands!
“That’s not the hands I remember her blood being on, ya bastard.”
“My blood is pure, you walking piece of filth! You are the ‘bastard’, not I.”
“Yeah, right, sure, like I said – I’m not the only one who appreciates a good lie.”
The elder vampire screamed in rage at the taunt. He brought the stone down on Spike over and over again to accentuate each word.
“You. Will. Never. Be. Pure!”
The stone cracked apart then into two jagged pieces. Spike was broken, a bloody ruin of a man at this point; not even his vampiric fortitude or healing could withstand the might of Dracula’s fury.
With a growl, Dracula tore a ring from his finger and shoved it down Spike’s throat. It would have choked him had he needed to breathe.
“Take that back to the Slayer’s allies. Tell them of your failure to protect her,” Dracula then grinned savagely.
“Perhaps I will tear her soul from Heaven to tell her the truth of you myself, and along the way explain exactly what happened to Emily and all the others ‘Spike,’ ” he taunted. “Heinrich’s foolish necromancy was but a pale imitation of my power.”
“Don’t… you… bloody do that to her,” was all Spike could manage.
Dracula raised the broken gravestone over Spike’s neck, the end jagged and sharp. “I will give that poor girl’s soul your fondest farewells, before I destroy every dear notion she held of you,” Dracula assured Spike. “From filth you came, back to filth you go.” Dracula raised the weapon up over his head, and Spike refused to close his eyes, meeting the Romanian’s gaze steadily now, at the end.
The gravestone was suddenly jerked from Dracula’s hand. As the vampire whirled around, it was smashed hard against his face.
“I like my soul where it is,” Buffy quipped, swinging it around and then up to catch Dracula under the jaw and sending him flying through the air, for once.
The Prince tumbled to the ground, his jaw broken. Twisting his body, the tumble became an acrobatic somersault and he rose smoothly to his feet with his back to the Slayer.
Buffy wasted no time in charging the vampire, bringing the gravestone up for a blow that would drive the vampire into the ground like a tent post.
“Heads up!” Buffy called out and swung. Then she toppled over as the headstone swung through, not Dracula’s body, but the mist it had instantly become. Buffy fell hard, the gravestone was sent flying as the vampire reformed in the blink of an eye, now facing the Slayer, peering down at her, calm and composed.
“Your heart is strong, Buffy Summers, for that I am glad,” Dracula informed her. “You are full of surprises, I will admit. I had no idea you spoke the language of my homeland with such skill…” Buffy looked up at him as he she got on her hands and knees, lifting herself from the ground. She appeared as if she didn’t have a clue in hell as to what he was talking about as the tall vampire continued, “...but, I digress, I have lingered here too long and I would hunt now.” He turned to go.
“Hey, I want some answers!”
“Find your own answers, my lady Summers,” he said dismissively, walking away from her.
“Why do you care if I live or die?” she asked him
Dracula stopped then. There was a long pause and then he spoke, not turning to face her.
“You remind me of someone,” Dracula turned to look over his shoulder at the Slayer. “Do you see these wraiths?”
Buffy shrugged, after everything she’s been through, ghosts weren’t going to scare her at this point.
“Yeah? What about them?”
“Why don’t you ask Liam if they remind him of some people he knew, when you tell him about all this,” Dracula grabbed a hold of a ghost that was within arms reach, and spun her around to face Buffy. The ghost was dressed differently than all the others: a pretty dress, and boots that would have looked appropriate on the feet of anyone at school-
“Oh, my god,” Buffy gasped.
Dracula just smiled and, very deliberately, rotated the unresisting woman’s head a full hundred and eighty degrees exorcist-style to look at Buffy. The face was covered in a veil but the eyes were unmistakable.
“That’s Je-“
“As I said, Buffy, find your own answers. Those around you can provide a great deal of them, should they be probably motivated.” Dracula released the ghost and it continued to stare, unrecognizing, at Buffy as it walked away, its head still backwards, and it faded into the gloom along with the rest.
With that, Dracula leapt into the air, transforming into the winged monster he’d been earlier. The sound of flapping wings faded away as the creature vanished into the night.
The last wraith drifted past Buffy, and she gasped at the sight of them: she was very young, very pretty, and very, very pissed off, staring clearly AT Buffy.
“I can smell him on you,” was all she said in a raspy not-real voice that faded in and out like bad stereo equipment. The ghost girl flipped her hair away from her throat…
…displaying two puncture marks.
With another accusing glance, the ghostly young girl faded into the night to join the others.
Buffy stared slack jawed at it all as Spike limped over to her then, gently setting his jaw in place.
