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Chapter 6

"Bloody buggerin'…not Angel's kid. That's not Angel's kid. Slayer, what the bloody fuck is going on here?"

Buffy sagged against the dirt wall, feeling the sting of her injury for the first time.

"Follow them!" she hissed in a ragged whisper, overwhelmed, suddenly, by all she had seen and experienced in the last five minutes. She pressed her hand against the tear in her jacket and tried to stop the little bit of blood she could feel pooling there. "Please, don't let them take her!"

But she could feel it—they were already alone in the cavern.

"Who the hell is she, Slayer?" He grabbed her arm. "Who is the girl?" He'd seen it, seen her, the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on. He'd felt the pull to her, the urge to protect her; hell, he'd seen his own eyes looking right back at him. But it couldn't be real. Couldn't be.

"Spike," Buffy said, trying to shrug out of her jacket, to focus on the shallow wound at her side, but she could still see the little girl in her mind, and the vision consumed her. "Spike, I can't see anything. Light a torch."

He fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a lighter. She heard movement, and then she could see again, the dim light illuminating the empty room. Even the unconscious Bringer had somehow vanished, apparently through one of several tunnels branching out from the underground room.

"Can you smell her?" Buffy asked, desperately. "Can you tell which way they went?"

Spike stalked around the tunnel entrances, breathing in deeply. Finally, he shook his head.

"Crap!" she said. "Crap!" Stop thinking, she told herself. She stripped her jacket from her shoulders and pulled it tightly around her waist to staunch the trickle of blood from her side. But her hands were shaking, violent trembles that prevented her from tying the fabric in a knot. Hers. She knew it instinctively, even if she hadn't seen that face—the nose and little rosebud mouth, the honey glow of her skin.

"Here, Slayer," Spike said, taking the jacket from her hands. "Let me." He tied the jacket arms tight around her waist. "Better?"

His face was just inches from hers as he looked up at her with a kind of confused intensity that made her Spike-tinglies go crazy. Those vibrant blue eyes. The eyes of her little girl. "Better," she breathed.

"Slayer," he said. He studied her carefully in the flickering light, looking for truth in her eyes. He touched her arm softly, cautiously, hoping she didn't feel the tremble in his own hands. "The sprog?"

She slapped him, hard, across the arm. "What did you do to me?" she whispered. Then shouted. "What the hell did you do?" She slapped him again and stomped away, ignoring the sting of her wound.

He followed her through the cavern, heading back the way they'd come. "What the bloody hell—me? What did you do? What are you playing at, Slayer? You're the one who brought me here!"

"I did NOT bring you here! You followed me!" With a running leap, she managed to hurl herself, injury and all, out of the hole that led up and out of the cavern. He could hear her tumbling into the grass. He shook his head, impressed and frustrated. With a growl, he bent down and sprung up through the hole as well, taking a roll through the grass himself, and then popping upright.

"Slayer," he growled, grabbing her and spinning her around. "What the fuck is going on?"

"You," she hissed, one fist flailing out and aiming for his face. He ducked just before she could crush his nose for the second time in 24 hours. "You…you…you knocked me up!"

"Have you gone fuckin' barmy? I did not! Don't you think I'd know it if I knocked up the soddin' Slayer? Vampires can't have kids, Buffy! Someone's playing us!"

"Oh, you haven't done it yet, but you will! What'd you do, some kind of spell to get me to…to…" she looked him up and down, "to sleep with you?"

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her as though she had well and truly lost her mind. "Oh, like I'd have to do all that!"

"What on earth are you implying, Spike?"

"Know what you want, Slayer," he said, indignant. "Can smell it every time we fight, every time you're around me. Deny it all you want, but your body isn't playing along."

She tried to walk away from him again, but once more, he latched on to her arm. "You aren't going anywhere until you tell me what this is all about."

"Let. Go. Of. Me," she spat, trying her best to turn away.

"Buffy," he said, his voice suddenly softer. Surprised by the sudden change, she allowed him to spin her around to face him. "Buffy, I…please. I saw her. I saw what you saw. I have to know what this is. Why she looks like me. Why she looks like you. Don't do this to me."

He'd used her name. Not Slayer, not pet, not luv. Not cutie. Her name. So this was it then. Him. Her. She didn't need any proof to know that the girl they'd seen in the cavern was hers. Was his. Even if it hadn't been completely obvious just by looking at her, which it had. She felt it.

"We so need to get to the Magic Box," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Found him!" Xander said, striding into the Magic Box with Asher and Anya in tow. "One elusive future Watcher dude, coming right up. Found him at the Espresso Pump with a sandwich and a latte."

"I think he's broken," Anya said. "He won't respond to any of my questions. How am I supposed to know if Xander and I get married and make fat, pink, tiny people and grow old together? Oh, and money. Will we make lots of money?" She elbowed Asher in the side. "Tell me!"

"Disappearing acts aren't usually the best way to earn one's trust," Giles said flatly to the younger, well-dressed Watcher.

"My apologies," Asher said. "As discussed, it is best that the current Council not know of my presence in this time period. And I was in need of a quick pick-me-up. I did leave London in the middle of the night, after all. Calories and caffeinated goodness were just what the doctor ordered."

"Would the current Council have recognized you?" Giles asked, vaguely curious.

"Doubtful," Asher said. "I'm still at the Academy in your time. Besides that, there are only a few select members left who were part of this time period's Council."

"Interesting," Giles mused. "You know what I find even more interesting, though?"

"What's that?"

"The fact that you waltzed in here, referring to this weapon we're meant to help you seek out, never once bothering to mention that this weapon is a child. The child of a vampire, at that."

