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The minutes stretched on into uncomfortable silence. Alec had heard of him of course, but from what Buffy had told him, she had staked him...twice. Dracula, for his part, stood waiting patiently for Alec to reply. The young man cleared his throat.

“Vlad, the dragon prince. Warlord of Romania. Defended his country against the Turks and, recently, was staked twice by my sister,” Alec recited simply, with perhaps a hint of challenge. Dracula laughed a low rolling laugh.

“Indeed, the Slayer, Buffy. I had gravely underestimated her and paid the price for it.” He smiled slightly. “She is fierce and lives up every bit to her reputation. I daresay that I should prefer not to engage her in mortal combat again. I doubt I would be so fortunate twice in a row.” Alec scoffed.

“She’s formidable,” the young man commented. Dracula smiled appreciatively.

“Yes. This is so. But then, so are you, my young friend,” the vampire replied as he pulled his lips back into an expression of predatory delight. Dracula slowly advanced on Alec. Alec winced as he felt pressure begin to build in his head, like someone trying to pry their fingers into his brain and open it like an oyster. Alec snarled and focused, fighting off the invasion. The pain doubled without warning. Dracula smiled.

“Ahhh, I sense much fear in you. Fear that you are not strong enough to protect your loved ones; your sister, your father and especially the girl—”

With a scream of unhinged fury, Alec attacked.

Alec’s eyes flashed as inky darkness filled the pupils and spilled over into the whites, soon his eyes were nothing more than two pools of swirling darkness. Dracula had a chance to hiss in surprise before tendrils of darkness, honed to a razor tip lashed out of Alec’s hands and skewered the place the vampire had occupied not a half second before.

Dracula snarled like an animal as he dodged, flipped and wove, attempting to escape the onslaught of blackness.

“Foolish half-breed! You understand nothing!” Dracula spat then closed his eyes and spoke a few words in Romanian. With a flash there were not one but eight images of Dracula circling the young man, smiling tauntingly.

Alec, his eyes filled with a blackness that seemed to trickle down his face like tears, spun this way and that, teeth clenched. From between each tooth, darkness leaked out of his mouth like blood.

Dracula laughed, “Your power is nothing, young man. I could snuff the light from your life like that!” Eight Dracula’s snapped their clawed fingers. “Or perhaps I could put those you love on sharpened stakes, the ultimate irony, as I did to the sultan’s men over six centuries ago,” Dracula continued to taunt the young man, then smiled evilly. “Or perhaps, I could show the young girl you treasure so how I truly earned the title ‘The Impaler’.”

The vampire then got a good look at the young man’s face and realized he had gone too far. After that, it was too late to realize anything.

With a low, almost sub-harmonic howl, Alec threw his head back and eight spikes of darkness shot out from his body in perfect unison, skewering each of the Dracula images. All vanished save one that screamed in pain as he was run through and hoisted high into the air before being slammed down into a metal dumpster.

Dracula groaned and then gasped as Alec was suddenly right there. A shadowy hand lashed out and caught the vampire by the throat and lifted him up clear from his feet. Alec’s face was a swarm of roiling blackness, no trace of humanity to be seen in his now bone white features. Dracula nearly blanched in horror at the sight.

“What ARE you?” the vampire cried out.

“I am the dark,” Alec rasped in a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of cold stone tomb, hollow and empty. “Die now.” The young man began to squeeze the vampire’s throat. Cracking sounds began to fill the air and in a last desperate attempt, Dracula forced words to come from his mouth.

“Destroy me…and you doom all that you love and hold dear,” he choked out.

A flicker of something human crossed Alec’s inhuman features and he released the vampire, letting him tumble unceremoniously onto the concrete. The multitude tentacles of darkness evaporated as Alec’s eyes drained from all black to their normal shade, his face once again that of a young man.

“What do you mean?” Alec demanded. The Count rubbed his throat gingerly and got to his feet.

“I came to Sunnydale, because I had felt a deep disturbance emanating from this area.”

Alec shrugged, “The pull of the Hellmouth, it’s been here for years. Why would you suddenly be concerned with it?” Dracula looked him dead in the eye.

“Because it is afraid.”

Alec froze. “What do you mean ‘IT’S’ afraid? How can ‘it’ be afraid? It isn’t sentient.” Dracula held up a finger.

“You are mistaken, my young friend. Have you never wondered how such a place came about? How so much dark power became focused? There is something under the ground in California. Something…deathless … greater than vampire, man, or demon. And it is afraid. It is afraid of the Summers' women.” Dracula concluded. Alec eyed him warily.

“Not that I put an ounce of stock into what you’re saying, but why is the Hellmouth afraid of Buffy?” Alec asked him.

Dracula gave him a condescending look before explaining, “Buffy has proven herself the champion of right and light far beyond any who came before her. She has grown powerful; her body, her blood, her very soul, all these thing surge and roll with this power. She herself has already utilized it once, using it to defeat the abomination you called ‘Adam’, I learned of this when I supped from her veins.”

Dracula’s eyes gleamed with avarice. “She stands on the threshold of a massive metamorphosis. She stands ready to transcend all death and become immortal. The Hellmouth fears this greatly, for it too stands on the threshold of transformation. Only one of them, however, shall live to see it through to its conclusion.” His eyes shifted from avarice to calculating.