“Ow!” Spike said with a wince as he turned to Buffy. “Are you all right, baby?” he asked her thickly, spitting out a few teeth.
“When did he get so powerful? He wasn’t like this before,” was all she said.
“He was holding back last time, I’ll wager. He’s a bloody wizard on top of being a very old, very strong vampire.”
“We don’t tell the others about this, Spike, ANY of this. Most of them would freak and Alec would tear apart Sunnydale piece by piece until he got his hands on him.”
“Yeah, that’s why I like him, ‘kindred spirits’ and all,” Spike commented with a smile.
Buffy whirled on him. “I mean it, Spike! Not a word to him, or to Giles!” Buffy frowned. “There’s something going on with him, Giles, I mean. I don’t know what, but it scares me.”
“Probably the scent of mothballs and tweed.”
Buffy’s eyebrows shot up at this and Spike held up his hands.
“Okay! Okay! Not a word!”
“Catch a ride with Angel and head back to the shop. I’m heading there next.”
“All right, baby, whatever you say.” Clearly unhappy with being around Angel, that was all Spike said.
“Umm, when did my shirt become all bloody and torn apart?” she asked
“You had a bit of a rough night, love. Drac used some magic to patch you up. Used a bit of ‘Vampire CPR’ it seems.”
“I don’t remember… Oh no!” Buffy cried out, beginning to desperately feel around her shirt and neck.
“What is it, baby?”
“My ring! Angel’s ring! It’s gone!” she cried out heedlessly.
“You wear his bloody ring around your sodding neck?!” Spike yelled.
“Spike! Not the time!”
“Yeah, right, never time for me, but time enough for you to have your bloody EX-boyfriend’s ring around your neck!” Spike jerked a cigarette out of his jacket, lit up, and started to leave. “Bugger this! I’ll see you later.”
“Wait, Spike please!”
“Here, why don’t you wear Dracula’s ring while you’re at it?! You seem to have a soft spot for ‘tall, pale and angsty’!”
There was a metallic sound as Spike hurled the ring over his shoulder at Buffy and stalked off.
Buffy stood there for a moment, stunned. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with everyone? What had happened tonight?
She bent over and picked up the ring, uncaring, and then froze. The clouds the vampire prince had summoned for his storm were gone now and it was a bright moonlit night, bright enough for Buffy to see the ring clearly. Bright enough for her to recognize it with horror…
A moon and three stars - The Order of Aurelius. The order the Master had belonged to.
The man, no, the monster, that had ended her life.
“It’s getting late," Alec commented with a frown at his watch and the darkening landscape. Buffy had just made it in a few minutes ago: wet, cold, and looking thoroughly miserable. She had gruffly explained that patrol was a bust and, while Alec was certain she was lying, her clothes were a mess, including small bloodstains, and she was cradling her wrist. He had decided not to press his sister on the matter. Even now she was sitting quietly in a corner, not really talking to anyone and looking very far away. With a sigh, knowing that he wasn't being listened to, Alec continued.
"It's getting late, which means–"
–Suddenly, there was a loud screech of tires from outside, followed by a crash and the sound of rushing water. Alec leapt to his feet as everyone hurried to the door. He reached it first and, after jerking it open, took two steps out and stopped dead in his tracks.
There was Angel’s car, half up on the curb with a dented fender, and a fire hydrant that had been knocked almost clean off its mountings, spraying water like a geyser high into the air in a torrential downpour upon the two furious vampires in the car. Spike was behind the wheel and was engaged in a heated argument with the elder vampire seated beside him.
“My fault?! Listen, you great poof, if YOU hadn’t have jerked the wheel out of my hand to avoid hitting that dog, we wouldn’t BE in this bloody mess!” Spike roared at him.
Angel snarled. “Well, if you hadn’t been going seventy-five in a twenty-five mile an hour zone, you would have SEEN the dog BEFORE you were right on top of it,” Angel shot back angrily.
Spike’s eyebrows rose to form a ‘v’ at his brow in shock before launching into another tirade.
“Do you know what this is?” he gestured to the tape deck. " 'The Pogues: A Rainy Night in Soho’ live at CBGB ’77.’ it is NOT a soddin’ twenty-five mile an hour tune, you flaming nancy boy!” he retorted angrily.
Angel just shook his head in frustration.
“That’s the last time I let you drive,” he growled as he opened the car door, sloshed out of his car, and slammed the door shut behind him. Spike, just as sodden and wet, likewise clamored over the car door. Glaring daggers at each other, the soaking wet vampires sloshed up to the stunned assemblage at the front door of the shop.
Alec did his best, but he felt a serious attack of hysterical laughter threatening to wash over him. Taking a deep breath, he regarded the dripping pair.
