Bitten: Dead and Alive
Prologue
In England…
Buffy Summers lay asleep in bed. She kept drifting back to the Vampire Drusilla, who was walking around somewhere in New York…
"Buffy! Wake up!"
Buffy woke up. "Will?" She rolled over to look at Willow, her best friend who was letting her and her sister stay in England for a couple weeks to get over her break-up with the Immortal when Dawn got out of Italian school. Actually, Willow had been in Brazil, but she and Xander (who himself had been in Africa) had been visiting Giles and Andrew for a couple weeks, too, because Giles needed their help with a prophecy he was working on translating that he said was "more important than training the Slayers." Buffy sat up in bed and looked at Willow. "What happened? What's wrong? Is Dawn OK?"
"Oh, everyone's fine. But Giles hit a breakthrough on the prophecy and he says we all need to hear this. So he has me, Xander, Dawn, and Andrew in his study and Kennedy and Faith on speaker phone and we can't get started without you."
Buffy got out of bed. "OK, OK. I'm up. I'm coming." She and Willow left and met their friends in Giles' study. "Alright, what's going down in the Underworld this time of year?"
Giles picked up his book. "Well, if I've translated this prophecy correctly—which is most likely, based on how helpful you all were with this—the prophecy says: 'The Gates to the Blood-lands shall be opened by the rise of the Vampire whose heart beats yet.'"
Faith scoffed as she walked down a dark street in a park, patrolling with a stake and her cell phone. "A Vamp with a beating heart? Not likely."
"That's what I thought, Faith," Giles told her through the phone, "Until I read further: 'The daughter of murder shall be bitten by the mother of thieves.' I'm supposing that by 'mother of thieves' it would mean someone weak or unclean or—"
"Someone like Drusilla was?" asked Buffy, remembering her dreams.
"Or someone like Drusilla is now," said Giles, "But it would also have to be taken literally and she never had any children, let alone criminal children. And 'daughter of murder' could be the offspring of any convicted or on-the-run felon across the globe, so there's almost absolutely no chance of finding that one."
"Does it say anything else?" asked Dawn.
"Uh…'dying on the full moon, born of the eclipse, the blood-soul shall wreak havoc upon the Blood-lands and bring such to the world.'"
"Full moon and eclipse…" Xander thought about this and checked the lunar calendar he kept in his wallet. "A lunar eclipse! And that's supposed to happen tonight in New York!"
"So we're too late already," Kennedy sighed from the building where she and Willow were training their Slayers.
"For the killing, yes," Giles continued, "But the apocalypse itself will not take place for another while. 'And their blood shall taint the timeline until they know their destiny.'"
"So they're not even gonna know who they are for quite some time," Andrew explained.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that no one else will," said Giles, "'And light and dark shall do battle…'"
In LA…
"'…but of good and evil, neither side shall win the race,'" Illyria quoted, "'The time will not come when she is revealed until a heart is felt breaking beneath her.' Such is the prophecy of the blood-soul."
"So some girl out there," Angel reasoned from his chair in the Hyperion hotel, "the daughter of a murderer, is gonna get bitten and die, but her heart is still gonna be beating and she's not going to realize who she is for a while. Meanwhile, good guys and bad guys will be continuously fighting to find out who she is and get to her so that she can open the 'Gates to the Blood-lands' and wreak havoc there?"
"Havoc of which kind is the question," Illyria said, her ice cold eyes staring at him, Spike, and the guy who had almost died, Charles Gunn.
"Great," said Gunn, holding an ice bag to his head, "As if the Wolfram & Hart bad boys weren't enough."
"Pull yourself together, Charlie boy," said Spike, "We may have an even bigger fight coming for us in no time."
"We have time," said Illyria, "The child will not even be bitten until tonight. When tonight even I am not sure of. But if there is one thing I know, it is that the child may already be in grave danger."
In New York City…
Alexis Castle raced through her apartment. She had to get away! He was coming for her! Suddenly, she tripped on a knocked-over chair and fell to the ground.
Her father, Richard Castle, came up to her and pointed a toy light saber at her. "I've got you now, my pretty."
Alexis stood up and held up her light saber. "I will not stand for this. You killed my father!"
"No, Alexis…I am your father."
Alexis stared at him and sliced her light saber at his wrist.
Castle bent his arm down so that is appeared his hand was gone. "AH! You took my hand!" He screamed for a few seconds…and then burst into laughter. "I'm sorry, but…you got me!"
Alexis smiled and laughed, too. "Yeah, I totally did."
"Oh, that was fun! I love it when your grandmother's out."
Alexis kept laughing.
Castle put down the light saber. "Well, I better go back upstairs and get ready to go help Beckett finish this case. We are going to another party, and I don't wanna be underdressed."
Alexis smiled as her father walked off to his room and closed the door tightly behind him. She put her light saber down on the table. My dad. Where would I be without him? The doorbell rang.
"COULD YOU GET THAT FOR ME?" Castle cried through the tightly shut doors.
Alexis could just barely make out what he was saying. Something about the bathroom? OH! "I'VE GOT IT, DAD!" She raced over to the door and opened it. "Oh, hey, Carter."
One of her friends was at the door. "Hey, Al. Is it OK if I come in?"
