Giles was silent for an annoyingly long time.
Buffy cleared her throat, loudly. Giles continued to polish the air.
“Um, Giles, your kinda wiggin me out. I take it you have heard of William the Bloody?”
Giles looked at her as though she had grown two heads. “Of course I’ve heard of William the Bloody! Everyone’s heard of William the Bloody!”
Buffy arched an eyebrow at this statement.
“Well, every Watcher has heard of him. He’s a... mystery, an enigma... a legend. How did you come to know his name?” Giles sounded wistful and then hopeful.
Buffy decided that if she wanted Giles to be honest with her, she had to be honest with him, so she replied, “He told me when I met him.”
This time Giles looked as though he might faint. His voice came out as a croak as he said “You met him? You really met him?”
Buffy squirmed in her seat a little as she said “He sort of saved my life. A bit. At parent teacher night.”
Giles suddenly and literally sprung into action, running to the back of the library and his private books. He was moving quicker then Buffy had ever seen him move, and was back in front of her in seconds. “Blast! Where the bloody hell are my glasses?”
Despite her anxiety to know what had gotten Giles so riled Buffy had to stifle a giggle at the high pitched curse coming out of her normally calm watcher. “You kinda chucked them, over there.”
Giles almost ran to where Buffy gestured and then back over to his books.
Once again he returned quickly, this time with an old and hefty looking volume in his arms. He was flipping through the pages like a mad man. He gave a cry of success and thrust the book at Buffy, stabbing the page wildly as he said, “Is this who you saw?”
Buffy gave a sharp intake of breath as she looked at the drawing before her.
It was him. There was no mistaking it. He wasn’t as he was when she had seen him, his hair was dark for a start, and stuck up in messy curls. The leather duster and jeans were gone; he wore instead an old fashioned white shirt, which was open almost to the waist revealing the chiselled chest Buffy had imagined. The shirt was un-tucked over deliciously tight black trousers, and high black boots. The face was the same, the same sculpted beauty, but the expression was not a smirk of amusement, but of concentration, aggression, of raw animal power.
He was wielding a sword, and was standing before what could only be described as a sea of demons. Buffy then noticed that he was wounded, the artist had drawn various cuts around his body, but there was not one above his eye, nor was there already a scar.
It was him. But the drawing was in a book that must have been over a hundred years old. What did it mean?
“Well? Was it him?” Giles sounded impatient and Buffy realised she had been lost in admiration and awe for a long time.
Her voice came out as a whisper. “Yes, that’s him. Giles, who is he?”
Giles exhaled loudly, sinking into a chair and running a shaking hand through his hair.
“This book was written in 1892, after the greatest apocalypse threat in recorded history had been averted, thanks to the united efforts of the slayer and that man. That Buffy is William the Bloody, Saviour of Slayers.”
Buffy snorted a laugh. “Saviour of Slayers? What kind of a name is that?”
Giles gave her a reproachful look. “It’s a well deserved name, as you found out for yourself on Friday.”
Buffy blushed a little. “He was just in the right place at the right time! Xander could have hit Drusilla with that axe if he’d been around.”
Giles narrowed his eyes at her. “You wouldn’t be so flippant if you knew just who it was who saved you Buffy.”
“Then tell me! Please. Giles who is he? How has he lived this long? What is he? Is he a vampire?”
Giles gave her a penetrating look. “As he’s revealed himself to you he will doubtless return. I’ll tell you everything the council knows about him, and what I’ve found out on my own. It’s rather a long story Buffy, so please don’t interrupt. If you can help it.”
Buffy waited patiently while Giles polished his glasses, yet again. Finally he began.
