Chapter Two
A Startling Discovery
*Just one more quick run through,* Buffy told herself, as she began to retrace her steps back through the dark alleys of Sunnydale’s business district. She had long since quit patrolling in cemeteries, as there were never any newborn vamps around anymore. She now basically stuck to deserted streets and alleys, where what few vamps were left would lie in wait for potential victims.
Nothing tonight. Nothing any night. Nothing ever.
Why did that fact depress her? No vampires = job done = happy Slayer. Right?
Wrong, she admitted to herself with a sigh. No vampires = no job = *bored* Slayer.
Suddenly, to her surprise and relief – relief?!—she sensed a vampire nearby. Looking quickly around, she saw no one but a young man standing near the end of the street ahead of her. Casually she started toward him, acting as if she hadn’t yet noticed him. Just a normal dumb blonde, out for an evening stroll alone through a dark alley. Perfect vampire bait.
The young man turned toward her at the sound of her approaching footsteps – and then took off running. Buffy gave chase, vaguely wondering if vampires had some kind of sixth sense that screamed, “Slayer! Danger! Run!” like her Slayer sense warned her of their presence.
Obviously this particular vamp’s sense were not that acute, after all, she realized, stopping short. He had run them straight into a dead end. Brick walls on three sides, and an itching-for-a-fight Slayer on the fourth.
“New in town?” she smirked. “Next time invest in a street map. Oh wait…never mind.” She frowned, then shrugged and smiled. “Won’t *be* a next time.”
To her disappointment, the vampire did not respond to her witty banter. *Am I losing my touch?* she wondered. In fact, the fledgling before her did not even seem to want to fight her at all. He was looking frantically around for any route of escape. Finding none, he took a few trembling steps backwards, until his back hit the wall, his hands outstretched in front of him defensively…or…pleadingly?
Buffy didn’t want it to be *this* easy. “Come on,” she encouraged her opponent, beckoning with both hands. “You can take me.” She frowned slightly, then corrected, “Well, no you can’t. But you can try! Come on. *Please* try?” She cringed inwardly at the whine on the end of her own words.
*You are pathetic,* she informed herself. *The Slayer, begging a vamp to attack her!*
Well this was obviously not going to be the fight she was hoping for, but she still had her duty to do. Taking out her stake, she advanced on the terrified vampire. As she drew nearer, she frowned. That was odd. He had not vamped out once during the entire encounter; even now as she made her attack, he was still in his human face – and a very nice human face it was, she had to admit. The vampire, who could not have been older than nineteen or twenty when he was turned, had thick, dark, wavy hair and ice blue eyes, fine features that spoke of intelligence and confidence. But this creature was anything but confident – or so it appeared to be.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She recognized this. This was a ploy, to throw her off her guard, make her feel sympathy for the undead evil thing so she’d let down her defenses – and he could stab her in the back! Er, rather, rip out her throat!
Well, she wasn’t sympathetic! Not a bit!
She moved in quickly, tired of this peculiar confrontation. *Time to end this.* A couple of steps from the vampire she raised her stake to strike.
At the sight of the weapon, the creature finally went into action, aiming a desperate, if poorly-aimed, swing at her face. She ducked back to avoid it, so that it just barely grazed her cheek. The vampire took a step past her – and suddenly dropped to the ground, holding his head and moaning in agony.
Buffy froze, her heart pounding, her head spinning with the realization as all the pieces came together in her mind.
She recognized *this*, too.
As the vampire struggled back to his feet, backing away from her again, she exclaimed, “You have a chip in your head!”
The vamp did a quick double take, then stammered in a voice raspy with lack of use, “H-how did you know that?” He flinched, as if expecting her to strike him.
“I know another vampire who had one,” she explained, her voice soft with memory. “Put in by a group that called themselves the Initiative. Know anything about them?” she asked, eyebrows raised and arms crossed over her chest in her classic Slayer interrogation pose.
If this was indeed an escaped Initiative vampire, she would be faced with the unpleasant task of actually calling the number Riley had left her in case of slayage-related emergencies. She had sworn when he gave it to her that she would never use it; she wanted nothing more to do with the Initiative, ever again. Which was the reason that she *would* call; Buffy could not find it in her to stake a creature that was no harm to anyone, but if this vamp was being pursued by the Initiative, there was no way that she was going to be found harboring him. The Initiative appeared to be doing a decent job of things, this time around, and Buffy preferred not to create any conflict with them. She would call Riley and tell him to come pick up this wayward fledgling.
At the mention of the Initiative, the vampire’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Please!” he whispered, shaking his head and backing away again. “Please don’t make me go back there!”
“No one’s making you go back,” Buffy lied smoothly, making her tone soft and soothing as she slowly maneuvered him so that he was backing toward the wall again, and not toward the open street. She would try a different tactic for once. “I just want to talk to you,” she insisted, stepping cautiously toward him once his escape was cut off.
This vampire was obviously as harmless as Spike had been after the Initiative chip had been implanted – moreso, actually, because this vamp lacked Spike’s experience and intelligence. This alley left too much opportunity for escape, and she had to get to a phone if she was going to call Riley. Against the inner Giles-voice insisting that this was a foolish thing to do, she was going to take him back to her house.