Asher's eyebrows rose, impressed. "The Watchers' Council could tell what the demon was traveling with?"

"My impression was that the Council made a very good guess, based on Sahjhan's…interest in acquiring the vampire child."

"Right…well, perhaps it's time I told you a little bit about the child. First of all, she is not a "vampire child." Such archaic terminology. She has a soul, if that's what you're wondering. She has a heartbeat. She's good, wonderful really. She is the child of a vampire, but she is somewhat of a hybrid. She has a human mother, albeit a very powerful one."

"So, then, what exactly is she?" Willow asked.

Asher looked irritated by her question. He flipped a stray dreadlock over his shoulder and pierced the witch with a dark-eyed glare. "She's a little girl. A very intelligent, very powerful little girl, one who will grow up to be the fiercest warrior the world has ever known. I'm quite fortunate to be her Watcher."

"So she's a Slayer," Anya said.

"No," Asher said.

"Then why does she need a Watcher?"

"She's more than a Slayer, more than a vampire, more than a witch. But she possesses characteristics of each. It's my duty to help her to discover her many talents, to hone her skills."

"Wow," said Tara. "She sounds amazing."

"Quite," Asher said. "Her parents are, themselves, fierce warriors. They train her, and I train her. Even the head of the Watchers' Council has a particularly vested interest in her." He lifted his chin a bit higher, looking proud. "I was hand-chosen to be her Watcher, actually, by the Council head and the girl's father. It was quite a grueling selection process."

"Huh," Willow said. "Who would have thought that Angel would be working so closely with the Council?"

Asher looked at her curiously. "He doesn't. What on earth would make you say that? This isn't Angel's child. Angel's son is an adult, and hardly in need of rescuing. Volatile guy, that one. Not to mention that the girl's actual father would knock you into next Wednesday if he heard you make that suggestion. He and Angel are extreme non-mixy things."

"Hey…you talk like us," Willow commented, tilting her head and looking at Asher suspiciously.

"I don't get it," Xander said. "Are all the vamps just slapping on souls and popping out little tykes in your time? Cause I thought, you know, being dead sort of made that kind of thing difficult."

"Has anyone else noticed that he talks like us?" Willow said again.

"Not all of them," Asher said, avoiding Willow's gaze and responding to Xander instead. "But there is more than one souled vampire where I come from. And, oddly enough, they are both fathers."

"So whose child is Buffy out rescuing?"

"You mean to tell me that you allowed…Miss Summers to go out searching for the child on her own? That's extremely dangerous."

"I think 'allow' would be a strong word choice," Giles commented drily. "If you knew Buffy at all, you'd know-"

"But I do," Asher interrupted, sighing. "I do know Buffy."

"I knew it!" Willow said. "You know all of us, don't you?"

Asher looked uncomfortable. "Well, most of you."

"I think you'd better tell us everything you know," Giles said.

"I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get back," Asher said. "It starts with a prophecy."

"Doesn't everything?" Xander quipped.

"Yes, we know." Giles looked impatient. "The prophecy about the demon Sahjhan being killed by the child of the souled vampire."

"No," Asher said. "Not that prophecy."

"Geez," Xander said. "More prophecy talk. Seems like all we ever do around here is research prophecies. And demons. And prophecies about demons. Oh, and fighting. We fight demons, too."

"Xander, that is all we do around here," Willow said. "That's kind of the point."

"Oh. Yeah. Are there still donuts?" He reached for the abandoned box in the center of the table.

"We also sell magical goods and accessories!" Anya chimed in.

"The crazy thing about this prophecy is that we've known about it for years," Asher continued, talking directly to Giles and paying no mind to the chatter around him. "You yourself are familiar with it already, I'm sure. The current Council will have been aware of it for ages. But no one recognized it as prophecy, you see. It was widely believed to be lore, a legend regarding the origin of the very first Slayer. It was never recognized as prophecy at all until our little…warrior was born and some questions were raised regarding her…unique nature."

He moved purposefully around the bookshelves, pausing in front of each shelf and looking up and down.

"Here," Giles said, pointing to a row near the bottom of one of the shelves. "You'll find First Slayer lore, rare as it is, in these volumes down here."

"Ah, yes," Asher said, carefully removing a book and blowing the dust from the cover. He opened it on the table, Giles looking over his shoulder. "It's…just here. Sumerian, but you can translate, I believe?"

"Of course." Giles leaned closer to the page and read aloud:

And the time will come

When the mystical shall prevail

At her behest

The original Slayer will be imbued

With the purest essence of the demon

With strength and power she will grow

And the world shall know its greatest warrior.

"And that's just the beginning." Asher looked up triumphantly, as though the passage itself was explanation enough. "There are books and books filled with prophecy regarding the twice-dead warriors and their offspring. It's thrilling, really."

"I'm not sure I understand," Giles said. "This is a reference to the First Slayer, not a prophecy at all. This passage is widely accepted as a reference to the creation of the First Slayer."

Asher shook his head. "Not anymore. That's the tricky thing about prophecy." He picked up the book. "The whole thing—this entire volume—was always believed to be filled with lore regarding the world's first Vampire Slayer, and let's face it, no one has really paid it too much attention because you know, the First Slayer is way dead and all. But it's actually filled with prophecy, regarding her. The child. What she is. What she'll become."

There was a loud crash as Buffy shoved the door open and stalked purposefully into the Magic Box, heedless of the tiny patch of blood seeping through the jacket around her waist. Spike was close on her heels, an unreadable expression on his pale face.

"You," she said, pointing at Asher, her voice full of venom. "I think you've got some serious explaining to do."





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