"Sure, you're free to come in." She walked over to the couch and started to grab a CD. "If you want to, I can—"
The door shut.
Alexis whirled around and saw not Carter but an older woman (about late 20's or so) with brown hair standing there. "Who are you? Where's Carter?"
Drusilla walked closer. "Don't you recognize me, dear?"
Alexis stared at her in confusion. Was she trying to say that she was Carter?
"Amazing what a little magic can do for you."
She was. She must be crazy or something.
"Tell me who you are right now or I'm calling the cops."
"Oh, they won't do anything to help you." Drusilla got close enough to knock her onto the couch, knocking the phone off the table as well and pinning her down. "I've got you right where I want you."
"Let me go!"
"Hush, dear. How would you feel about eternal life?"
Alexis' eyes widened. What?
"A death traded for a birth…one lifetime traded for an eternity…I can give it you…if you wish it…"
"Please…"
Drusilla shushed her and slowly closed her eyes. Suddenly, her face changed. It was wrinkled and distorted and…demon-like. She reopened her eyes to reveal that they were golden.
Alexis started whimpering in fear.
"Don't worry, pet." She leaned in… "It'll only hurt a little…" She brushed Alexis' ponytail out of the way and bit into her neck…
Alexis stopped crying and leaned her head back…
"ALEXIS!" Castle's voice came through the doors.
Drusilla stopped feeding and looked at the doors as the knobs started to jiggle and open…
Castle walked into the living room. "Have you seen my—" He then saw the living room. Drusilla was gone, but Alexis was lying there on the couch…quite possibly dead… "Alexis!" He ran over there and kneeled by the couch, taking her in his arms and examining her. The first thing he noticed was the 2 bite marks on her neck… "Oh no." He quickly took out his cell phone and quickly dialed. "Come on…pick up, pick up! Pick up!" Finally, someone answered the phone. "Beckett! It's Castle! We're gonna have to cancel the party, something's wrong with Alexis!"
An hour later…
Castle sat at the police office, waiting for something to happen.
Detective Kate Beckett walked up to him and sat down on a chair next to him.
"Any word yet?"
"Lainie is still checking on her. She said that she might be able to figure out what happened, but she's not sure."
"I'm just worried about Alexis."
"I'm positive everything will be fine."
"How can you say that when my only daughter might be—"
"Dad!"
Castle turned around, followed by Beckett, and saw Alexis coming out of Lainie's room with a bandage on her neck and racing for him. "Alexis!" He jumped up and met her halfway down the hall, hugging her tightly. "I was worried about you!"
"I wasn't so happy either."
Lainie walked up to the father and daughter. "I see you found out for yourself that your daughter isn't dead."
"Yeah!" Castle said, "How'd you fix her?"
"I didn't. She was fine herself. She was just unconscious. I was only able to figure out the cause of her spike. Someone attacked her."
"They did?"
"It must have been whoever was at the door," Alexis reasoned, "I really don't remember anything past opening the door, not even who was there."
"Whoever it was took a liking to her neck," said Lainie, "2 little holes covered in blood and leaving traces of only—get this—tooth enamel."
"What?"
"Maybe it was Vampires," Beckett said, walking up to them. They all looked at her. "That's payback for when you thought our killers were psychics, time-travelers, aliens—"
"I get it! And I didn't say the killer was a psychic, I said that the victim was a psychic."
"Regardless," Lainie intercepted, "I checked her over and the only other thing wrong was some semi-major blood loss."
"But there was no blood on the couch," said Castle, "So where'd all that blood go?"
"No idea, but I was able to give her a little extra blood to hold her up, and I cleaned the wound, and she came to almost immediately."
Castle sighed and turned to his daughter. "I am so glad you're safe." He squeezed her.
"Dad! Need to breathe!"
"Right, sorry." He let go. "So, do we need to investigate this?"
"She wasn't killed, Castle," Beckett said, gladly.
"Attempted murder. And I wanna know who did it."
"Oh, uh, there's one more thing you may need to know," said Lainie. She looked at Alexis. "Alexis, honey, could you wait here in the hall?"
Alexis turned to her father, who nodded, and she nodded and sat down in the chair he'd been sitting in.
Lainie led Castle and Beckett in the room where they did most of their research. "Alright, you guys have to hear this: when you brought your daughter in…"
Castle carried Alexis to Lainie and laid her carefully on the autopsy table.
"…I got suspicious that something was up. So I hooked her up to a heart monitor to make sure if she was still alive…"
Lainie plugged in the heart monitor and it showed a flat line…
"…and it said she wasn't. Then her heart started beating again…"
…and suddenly, the line started beeping at a regular pace.
"…as if she'd only been unconscious the whole time. It didn't even take the typical 10 seconds of recovery. And it wasn't a semi-major blood loss, it was a major blood loss. I barely had enough blood of her type to reload her. Even if for a few seconds, your daughter was dead."
Castle and Beckett stared at her. "WHAT?"
Alexis, in the hall, heard that…and everything else… Why was her hearing so good? And that wasn't all. The next day, when her dad was making burgers, she was smelling not the meat but the blood coming from it…and she found herself listening to everyone's heartbeats…