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come on folks review please. it keeps the fingers typing
Dinner was going to interesting, thought Xander. His gift of seeing what was really going on had come to him slowly over the years, but now he could often pierce the veils that people hid behind. He trusted Spike in ways the younger Xander could never have believed.

And now, in this house, full of slayers only two doors away, dinner was being prepared for vampires and their ladies. Giles, already smartly dressed, was pacing the library going slightly mad. Having that many Vampires in his house was making him decidedly edgy.

Buffy and Spike were working out in the training room. No holds barred. It had scared the life out of him, seeing his beloved Buffy being thrown from one end of the room to the other, but she gave as good as she got. When things got tough Buffy got tougher. Faith always said she had another gear, over and above the other slayers, one she could pull when it was needed and no-one or nothing could stand in her way. Thinking of Faith made Giles smile. The thought of Faith Leherne as a mother was slightly amusing. Robin was fussing over her the whole time and she wasn’t allowed to patrol at all, but between Robin, who was turning into an incredible watcher, and the slayers she had with her, no nasties were surviving the slayer’s pregnancy. Though Faith had said if Robin wanted any more, he could have them.

The sound of a knock at the door brought him out of his reverie. Thinking it was their guests, Giles hurried to open it only to find a young man standing on the door step.
‘Bonjorno, is Dawn in?’ he asked in accented English. ‘I am Carlos, we go to college together.’

Giles nodded and called for Dawn, just as Buffy and Spike made their way back into the main hall. They were already dressed for dinner.

‘Can we help?’ asked Buffy.

‘Si, I am waiting for Dawn, I go to school with her.’

‘Hi Carlos, I didn’t expect you here; is something wrong?’ Dawn said, approaching the Italian man/boy. He greeted Dawn with a kiss on the cheek and Buffy had to lay a hand on Spike’s arm to stop the growling.

‘You have a dog?’ Carlos asked, looking around.

‘No,’ answered Dawn, ‘that’s just my Dad getting protective.’

‘Dad,’ she continued, ‘Mum, this is Carlos from college. What do you want, Carlos? I can’t come out tonight, we have guests.’Giving the boy a lovely smile. It was then that Spike realised that for the second time, she’d called him Dad.

‘No, no, mama wanted to invite you over tomorrow afternoon, to meet the family and use our pool, I can pick you up about 2pm, yes?’

Dawn looked at Spike and smiled.

‘I would love to come; see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Carlos.’

‘Good night Dawn, Mr and Mrs Summers.’ The young man held out his hand to Spike. ‘I will take good care of Dawn, my parents will be there, and my sisters, she will be alright.’ He thought that Dawn’s parents looked very young, and was a little nervous about the way the man was looking at him.

As he left, the limousine pulled up, saving Dawn any more questioning. The guests stepped out and made their way up to the door; Spike moved forward.

‘Charles, I offer Truce and Parley within my home; do you accept?’ Spike said as he offered the vampire his wrist.

‘I accept,’ Charles said, and sank his fangs into the proffered wrist.

‘Peace between us,’ he continued, and offered his wrist to Spike, who repeated the taking of the blood.

‘Peace between yours and mine,’ Spike completed the ritual.

And stood aside to let the guests into the house.

Rosamund and Matilda followed their menfolk (vampirefolk) into the house to see about 40 slayers hanging over the banisters to see the new arrivals. All the trainees wanted to see the dinner guests; although they were used to Spike this was the closest they had ever been to a vampire without trying to stake him.

Matilda pointed towards the watching crowd.

‘We have an audience,’ she said with a smile. ‘I hope you won’t have as much trouble getting them to bed as I do Issy.’

Buffy smiled, remembering the last dinner party. ‘No; if they are too difficult I send Giles up,’ she said with a grin.

She turned as she heard the doorknocker go again and opened the door to Br. Roberto.

‘I’m not late, am I?’ he asked. ‘I had to attend chapel before I came.’

‘Not at all; please, come in.’ Buffy smiled at the old monk and led her guests through to the dining room.

Conversation flowed happily during the meal. Even Rosamund seemed to relax a little. Buffy had sat her between her own mate, Marcus, and Dawn. The discussion at that end of the table seemed to be about paintings and the history of art. Marcus was giving Dawn a list of galleries that she really should see, and promising to get her into some of the private ones. Dawn was delighted, she was doing a project about the renaissance painters at college and had not been able to track down one of the paintings she had wanted to see.

‘Its so neat having vampires for friends when it comes to history,’ she gushed. ‘They actually lived through all the stuff our professors keep going on about. Makes it all real somehow.’

‘Well, when you need anything on Roman history from about 50BC you let me know, and I’ll help,’ Marcus told her. ‘My Latin, Greek and Aramaic are still excellent, so if you need help with languages, I’m your vampire.’

‘Are you flirting with me?’ she giggled.

‘Oh no, young lady, I value my unlife far too much. If your father or mother didn’t get me, Rosamund was a slayer in her time, and she certainly would. I never could best her in a fight unless I cheated.’ He added with a grin.

‘How did you meet each other?’ she asked Rosamund who was laughing at her mate’s comments.

‘I patrolled a hell mouth, like Buffy, one that had opened in Zagreb. And I kept coming across this annoying Master Vampire, who seemed determined to thoroughly annoy me at any and all opportunities. We fought, regularly, but for some reason I just couldn’t kill him, and believe me when I say it wasn’t for want of trying.’