“And her sister, the one called Dawn, is the key.” A low, wet growl emanated from deep in Alec’s chest, where the grave voice had come from. Alec’s hands tightened into fists, his knuckles white as darkness began to leak from between his fingers. Dracula’s eyes widened as power began to crackle around Alec again. He raised a hand imploringly.

“Hear me out! I swear that I seek no harm upon either woman! I swear it on the clan Dracul!” Alec calmed down slightly at the Count's vehemence and the already coalescing darkness fell away.

“Keep talking,” Alec bit out. Dracula, much relieved, lowered a hand.

“I think it better if we spoke with Buffy as well as her watcher, your father Rupert Giles, present. He will be able to validate my claims.” Dracula reached out, handing Alec a card. “Meet me at this place, with Buffy and Mr. Giles.” A small mocking smile graced his lips. “I trust you will have no reason to fear for your safety. Between you and the Slayer, I do not believe my destruction would be difficult.” Alec took the card tentatively as Dracula turned to leave.

“Give me one good reason why I should believe any of this,” Alec grumbled. Dracula stopped and turned, favoring him with another condescending smile.

“Because, my young friend, you know it is true. You have felt a connection to the girl Dawn that you cannot explain, yet cannot control or deny. It haunts you, granting you no peace, rebelling against all sense.”

Alec paled and his eyes went wide as the counts words hit home.

Dracula laughed at the sight. “Come tomorrow, and you will have answers.” Then with a great bound, Dracula’s body lifted high into the air and flew from sight. Alec looked high into the sky, before looking back down at the card.

THE BRONZE ROOFTOP
MIDNIGHT
-D


Buffy woke up suddenly, unsure what had awakened her. She sat up ramrod straight in her bed and scanned the darkness of her room. Her eyes saw nothing, but her slayer sense screamed at her that she was not alone anymore. Her hand reached out to flick on the light…and she nearly screamed as hand came down hard to grip her wrist out of the darkness.

Combat reflexes took over and Buffy lashed out with a fist, only to find nothing there but shadows. She kicked at the place where a person must have been, only to hit thick darkness. The hand was joined by another, gentle this time, which reached out to wrap tenderly around her shoulders as the first hand released its grip on her wrist to become a warm hand holding hers, entwining long fingers with her own. Buffy understood.

Alec formed out of the dark, eyes draining back to normal to reveal a deep, sorrowful gaze. He squeezed Buffy tightly. Buffy returned the hug, very confused and VERY troubled by the look in her brothers eyes.

“Alec?” she whispered. “Are you all right? You shouldn’t shadow-step, it’s not safe,” Buffy told her brother. Alec had manifested the ability to literally BECOME darkness and cross distances like that…but at great personal discomfort and risk.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” his voice rasped. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” He pleaded. Buffy’s dread became a solid block of ice in her chest.

“Alec I don’t—” She started.

“Dawn isn’t human, is she?” His voice was warm in her ear but ragged and raw. Buffy’s mouth sagged open. (He knows!) She closed and opened her mouth again to deny it. But the words wouldn’t come, and she sighed in defeat. Kissing him on the head gently, she pulled away.

“How did you know?” she whispered quietly, not meeting his gaze. Alec stood and paced across the bedroom floor.

“I met an old friend of yours. Dracula.” Buffy’s head shot up like a rocket, her eyes wide in a mixture of fear and disbelief.

“That’s not possible, I staked him…TWICE!” She cried out. “There’s no way he’d be dumb enough to show his pointy toothed face again.” Alec just looked at her and she immediately fell silent.

“Get dressed and meet me at my father's. We have a lot to discuss.” Without looking back at her, Alec stepped into the shadowy corner of her room and the darkness reached out to take him.

“Alec! Don’t!” Buffy cried out, appalled at how reckless he was being in his anguish. Alec simply looked back at her with those despairing eyes as the darkness consumed him and took him away from her. He was gone, and she was alone.


“…So Dracula wants us to meet him there tomorrow night,” Alec finished recounting his story to his father and Buffy. They were in Giles’ living room. Both of them wore very troubled expressions as if they couldn’t, or didn’t want to believe, the Count's words. Giles was the first to speak.

“He’s not lying,” he said simply. Two pairs of shocked eyes turned to meet the Watcher’s gaze.

Giles sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve often theorized about the Hellmouth possibly being a sentient entity. And looking back on the past four and a half years, I’m inclined to believe that this is so.” He turned his eyes to Buffy. “And if the Hellmouth is sentient, then you will have to fight it, Buffy, when the times comes.”

Buffy looked pale. Fighting vampires was one thing, fighting demons another, but attempting to fight an evil as old as mankind itself seemed impossible. Giles continued.

“We did something, Buffy, something was…unleashed within you, when we invoked the enjoining spell and contacted the first slayer. I’m not sure what but you are changing or soon will be. Can you tell me what it was like, that final confrontation with Adam?” Buffy did her best to shake off the fear she felt and replied.

