Slayer Gothic 3
Part 1
Summers Residence. Sunnydale.
There was something wrong here, but Buffy just couldn't figure what it was. The plants in her room had been carefully watered, by the looks of things her Mom had even dusted their leaves, the bed was made, the boy band and ice skating posters were up, her wardrobe was full of new clothes and even shoes for the coming school year, and the carpet was clean, the wallpaper hadn't been replaced, and even her slippers were in the right place. It all seemed perfect, yet there was something wrong here.
She looked around the room and then walked back to the bed, where her bag was lying. It contained just one thing that she had forgotten to unpack. She pulled out Mr Gordo and placed him carefully back in his place of honour. Then she tweaked him slightly to the right. He looked a bit squished, but that was just from being jammed in a bag for so much of the summer.
Sitting back down on the bed she looked around again and while the room did feel more right with Mr Gordo restored to his rightful place it was all still a bit freaky, being home.
She had a familiar and yet unfamiliar feel of the bed due to not sleeping in it for so long. Then she noted the smell of the room itself. For one thing, it smelt a lot fresher, as it her mother had cleaned up in here everyday. Knowing her Mom, she probably had as well.
Yes, it all was a bit freaky. She had the odd feeling that nothing really fit any more, that everything was, like Mr Gordo, a little out of place. Looking over to the table next to the bed she reached out and picked up her diary, soon she began to write.
Once she done she sighed and stood up. She'd seen Mom and now she had people to see. Wincing she thought of Willow, her supposed best friend whom she hadn't spoken to in over a month.
Not that this was her fault Buffy's father had insisted on the cruise, and this had just been after spending 2 weeks in Hawaii, and while Buffy herself had felt no desire to even met her new stepmother, her biological mother had insisted she go. All she'd wanted to do was to visit her father in LA for a week and then come back home.
Buffy had been gone from Sunnydale for only eight weeks, yet it felt like so much longer. Perhaps that was because she'd been able to forget about being the Slayer for so long and being able to focus on issues more normal people had to deal with, such as stepmothers who were clearly gold diggers and too young for her father.
As such as she'd hated it, she had for 42 days been free of anything supernatural, and now she was back at the Hellmouth, this didn't please Buffy at all.
On the plus she would see her friends and boyfriend once again, this made Buffy smile, and she figure that perhaps this place would feel more like home again once she had rejoined the group.
(Line Break)
Home. Sunnydale.
When Amy entered the study, school books in hand, she saw me and paused.
"Is everything alright, Damien?" she asked.
It took me a moment to remember I was Damien, I'd not felt right using that name ever really, but after spending so much time at the Citadel it felt even more wrong.
"No" I replied "I'm getting some weird readings on my Slaydar, and I ran into Buffy earlier, I don't think that we have a very happy little Slayer back in town".
Amy needed a moment before replying.
"Your Slaydar?" she asked "Is that like Gaydar for Slayers?".
More or less, and I was surprised that Amy didn't know about it, I was sure I must have mentioned it, then again she was preoccupied by her return to school.
"Its like a Slayer sense" I attempted to explain "Its like a feeling I get something evil is nearby, and it triggered after I dropped Buffy at home".
I'd picked her up from the airport and she'd seemed fine then, but when she'd gotten home my Slayer senses had informed me that was something wrong. I couldn't tell what it was. I doubted it was any sort of feminine issue as that would not trigger my Slayer sense.
"So how was your summer?" Amy enquired.
Like Buffy I too had spent a couple of months out of Sunnydale, and like her it hadn't really been my choice.
My Watcher, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, had decided that he would take me across the country to fight monsters, we'd stayed in hotels while hunting all sorts of creatures. If not for the fact that I'd been able to bring Faith and Tara along it would have been like a more boring version of the TV show Supernatural, only without the homoerotic subtext.
We'd actually had to do quite a bit of investigating to find them as unlike vampires and dumber demons the bad things we'd hunted didn't just hang around in graveyards or in nightclubs.
Having a witch along had proven very helpful, and while Faith didn't have any noticeable powers, she'd been able to keep company, and she'd provided much in the way sexy time, which was good
On the plus side I'd gotten to do some more travelling, to see more of the country, and thanks to my personal wealth I'd been able to ensure that we stayed in decent hotels.
Alas there had been a downside, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, the fact that he was annoying to be around hadn't been the real issue, it was that we'd not been able to take our advanced gear, the stuff we'd gotten from other worlds.