‘And the amount of times I went to bed at dawn dreaming of my fangs in her neck, she drove me demented. I was well over 1350 years old at this point, and I couldn’t kill one 17 year old girl. I gave orders to my minions that she was mine, no-one else was to take her out; even when she burnt down the house we all stayed in, killing about 20 of said minions, she was mine.’

Rosamund smiled at Marcus, a loving and gentle smile that lit up the room. ‘Well, go on,’ Dawn asked with her normal impatience.

Rosamund gave her an indulgent smile. ‘I was called home to a small village in the North of Italy. My sister was getting married and I really wanted to be at the wedding. It was in late autumn and I really shouldn’t have left the village after the wedding, but I couldn’t leave the Hellmouth and Zagreb to my watcher and helpers. So I set out but I was caught out by the weather and became lost. I thought I had really breathed my last and fell asleep in the snow.’

‘That’s where I found her, unconscious and vulnerable; oh, I was tempted by that slayer blood.’ Marcus looked at Spike and Buffy.

‘I bet you can understand what happened next. I have never had a soul, never needed one other than Rosamund’s, but I couldn’t just kill her. If she was going to die by my hand it was going to be in a fair fight and not because the winter had got her, much as I wanted another slayer on my hands, and yes I had killed a couple before I met her; it wouldn’t have been right.

‘So I picked her up and carried her to a woodsman’s cottage that I knew had been abandoned. I’d seen it earlier when I had been tracking Rosamund. I made up the fire and tried to help as best as I could.’

‘When I came round,’ Rosamund continued, ‘I found that Marcus was there, and I was terrified. I was on a rough bed with a blazing fire warming me through and trapped with one of the most dangerous vampires of all time. The snow had completely blocked the chances of either of escaping the mountains until the spring and there was literally no way out. Then Marcus offers me a deal, seems there was only live chickens in the barn, and much as he loves fresh blood it has to be mammal. So, if he could feed from me occasionally, enough to stay alive, he would keep the woodpile topped up and I could keep eating the supplies of wheat and vegetables in the house. It was far too cold for me chance going out, so I agreed, providing he only fed from my wrist and I had a stake in my hand as he did it. The truce was to last two days after our leaving the mountains to give us both a chance to escape the other.

‘Well you can imagine what Buffy and Spike would be like if they had been trapped together all that time. 4 months, alone with nothing but chickens and carrots to keep us company. By the end of the first month we were ready to rip each others’ throats out, but by the time the snows melted we were mated.’

‘Rosamund’s watcher’s face was priceless when we arrived back in Zagreb, he had assumed that she was dead, or worse, and to see the pair of us wrapped in each other’s hearts was hard on Travers. I helped them out when I had to and when Rosamund turned 18 and went through the Cruciamentum, it was another Master Vampire locked in with her. The council would not believe we had mated and wouldn’t listen to the watcher: or so I thought. I wasn’t happy and I let it show. I broke into the building, to kill the other Vampire, and found Rosamund and he just talking, not fighting, not doing anything, just talking. The Vampire had even built her a fire to keep warm. When he saw me he backed off long enough for my demon to ensure that Rosamund was safe. He hadn’t even touched her, there was no scent off him anywhere, then he explained about the Covenant and how Master Vampires and their Slayer Mates were asked to join, he was there to offer us a place, when Rosamund retired from her duties, and we had as long as we wanted to think about. We knew that slayers were immortal, and he put no pressure on us. When we were ready, he said, and just left, after giving us his name: Lucius. It was Lucius that you felt at the Villa, he was upstairs guarding the families, just in case things went bad. Anyway, we continued as a family: Travers, Rosamund and I, until the time of the next slayer. She was chosen by the council, and spells were used to open her up to her powers. Travers did those spells. They didn’t strip Rosamund of her gifts but like the spell Willow used on all the potentials, allowed the next one to come.

‘Then we started to travel and see the world. The rest you know. Seems Travers had hoped to become a strong enough Warlock to take Rosamund for his own, so that he could live forever as well. It was all he wanted, power and life. So when she rejected him it started eating him up on the inside, turning him against the slayers and their line; then she met me and he was devastated. The rest you know.’

‘Why Buffy, and why now?’ Asked Xander, cutting to the heart of questions.

‘Why Buffy? Because she is the closest there has been to a real slayer in centuries, and why now, because of the rest of you.

‘A watcher who has dabbled in black magic and was adept in its use, taking the life of a friend; a witch who has tasted the dark side and killed; a vampire lover and a human friend who has not only been possessed, but has tried to commit heinous crimes: rape, abandoning his bride. And the key to the universe.’ It was Br. Roberto that answered.

And the volume grew louder and louder with the Scoobies trying to deny what had been said. ‘You have all stepped onto the dark side and chosen to return. Dawn was just born with her dreadful, wonderful power,’ he continued. ‘That gives you incredible strength; you have also all worked together before. When you took down Adam at the Initiative, you used a spell that combined your strengths and fed them straight into Buffy. The enabling spell. It’s that sort of power we need to find and destroy Travers. The man is so arrogant that he centred all his spells on himself. As soon as he is dead his spells will dissipate immediately, and all slayers will be free.’

‘And my daughter’s soul will be free to travel where it is supposed to be,’ added Marcus, ‘free to go to heaven.’





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