Chapter One - Feigning Normalcy
Fighting was of the good. Fighting helped her keep her mind off other not-so-good things.
Riley.
Glory.
Her mom.
She didn’t want to think about those things right now. She wanted to concentrate on beating the living crap out of the scaly demon on the ground in front of her.
It was easier to concentrate on blocking its kicks, returning its punches and eventually taking its head off than to think about how very bad her life was at the moment.
And it was certainly easier to concentrate on the foul smelling pile of goo that the demon dissolved into once it had been decapitated.
“This shirt’s dry-clean only!” she pouted, and glared at the puddle the demon had left behind.
“Well, if you will wear fancy little tops when patrolling…” an oh-so-familiar voice drawled from somewhere behind her.
Spike. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She so didn’t want to deal with him right now.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice resigned.
“Just out for a stroll. Can’t help it if you make my cemetery your playground.” His voice was lightly mocking, and she knew that if she turned around, she’d see an annoying smirk plastered on his face.
“Whatever. I’m going home.” She walked off, hoping that she wasn’t going to get a round of Spike-the-stalker tonight.
The footsteps from behind her let her know that this was not to be the case.
“Slayer, you dropped your…thingy…”
She frowned. She was pretty sure she’d not dropped anything, let alone her…thingy…
“That’s not mine,” she said, when she saw what Spike was holding. It was a cuff of some sort, made of dark brown and red leather. There were words carved into the underside, in a language that Buffy didn’t understand, and something smooth and white was pressed into the top, surrounded by two blood-red gems.
“Must’ve dropped from that nasty you were fightin’,” Spike shrugged, and made to slip it in his pocket. “Finders keepers an’ all that.”
“I think not,” Buffy said, and swiped it from him before he’d managed to hide it away.
“Hey! Reckon that’d fetch a pretty penny. I know a few demons who’re interested in doohickies like that.”
“Which is why I’m taking it to Giles. A demon had it, ergo it could be dangerous.”
“You’re no fun anymore, Slayer,” Spike grinned, “the Buffy I knew would’ve had a barbed insult cleverly disguised as a pun to throw in my face.”
“Yeah, well, I have other things on my mind at the moment,” she sighed, “can we just leave this for another day? I need to get home.”
She began walking in the direction of the cemetery gates, half-expecting Spike to follow.
When she glanced over her shoulder to check, he was gone.
*
“I found this on patrol last night,” Buffy said, placing the leather cuff on the table in the Magic Box. “A scaly demon melted all over my new shirt and left this behind.”
“Melted?” Giles asked, sounding vaguely amused.
“Yup. Meltdown of giant marshmallow man proportions. Kinda. Anyway, this got left behind.”
Giles picked up the cuff, peering at it intently through his glasses.
“It’s certainly an interesting artefact,” he said, “though it looks to be no more than a…a decorative item.”
He turned the cuff over to read the words etched into the leather.
“Vectis…Interimo…Lamia…well now that’s interesting…and a long way from home,” Giles frowned and turned the cuff back over, once more examining the top. “Ah…now I see…”
“Giles, cut the cryptic and let a girl know what you’re mumbling about.”
“Interimo is the Latin for slayer or killer. Lamia means vampire…and Vectis, well, that’s the name the Romans gave to a small corner of England that is now known as the Isle of Wight.” He held the cuff out towards Buffy and pointed to the smooth white piece-of-something nestled between the gems. “What do you think this is?”
“You’re knowledge-guy,” Buffy shrugged, “but I thought it looked like…a shark tooth or something.” Even as she said the words, she realised what the small white object was. “A fang?”
“Quite.” Giles was turning the cuff over and over, worrying the leather and occasionally running the pads of his fingers over the vampire fang.
“So – and I’m drawing the logical conclusion here, which for me is usually pretty close to the not-so-logical – this belonged to a Slayer who lived in Ilovewhite?”
“That is what I would presume,” Giles nodded, “we can research it properly, if you wish. I’d be interested to know why your melted demon had it.”
“Bleh. Research.” Buffy made a face. “Really not feeling that right now. Maybe after all this Glory stuff is out of the way…” She trailed off, the reality of the situation with the crazy she-bitch and Dawn sinking in once again.
“Right, yes,” Giles agreed. “It is imperative that we focus on Glory and the impending council visit for the moment. Anything else can be put on the, er, metaphorical backburner.”
“Gotcha.”
*
A god.
Glory was a god.
Buffy longed for the days when all she had to worry about were bat-faced Aurelian’s, giant snakes and Franken-demons.
How in hell – and that would be hell in the literal sense – was she meant to defeat a god? She felt as though everything was piling up, and had been for a long while. Riley’s betrayal and abrupt departure, her mom’s illness, finding out about Dawn… and now this? Would it never end?
She sighed, and ran her fingers over the worn leather of the cuff she’d found a week ago. Despite his words to the contrary, Giles had done a bit of digging in the council records, but had found no mention of a Slayer from that area of England at all.
Still, she’d taken to wearing the cuff. The contrast in the suppleness of the leather and the smoothness of the vampire fang comforted her somehow, and hey, Vogue said that cuffs were in.
Patrol was dead. She’d just decided that she may as well head home – she didn’t like leaving her mom and Dawn alone for very long anymore – when she heard the familiar sound of a cigarette being lit.
“Spike.”
“Slayer,” Spike nodded and took a drag of his cigarette.