“The council records state that in 1859 the slayer, Jane Cronmer, went rogue. She had been, up until that point, an exemplary slayer, a natural to her calling. She single handedly prevented three apocalypses, and, at nineteen, was the oldest slayer in history when she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
Giles continued as though Buffy hadn’t spoken. “For over a year the council heard nothing of her, but they knew she hadn’t died as no other slayer had been called. Finally, they heard news. Jane had abandoned her calling because she had fallen in love. With a vampire.” Giles looked pointedly at Buffy with Angel clearly on his mind. “He was known as The Predator. Needless to say, this vampire did not have a soul. He was just about as soulless as you could get. He killed without mercy, had been known to massacre whole villages for fun, and he had a particular reputation for torture. He was ruthless. Bloodthirsty. Pure Evil. The council initially hoped that Jane had been put under some sort of thrall, and that they could rescue her. Unfortunately it soon became clear that this was not the case, she had been seduced by the dark, and she revelled in it.”
“I thought you said that Vampires couldn’t fall in love? At least, Vampires without a soul.” She added hastily.
“They can’t” Giles replied firmly. “But The Predator was far from stupid; he knew what having the slayer as his mate would mean, protection and added strength. He would have easily convinced Jane that he returned her love. They joined forces and strengths, causing devastation untold. The council knew she had to be stopped. She had to be eliminated so that a new slayer could be called and the light would have a champion once again.”
There was an awful silence, then,
“They killed her?! The council killed her?!” Buffy’s voice had become shrill.
Giles sighed, “Buffy, you have to understand, she was no longer the slayer, she was the enemy. A very powerful, dangerous enemy. The council had a duty to protect the innocent, she had to be stopped.”
“So they killed her?” Buffy repeated in disbelief.
Giles looked sad, and suddenly older as he shook his head. “They tried, but every attempt was a failure, ending in the death of at least one member of the council. They didn’t know what to do, Jane was out of control, beyond the councils reach. And then... then the unthinkable happened. Jane fell pregnant. She had a son.”
“A son?” Buffy’s head spun. She had never heard of a slayer living past twenty one, let alone having a child, and a human having a child with a vampire was impossible. Wasn’t it?
Giles nodded. “The council didn’t believe it could be true at first, but they received visual confirmation. Against all the laws of nature the couple had had a child, a boy, who Jane named William.”
Buffy looked as though she was going to interrupt again so Giles plunged on with his tale.
“The council came to believe that The Powers That Be had intervened to make this happen, as having the baby changed Jane. Faced with the purity and innocence of her own child the guilt over what she had done hit her hard. She didn’t want her son to be damned as she and his father were. She wanted to repent, to try and repair what she had done so that her William could grow up in a safer world. The Predator did not take kindly to Jane’s change of heart. He tried to force her to continue on their path of darkness. She decided that the only way to keep her son safe was to leave her, uh hum... lover... She went on the run, she managed to evade him for a while, but he wouldn’t let her go. When he found her he tried to make her love him again, but her eyes had been cleared. He... he tortured her, to within an inch of her life, but she would not relent. So he killed her, in front of their four year old child, so that she would know exactly how he planned to raise him.”
Buffy had been shocked into silence, and Giles didn’t seem inclined to continue for the time being.
After a while Buffy thought of something. “Giles, if vampires can’t love why did The Predator keep his son alive? Surely having a kid around would have well, cramped his style?”
“I have no doubt that he would have killed his son, if his mother had not managed to keep him alive for long enough for his father to realise he happened to be an extraordinary being.”
“What do you mean?”
“It soon became clear that William was not a human, but nor was he a vampire. He was a mixture of both, immortal and reliant on blood to live but able to withstand sunlight and the other vamperic weaknesses, whilst also embodying the strength and ancient power of the slayer. The Predator planned to raise his son to be his greatest weapon. His childhood was one of violence and pain. He was taught to follow in his father’s footsteps, groomed to be a ruthless, sadistic killer, but the Predator vastly underestimated the slayer side of William, and the strength of his humanity. When he was no more than your age his ability and power had far surpassed that of his fathers. Determined that he would not be a pawn in the Predators deadly game, one night he turned on him. He killed him.”
Buffy gulped, “How did he kill him?”