“Well it’s certainly a ’Rainy Night’ somewhere. So, how was your day?” he asked politely. They snarled and shoved past him to enter the store. Spike stopped short to send Buffy a significant look, Buffy returned one even sterner and for a second, Alec was curious. And then he remembered just how much Spike loved hanging out with Angel in a "non killing Angel" capacity and he grinned as he regarded the geyser erupting out onto the street. Turning back to his father, he cocked an eyebrow.
“I’ll take care of this, Dad, if you could…” he gestured to Willow, who was still staring at the whole scene with wide eyes and probably hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Giles instantly understood his sons desire for privacy in the use of his powers, and, taking Willow by the shoulders, guided her back into the store. Alec waited until she was gone before turning to the two Slayers. Faith looked ready to burst with laughter and even Buffy's mood had lightened slightly at the vampire's antics.
“Girls? Give a guy a hand?” he asked them.
They nodded, laughing quietly and doing their best to avoid getting soaked, carefully picked up the damaged fire hydrant and placed it back on its moorings. The geyser abruptly ceased as the Slayers held the fixture firmly in place against the water pressure coming from below. Alec knelt by the fire hydrant and, extending a finger, conjured a long trail of shadow to slither from the digit and wrap itself firmly around the base of the fire hydrant. There was a slight groan of stressed metal as the tendril tightened around it.
Alec stepped back.
“Okay, on three, let it go and jump back, just in case the bond doesn’t hold,” he warned them. “Ready?” They nodded. “Three!” he yelled.
They jumped back in unison, letting go of the fire hydrant. The bond held and Alec released a sigh of relief before turning a sardonic grin to the two women.
“Well, if this hero business doesn’t pan out, I can always go into the civil services,” he wisecracked self-deprecatingly.
The women chuckled and Faith shook her head.
“D, forget honest work. With your tricks, go into something more lucrative, like, robbing Fort Knox or something.”
Buffy sent her a disapproving look. “Faith! Straight and narrow, remember?” she reprimanded the woman sternly.
Faith colored and looked down. “Sorry, B, didn’t mean anything by it,” she mumbled, downcast, keeping her eyes to the ground.
Buffy continued to glare at her, before something in her face changed. The hardness drained from her eyes and she slowly reached out a hand and placed it reassuringly on the younger Slayer’s shoulder.
“I know you didn’t, Faith,” she sighed. “Go inside and tell Giles we’re good to go here.”
Faith looked up at her, and, smiling gratefully, placed her hand over Buffy’s.
“I’m on it,” the younger Slayer reassured her. Squeezing the other one’s hand she headed back into the store. Buffy smiled slightly and turned back to Alec, who was regarding her with deep admiration.
“What?” she asked a little embarrassed.
Alec came closer to her. “I’m very proud of you, Buffy. That was done as well as anyone could ask.”
Buffy felt a lump in her throat at the intensity of those words. She nodded.
“Yeah, well, she STILL isn’t right about Skipper and Gilligan,” she quipped, doing her best not to show just how much his words had touched her.
Alec smiled knowingly and clasped her hand in his. “Yeah, well, I always pictured Gilligan with Mary-Anne,” he replied smirking.
Buffy’s eyes widened in shock. “Mary-ANNE? The professor's squeeze?” she exclaimed shocked. “You’re deranged,” she pronounced gravely.
Alec laughed and wrapped an arm around the Slayer’s slim shoulders, kissing her head affectionately.
“Probably,” he conceded. “It does seem to run in this family,” he teased.
She gasped, outraged, and socked him in the stomach. Alec exhaled hard and rubbed the sore place as she divested herself of his arm and walked haughtily back into the store, nose up in the air.
“Spike has got his hands full, that’s for sure,” he commented, laughing. He rubbed his stomach once more, and followed his sister, entering the store to see Angel and Spike toweling their hair dry, both dressed in tweed suits and looking miserable. Alec's hand flew to his mouth as he tried unsuccessfully to keep from laughing.
“Trying to make a fashion statement, guys?” he quipped.
Buffy, who had a huge grin on her face, answered. “Their clothes were soaked, and this was all Giles had lying around,” she offered as an explanation.
Giles turned. “What’s wrong with these suits? This is authentic tweed, it’s the very epitome of understated grace.” He smiled suddenly, looking a little forlorn, and whispered, “As I remember, it’s also handy for stopping crossbow bolts,” before wiping something from his eye, mumbling about the dry air causing his allergies to act up.
“Yeah, it makes a statement all right, the statement being ‘I couldn’t get a date to save my life,” Spike bit out with a snort, fingering the lapel of the tweed jacket with obvious disdain.