“What do you want?” Buffy sighed, “my patience has been worn thin enough tonight.”
“Just wondered if you needed a hand patrollin’.” Spike threw his finished cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot.
“There’s nothing out here tonight,” Buffy replied, “I was about to go home.”
Spike looked like he was about to reply, when there was a high-pitched scream from somewhere in the direction of the trees.
“Famous last words, eh, Slayer?” Spike grinned, and took off, Buffy close behind him.
They soon encountered the source of the scream: a teenaged couple in the midst of a gang of vampires. The vamps were circling the girl and boy, snarling and flashing fang.
She shot a glance at Spike and he nodded, taking a stake from his pocket and squaring his shoulders.
“Hey guys!” Buffy called chirpily. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?”
The fight began in earnest, and Buffy revelled in it. Fighting meant not thinking.
She staked two of the vampires in quick succession, stepping through the dust they left behind to get to the frightened couple, who were staring wide-eyed as Spike whaled on the remaining vamps.
“Get out of here,” she told them, “and for future reference, it’s probably not a great idea to wander around a graveyard after dark.”
They shot her a last alarmed glance and then took her advice, running in the direction of the road.
She and Spike made short work of the rest of the vampires, until there was only one left. He was smaller, wirier than the others, but Buffy’s spidey-sense told her that he was a lot older. This was the Sire; the others had been his fledglings.
And he had Spike in a stranglehold.
“A… little help… Slayer…”
“What, can’t handle the big bad vampire by yourself, Spikey?” Buffy quipped, but she stepped forwards with her stake raised nevertheless.
Spike clenched his jaw and rolled his eyes at her comment, and continued to try and free himself.
Buffy punched Wiry-the-Sirey in the nose, then grabbed his other arm – the one not currently choking Spike – and twisted it up his back, before sweeping her leg around and knocking his feet out from under him.
Wiry growled and released Spike as he tried to get back on his feet. Somehow, all three of them had become tangled together – limbs flailing and smashing together as they tried to stand up.
Buffy had just managed to push herself up off the ground when Wiry knocked her back.
There was a muffled groan, a loud crack and a bolt of pain from her wrist. She looked up to see Wiry legging it, before the edges of her vision clouded over and everything went fuzzy.
“Bollocks!”
And that was the last thing she heard before succumbing to the darkness.
*
In coming around from unconsciousness, Spike realised three things simultaneously.
One: he had an armful of very unconscious Slayer; two: at some point in the little fracas with the vampires, they’d been transported to someplace that was decidedly not Sunnyhell; and three: they were surrounded by an angry-looking, crossbow-wielding mob.
“Bloody hell.”
Spike watched warily from his position on the ground, as a stocky man stepped forwards, the crossbow aimed directly at his heart.
“Name?” the man barked, his flinty eyes hard and unforgiving, his accent unmistakably English.
“How ‘bout you tell me who you are?” Spike replied, his eyes darting around for the nearest escape route as he tried to gently rouse Buffy.
“Rhys must have sent them,” came another voice, female and seductively low, “we should take them back to base and make them talk.”
“Name?” said the first man again, and he took another step forwards.
Spike felt Buffy shift slightly in his arms, and he ignored the man’s command, bending instead over her awakening form.
“Slayer? You all right, pet?”
Buffy moaned lightly, and her eyes flickered. “Spike?”
“Yeah,” he replied, and before he could say anything else, she was struggling to stand up. He reluctantly relinquished his hold on her and helped her to her feet. Once upright, she immediately dropped into a defensive stance.
“Who are you?” she asked of the group, positioning herself so that she stood to Spike’s right.
Now that Spike knew Buffy was all right, he let himself focus on the people surrounding them. They were a mixture of male and female, dressed in leather and wool outfits that wouldn’t have looked out of place during his childhood. He closed his eyes briefly, letting his senses guide him, and realised that the group was made up of both humans and vampires.
No one in the group had answered Buffy’s question; instead they were muttering to each other in voices too low for him to hear, even with his vampire hearing.
“What’s going on?” Buffy whispered. “Last thing I remember was that vampire stamping on my wrist and running off like a yellow-belly.”
“Damned if I know,” Spike replied, “I tell you, Slayer, hangin’ out with you and yours is a health hazard.”
“Why do you call her Slayer?” the group had stopped their mutterings and the brawny man spoke again.
“’Cos it’s what she is,” Spike replied, shrugging.
“Oh, gee, thanks Spike. Do the words ‘secret’ and ‘identity’ mean nothing to you?”
“It’s not possible that she is a Slayer,” the man replied, then turned to the woman – who Spike now knew to be a vampire – at his side. “They can’t have been sent by Rhys. This is something else.”
“Look, we’re talkin’ round in circles,” Spike said, impatience overruling sense, “you want names? I’m Spike, this is Buffy, and we’re out of here.”
He grabbed Buffy by the wrist, and flinched when a searing pain shot through his head as the chip fired.
“Oh, bloody hell!”
“Ow, Spike! Potentially broken wrist-gal here!”
“Wait!” The man strode forwards, and seized Buffy’s wrist, looking at the cuff she wore there, “Where did you get this?”
“What is this, grab-a-Buffy day?” she complained, and pulled her hand from the man’s grasp. “I found it, okay? Who are you people?”
“My name is Roman,” the man said, “and I am a Vampire Slayer.”
*
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