Giles coughed and squirmed uncomfortably. “He tortured him in the same way he had seen his mother be tortured, with a railroad spike, and then he staked him. After that it was said that a railroad spike was his favourite weapon to use against enemies. He has actually been referred to as ‘Spike’ in some journals.”
That was so not the way Buffy had imagined Spike to get his nickname, but she still thought it suited him more than William.
“For several years there was no record of what became of William, and then, in 1884 he came to the aid of the slayer of the time when she was in most desperate need. He went on to save her life on several occasions, and when she died he did the same for the next slayer, and the next, and the one after that.
The council repeatedly attempted to make contact with him, but he never appeared to anyone but the slayer he was aiding, and very occasionally their watchers. His fighting prowess earned him the nickname of William the Bloody, and he later became known as The Saviour of Slayers. The sketch I showed you is one of only a handful of images that exist of him. What records the council has of his activities and achievements are down to accounts made by the slayers and their watchers, and the councils spies. Anything that was not known to be fact was speculated and conjectured. A lot of his past and his power remains a mystery.”
Buffy was reeling from all the new information, and Giles was not done yet.
“In the 1970’s William was known to be in New York, aiding a slayer called Nicky Wood. When she was killed William disappeared, no trace could be found of him, and he has not appeared to any slayer since. Until you Buffy. The council believed he had been killed, I never even dreamed it would be my slayer who revealed him once more.” Giles looked ridiculously proud for a moment, and Buffy couldn’t help but feel a bit special.
After hearing of what Spike had been through, and knowing that a lot more had probably happened to him, of which she had no idea, Buffy’s conflicting feelings concerning him grew even more turbulent.
Many things still puzzled her, but one thing stuck out particularly. “Giles, how come Spi-William knows when Slayers are in trouble and where to go to help them? And if he’s as kick ass as you say he is, how come he doesn’t always save them?”
Giles looked at her as though she was a very bright student who had just noticed a flaw in a particularly complicated math problem.
“That Buffy is a very good question, and one which concerned the council for decades. Many slayers were asked to find out how William seemed to know what was coming, but only one slayer ever got the answer. Nicky Wood kept journals which would make any watcher proud” Giles gave Buffy a pointed look which she determinedly ignored, being well aware that at that very moment the journal Giles had been badgering her to keep was being used to prop her bedroom door open. “In one of her last entries Nicky detailed a conversation with ‘Spike’ (as she called him) in which he answered many questions for her. It seems as though, through his mother’s blood, William has a primal connection with the slayer line, and is consequently subjected to slayer dreams and visions. He is able to see when a slayer is in trouble, or see how their future lies, and so save them or alter the course of their destiny.”
There was a dramatic pause and Buffy felt her arms getting all tingly.
“William also explained that when he no longer received visions about a slayer, or when their future was blocked from his sight it meant that their time as slayer was at an end, and nothing he could do would save them.”
Buffy fervently hoped that Spike would be having visions about her for a long, long time to come.
With all the talk of visions Buffy suddenly remembered Drusilla, and some of her mad ramblings suddenly seemed to make sense. Then she felt a bit sick.
“Giles, when I was at the school and Spike- William- whatever, stopped Drusilla from killing me, it seemed as though, it was like they knew each other. Do you, do you think that means he knows, or used to know, Angel?”
There was a sudden bang and the library door was thrown open.
“Oh, me and peaches go way back luv. How is captain forehead these days?”
Spike lounged against the doorframe as though he owned the place, and whilst Buffy’s heart skidded out of control Giles promptly squealed in a very un man-ly manner before fainting dead away.
Spike raised an eyebrow. “I sure do know how to make an entrance.”
[Reviews - 198]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 4571 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Again, sorry for the long wait, im hoping to get a couple of chapters on this week. as you may have already guessed this is a slow burn story, and will probably turn out to be annoyingly long!
Chapter End Notes:
sorry i keep making each chapter end on a cliff hanger, but i wanna keep you guys interested! :)