I was sure that Giles would never tell his bosses about what my group really got up to and the resources we have, but Wes still seemed like he fresh out their academy and very loyal to what was really a rather useless group. I was sure that if that Conical found out the truth they'd either try to take control, or they try to destroy us, because we were a threat to them.
"Good" was what I said to Amy.
Actually it was more mixed then anything. Sure I'd saved lives, battled evil, fucked two of my girls in fun ways, and Wes had even lightened up, but now that I was home again I felt unsettled, and I wasn't even sure why.
I wondered if I just like travelling to new places and battling evil. Sunnydale had evil, but I found it too easy to defeat. Perhaps I needed a greater challenge, and I didn't think I'd find it here.
"Did Willow tell you that I ran into her San Francisco?" I asked Amy.
Willow's mother and father never spent much time at home. They were always off for a conference or what not somewhere else. Recently Willow's mother had written a book and it had become a great success with psychiatrists across the nation, as such Willow's mother had spent this summer on a book signing tour and for once she'd take her daughter with her.
I'd run into Willow at a university while hunting some sort of demon that drank the brains of smart people, the demon would bite the skull of a clever clogs injecting its venom which dissolved a person's mind, then it would drink the goo with this straw tongue thing it had its mouth. Nasty critter, I was glad I killed that thing because it had gone after Willow's mother.
"Yeah she told me" Amy replied as she placed her arm full of books on my desk "Fred said you need to read all of these before next month and she'll have some essays for you to write before you take your exams".
I sighed and remembered that I had promised to attend college with my harem, and that meant passing my GED. Certain employers would prefer a high school diploma equivalent, but Sunnydale College would accept either as long as the score was good, and given my wealth and the fact that I was a Slayer getting a full time job wasn't a concern for any way.
While I doubted I'd live to finish college I didn't tell my girls that, and what got most Slayers killed was recklessness, so if I was careful I might see my twenties for the second time.
Amy soon left the room, and I looked at the pile of books. Maths, science, history and so on. I should be out hunting the forces of darkness, and instead I had homework.
This sucked.
(Line Break)
Summers Residence. Sunnydale.
The Slayer faced a tough choice. Which sword to take with when she went out.
On the one hand she had Taragarth, and even if the blade was sheathed, the bearer of Taragarth would be protected from extrasensory perception and all detection spells. Once drawn, the bearer would also be protected from flames, and if they were to fall more than ten feet, the sword was enchanted with feather fall spell which would prevent the holder from going splat. The sword also had a knack for cutting through bad guys.
She had other swords, a Jewel ed Rapier was a little more obvious due to being larger and shiner, it was attractive to look at it, but not as pretty as some of her other weapons, such as the Beautiful Blade, which like the Jewelled Rapier was from Mareth.
Well, for her first night back, and some possible Bronze action ahead of her, a smaller weapon was better. As such she took Taragarth which was a short sword, and therefore easier to hide under a coat.
When she left her room she saw that her Mom was about to hammer a nail into a wall. Her mother was surprised to see Buffy as such the hammer came down on the wall, not on the nail, and left a nasty hole in the plaster.
"Buffy, you startled me," she said, and then went back to knocking the nail into the wall.
Hopefully whatever her mother was going to hang up would cover that hole.
"I thought I'd slip out and say hi to Willow," she said
Then frowned at the mask that Mom was hanging on the nail. Not only was it ugly, Buffy found it unsettling.
"It's a piece of tribal art" Joyce Summers explained "a mask from Nigeria. Isn't it amazing? There's no space at the gallery just yet for it, so I'm hanging it here for a little while".
Buffy didn't want to look at the 'art' as it repelled her, but she found it hard to look away.
"It looks... very masky" the Slayer remarked "Kinda fangy too".
She then decided to change the subject.
"I won't be out too long" she informed her parent "I'm just going to spend some time with Willow".
Her mother smiled.
"Do you need some food? I mean, will you be slaying?" she asked.
While slightly freaked out by the question, Buffy still managed a smile.
"Not thanks" she answered "I haven't recovered yet from the four-course snack you fed me earlier, Mom, and the slaying depends on the locals being uppity. I'll be okay".