Buffy chuckled and draped herself across his lap. “Oh, come on, honey, it doesn’t look that bad.”
The vampire’s blue eyes widened in disbelief.
“Well, okay, it does,” she conceded, “but that’s okay, you’re not after dates.” She snuggled against him. “You’ve got me, remember?” she asked adorably.
Despite his best efforts, Spike wasn’t quite able to keep a grin off his face.
“How could I forget?” he bemoaned quietly.
Buffy smiled. “Oh, shut up,” she admonished lightly, kissing him. Spike didn’t bother arguing as he held her in his arms.
Angel turned away from the display, an expression of deeply buried pain flashing across his face. Alec noticed it and sent the vampire a sympathetic look before he turned and looked up at Willow.
“Lover? We’re going to need your biology know-how at the campus lab.” He looked back at the jar on the table, the parasites floating within it, still comatose. “I have no idea how to dissect the little buggers and I wouldn’t know what to look for if I did.”
Willow got to her feet, a teasing smile on her lips. “Ah, men, give them something to pummel and they’re all speed ahead, but give them something requiring a little knowledge and they’re lost in the woods.” She grinned and picked up her bag.
Alec favored her with a condescending grin. “Whatever you say, princess. Now that you’ve trashed my sex, will you come help?”
Willow pretended to consider it before answering. “I suppose, but you’re wrong though.”
Alec frowned, puzzled. “Regarding?” he asked her.
She grinned naughtily. “Me trashing your sex. I was trashing your gender.” She continued to grin at him flirtatiously. “I’ve got no complaints about your sex,” she finished wickedly.
“See. That’s what I’m talking about!” Buffy suddenly cried out. “What IS it about the end of the world that gets everyone all hot and bothered?” she demanded.
“It’s a tension releaser, love. Everyone knows that,” Spike replied smugly.
She turned to him, still lounging on his lap.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” Chuckling, she turned back to Alec. “You need anything in the way of muscle?” she asked.
Alec shook his head. “Probably, but it’s all right, you and Spike stay here. Relax for a spell. I’ll bring Faith with me.” He looked at the woman in question, who nodded in agreement. He then turned to Anya, who was busy playing solitaire on Willow’s now-vacated computer, and apparently not doing very well.
“Anya?”
There was no response.
He called again, “Anya?”
Anya began muttering aloud, “Red and black, why does it have to be only red and black. I’ve got a six here and a five there, why-”
“ANYA!” the whole room yelled in unison.
Her head shot up. “WHAT?!” she demanded.
Alec sighed. “Are you prepared to contact D’Hoffryn tonight?” he asked her.
She frowned. “Oh, is that all?” She shrugged. “Sure, as soon as I get the necessary spell components.”
Giles pointed at a shelf. “Everything you need should be there, Anya, do you have the glyph?” he asked her.
Anya snorted derisively and reached into her pocket, holding it up for all to see in a "I'm clearly so much smarter than all of you, why do you insist on not acknowledging that?" kind of way.
Giles nodded. “Well, then, I suppose that’s all we need.” Reaching out he collected the specimen jar as Alec shrugged his duster on. They turned to go, when the door to the backroom opened and a groggy, but much healthier looking Xander emerged. He rubbed his eyes, and noticing that Anya had her attention firmly fixed on the computer in front of her, sighed in palpable relief.
Alec grinned at him. “Xander, feel like a little Bio 101?” he asked wryly.
Xander stopped to consider, he could either do that… or wait for Anya to get bored with the game and turn her attentions back to him.
“Come on, let’s go. Time’s a-wasting,” he declared, bounding up the stairs and out of the store, halfway to Giles’ car already. Alec chuckled and joined the rest of the group as they turned to go.
“Faith!” Buffy called out. Faith turned to her. Buffy got off Spike’s lap and reached over to a wall, taking down a small axe. She tossed it to the other slayer, who caught it deftly. Faith frowned at her.
“What’s this for, B?” she asked.
“In case you run into something with a worse attitude than yours,” Buffy replied.
Faith grinned. “Worse attitude than mine? Not possible,” she responded cockily as she touched the axe to her forehead in a mock salute. “Thanks, B.”
Buffy waved it off.
“Forget it, just return it in one piece,” Buffy replied before settling back against Spike. Faith nodded an affirmative and left, followed by Willow and Giles. Alec, sending another look of pride at the Slayer, closed the door behind them.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
See? We have an update :) Only two weeks missed, yes, but that was due to health issues on all of our sides (especially the author!). I now present you: chapter 14, "Danger", a full 26 pages.