The vampire seemed to realize that she was up to something. He jerked away as she reached toward him, snarling, “Yeah, right! Please! You expect me to believe that the *Slayer* just wants to *talk* to me? What you *want* is to kill me!” It was the first aggression that he’d shown yet, and Buffy found herself actually pleased.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” she snapped back, silencing him. *Not the most original line, Buffy,* she shrugged inwardly. *But there’s a reason why it’s overused. It works.*
This time when she moved forward and took him by the arm, he flinched, but did not pull away, as she led him out of the alley and toward her house. He was strangely compliant; he seemed to be used to being ordered about, made to do things. For some reason, it was disturbing to Buffy; she wondered just what sorts of activities the Initiative was engaged in now. Why should it bother her? she wondered. What did it matter what the Initiative did with the vamps, as long as they kept them from hurting people?
Maybe it was just the fact that the boy had yet to vamp out in front of her, Buffy realized. Even when under attack, he had kept his human features. It was making her subconsciously think of him as human.
“Why didn’t you go into game face?” she asked him suddenly as they walked.
“Huh?”
“Your vampire face. Why didn’t it come out when I attacked you?” she clarified.
“Oh,” he nodded, looking down at the sidewalk. He shrugged as he looked back up at her. “It’s not allowed.”
Now it was Buffy’s turn to go “Huh?”
“If I do, the chip will go off,” he explained.
Buffy was surprised. Spike’s chip had never gone off unless he had actually attempted to hurt someone.
Sensing her confusion, he continued, “They don’t like it. The soldiers. They say it shows rebellion. We’re not allowed to do it except in training.”
“Training?” Now Buffy was even more confused. His answers were just bringing up more questions. But they had reached her front door, so she paused to unlock it. Looking back at him, reluctant to ask, she said in a soft voice, “What’s your name?”
He looked startled for a moment, then responded haltingly, “D-darian.” Upon seeing her puzzled look, he explained, “It’s been a while since anyone’s used it. We all have numbers instead of names.”
*Hostile 17,* floated through Buffy’s thoughts unbidden; she shook her head to clear it and said, “Come in, Darian.”
She gestured for him to go in ahead of her, then led him by the shoulder toward the kitchen. Dawn was in the living room watching television. She jumped up immediately and followed them.
“Mom says no boys allowed while she’s not here,” she said accusingly.
Annoyed, sitting Darian down in one of the kitchen chairs, Buffy said flatly, “He’s not a boy.”
Dawn’s eyes widened, and she came closer to Darian, looking him over obviously and unashamedly. “He’s a vampire?” She frowned skeptically, glancing at Buffy. “He doesn’t look very scary.”
Buffy glanced at Darian and had to agree. In the harsh fluorescent light, she could see that he was painfully thin and drawn. Pale bruises stood out on his ivory skin in several places; he looked like he’d been through hell, and without a bite to eat the whole time.
“Is he your prisoner?” Dawn asked excitedly.
“No…yes,” Buffy nodded decidedly. “He’s my prisoner.”
“Are you going to torture him for information?” Dawn asked eagerly, then without waiting for an answer, “Can I watch?”
Buffy turned to see Darian looking with horrified suspicion at the fascinated thirteen-year-old circling his chair like a shark.
“Dawn, go upstairs,” she ordered, opening the refrigerator door.
“I don’t have to,” Dawn declared, not taking her eyes off Darian.
“Go upstairs or I’ll tell Mom you ate the whole gallon of fudge ripple ice cream by yourself,” Buffy restated her threat.
Without another word, Dawn headed for the stairs.
When Buffy turned away from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in her hand, to meet Darian’s look of horror, she shrugged, “My sister.”
“Slayers have sisters?”
“This one does,” Buffy muttered, sounding none too pleased about it as she cut the corner off the bag and poured its contents into a mug.
“You keep blood in your refrigerator?” Darian asked, eyes wide in surprise, but fastened on the mug in her hand.
Buffy shrugged, *really* not wanting to have that conversation. “Just in case,” she said softly as she put the cup in the microwave. Then she turned and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms and frowning. “Hey! I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions here!” she pointed out. Without her meaning for it to, her frown softened slightly, and she asked with more gentleness than she had intended, “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
Darian swallowed, his gaze now firm on the microwave door. “Since I got away. Three – no, four days?” he guessed.
As she set the heated blood in front of him, she sat down across from him and watched him for a moment as he drank thirstily, draining the mug in one gulp.
“Thank you,” Darian said softly, giving her a grateful smile. Buffy just looked away. There was a silence, before Darian broke it again. “I’d never been outside the Initiative before…not since I was turned. I didn’t know what to do – how to survive. I’d have died out there if…”
“I’m *not* your savior,” Buffy stated emphatically, hardening her voice deliberately as she stood up. “I wouldn’t *starve* a dog, or any animal. Just because I’m not a heartless monster doesn’t make me your friend.” She wondered if she was saying it more for his benefit or for hers.
Against her will, she was starting to feel sorry for this creature. Apparantly he had never hunted, never harmed a human, not if he had been in the Initiative since he’d been turned. Buffy frowned as the implications of that statement occurred to her. Did that mean he had been turned *inside* the Initiative? She turned to ask him, but he was talking again.
“Still,” he argued, his tone still thankful, giving her a curious look. “You *did* help me, and I’m grateful.” He laughed softly. “My sire said you *were* a heartless monster. He said you held *him* prisoner one time and wouldn’t feed him for days…”
Buffy’s heart dropped, and suddenly she *knew*. Turning quickly back to him she repeated urgently, “Your *sire*? Who’s you sire?”
Darian frowned at her expression. “I don’t know his name. I’ve always only called him ‘Sire’. But the soldiers refer to him by his number—seventeen.”
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