“I don’t remember very much, it was…overpowering. Like my body wasn’t mine anymore but a whole army. It was like my body didn’t stop at my skin but stretched out past myself. And everything was under my control. I was aware of all that I was and everything that was around me, because it was a part of me.” She looked up into Giles’ face. “Giles, what does this mean? What’s going to happen to me? How can I fight the Hellmouth?” She felt panic rising up in her throat to choke her.

“I don’t know, Buffy, but I think we should meet with Count Dracula and learn what we may from him,” Giles replied.

Alec cleared his throat and their attention shifted to him.

“All right, now which one of you is going to explain to me about Dawn?” He demanded quietly. Buffy and Giles exchanged looks and began to tell him what they knew. About the monks and her not really being Buffy’s sister, but some great force of light called The Key and how Dawn didn’t have a clue about any of it. Alec took it all in impassively. After a while, the young man spoke.

“Dracula said that she was the Key, and that the Hellmouth was afraid of both of you, not just you, Buffy. If Dawn has no idea who or what she is, she couldn’t possibly tap the power that she carries. If that’s the case, why would the Hellmouth fear her?”

Giles shook his head. “I truly don’t know, Alec, but perhaps Dracula does.” Sighing, he got to his feet. “However, I don’t understand why he would be telling us all this unless he stands to gain from it.”

Buffy shrugged. “He knows either one of us can kick his ass. My guess is that he’s more afraid of the Hellmouth.” Alec shook his head.

“No. No, Dracula doesn’t fear us,” Alec replied. He looked up at the two of them and added, “or the Hellmouth for that matter, but he is concerned about how this plays out. I think he may have something to gain by seeing the Hellmouth destroyed, but I think it more likely he has something to lose if it isn’t.” Giles nodded thoughtfully as he paced the room.

“That sounds logical. We’ll have to see come tomorrow night.”

“Question,” Buffy chimed in, “Should Dawn be present at this meeting? If it’s this important and it concerns her so much, she may need to be in on it.” Giles considered before shaking his head.

“No, at this point we know so little about what’s happening. The less she knows, the safer she’ll be,” Giles answered. Alec snorted quietly at this but didn’t disagree.

“What about the others?” he chimed in, “Willow, Xander, Anya and Spike?” he asked. Giles nodded slowly.

“We’ve already seen what happens when secrets are kept within the group,” he gave Buffy a long look. Buffy returned it unwaveringly. Alec decided not to ask and his father continued. “We should alert everyone; Dawn being the only exception.”

Giles turned his head to regard them both, “We’ve kept them in the dark this long because we did not want them treating Dawn any differently than if she actually were Buffy’s younger sister. However, given the direness of the situation, I think the time for such sensibilities has passed.” Giles rested his eyes on the Slayer. Buffy exhaled hard. This wasn’t going to be easy to break to the rest of the gang.

“What about me?” Alec asked, “Is it necessary for me to come clean as well?” Buffy jumped in.

“No. No it’s not, Alec, this isn’t about you, it’s about me and Dawn. You should tell the others when you’re ready, not because you’ve been forced into it.” Buffy told him fervently as she took his hand in hers. Alec gave her hand a long squeeze in gratitude.

“Thank you,” he replied quietly. She smiled slightly at him before releasing his hand and turning her attention back to Giles.

“Okay, Round Robin tomorrow night, before we meet with Dracula. I’ll give everyone a call to let them know.” Buffy got to her feet. “We’ll all meet here before the meeting at the bronze tomorrow night.” Giles nodded.

“All right,” Giles answered. Buffy and Alec turned to leave when suddenly Buffy froze, a confused and distant look on her face. Alec stopped to peer at her concerned.

“Sis? You all right?” He asked her. Buffy snapped out of it.

“Yeah I’m fine, just…for a second there I felt,” The slayer laughed a little embarrassed. “Forget it, I just need a nap.” Giles looked worried.

“You’re sure, Buffy?” Giles asked gravely. Buffy hesitated for a moment, frowning before replying.

“Yeah, sure. Really I’m fine. See you tomorrow, Giles.” Giles relented.

“Yes. See you then,” Giles reassured her. Before leaving, Alec turned to regard his father questioningly.

“‘Round robin?’ ” He inquired. Giles smiled slightly.

“It’s a long story. I’ll regale it to you some other time,” The watcher told his son. Alec chuckled quietly and after giving his father an affectionate pat on the back, he turned and followed Buffy out of the house. Giles, casting a worried look at the quickly retreating pair and slowly closed the door.

“So what do we do now?” a voice called from behind him. Resting his head on the door, Giles didn’t turn as he addressed the speaker.

“If Dracula is here, then things truly have become dire. I cannot believe that Dawn's and my son’s arrival is a coincidence. Not now with Dracula returning so quickly after Buffy’s experience with the First Slayer.” Giles turned to examine the other man. “I believe something is coming. Something terrible. Something we’ve never faced before.” The other man nodded, folding his hands into his long dark coat.

“Between Cordelia’s visions and this, I’d say you’re right,” the other man said. “But that doesn’t answer my question. What do we do now?”

“We wait, Angel,” Giles quietly addressed the vampire before him, “and pray.”





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