The fact that her Mom was asking her slayer-related questions was a bit freaky. Being asked if she wanted sandwiches to munch between dusting vampires was also a little odd. Her mother had known about the Slaying for a while now, but she'd ignored its existence for the most part. Now she seemed to be accepting it, and while this should make Buffy happy it didn't. Perhaps because she'd never wanted her home life to mix with her Slaying.
Soon Buffy wandered down the street and looked at the horizon. The sun was setting. Almost time for the locals to start getting frisky if they were of the undead kind. Summer time was normally downtime for vampires and other things that avoided the sun, but the season would soon change and the monsters would be spending more time out of where ever it was they called home.
"Back to work" the Slayer whispered she began a quick patrol.
The Bronze and Willow could wait for an hour.
(Line Break)
Library. Sunnydale High.
Not long ago my Watcher had called me and requested that I come to the library, which he had taken over as librarian, when Giles moved on to be CEO of CRD, the company my group and its allies ran.
CRD had already sold a fancy new kind of software, that could be used for all kinds of operating systems, to Microsoft who'd paid millions for it and if I was any judge it would net them hundreds of millions, maybe billions, because the software was simply so much better then anything else in the world. The software had been seriously downgraded, but it was still more advanced than anything local.
Unsurprising considering that it was based on Mass Effect software which was centuries ahead of the primitives of this world had access to, my world was only about twenty years ahead, but the difference showed. I really missed board band Internet.
When I got to the library I found Wes and Giles bending over a cage in which a very smelly and unkempt cat was prowling restlessly. The moment I laid eyes on it I stopped dead in my tracks. My Slayer senses didn't tell me much, they were feelings not a proper source of information, but the reaction I got from looking at this cat made me my skin tingle.
"That thing is undead" I stated as I looked closely at the zombie cat.
It smelt truly terrible, the stink would have warned me if is wrongness even without my supernatural abilities.
"Can you feel something from it Damien?" Giles asked "Some Slayers have been to sense when there is a single vampire in a massive crowd, and your senses are just as impressive".
To understand Slayers and what we could do a person had to understand not just our powers but our history.
The line of Slayers began in ancient Africa, when a group of tribal elders, shamans of a sort, known as the Shadow Men used powerful magic to infuse a captive native girl with the heart of a pure ancient demon. This process granted the girl incredible strength, speed, agility, endurance, a predatory instinct, and superior healing factor: she became the First Slayer, closest to unite with the pure demon, making her the first and perhaps most powerful Slayer.
She was created to fight the vampires, the demons and other forces of evil that populated Earth and threatened the innocent. Unfortunately, being fully infused with the essence of such a powerful demon resulted in The First Slayer, sometimes known as the "Primitive", becoming little more than an animal, she separated herself from civilisation, and became determined to slay, led completely by an insatiable blood thirst.
Despite her having lost her much of her human nature, however, it must never be forgotten that the First Slayer was a formidable force of good who hunted and killed many monsters that preyed on humanity back when we didn't have our technology to defend us, and it was said that she also slayed the very last pure demon, an Old One, that walked the Earth with the Scythe that was buried here in Sunnydale and one day I would get around to digging that weapon up so Buffy could use it.
The Shadow Men's descendants went on to form the Watchers Council, an organisation dedicated to finding, training, and supporting Slayers. Even though the ways they went about doing this weren't entirely ethical, the Council was always determined to stop the spread of evil. These days they seemed less effective, and in my view they were next to useless.
Because of the violent nature of the life of a Slayer, their average lifespan was quite short after being called, under a year for most. Consequently, the Shadow Men's spell also created a large number of Potential Slayers, normal girls around the world who may one day be called.
The Slayer line was not genetic in nature. Slayers did not inherit the calling from their parents and there's normally no spiritual connection between Slayers either. When a Slayer died, one of the Potentials was seemingly chosen at random. I suspect that the PBS do the choosing.
Always the Watcher's Council has tried to identify and train the Potentials before they are called, but they are not always able to do so, with some girls only being found after they have been "activated" as the Slayer, Buffy Summers being one of those girls, and Faith had so far not been detected.
Modern days Slayer's were still empowered by the essence of a demon, its spirit but not the mind, and while we were more human than the 'Primitive' and less powerful since there was no way Buffy or I could take on an Old One even with a magic scythe.
Slayers were still far more powerful than the tainted descendants that roamed the world these days. Plus we were smart enough to use weapons.
While having weapons helped, really it was the skill and training that gives us an advantage. Most demons only ever tried to use brute force in a battle, and against a normal human this mostly worked, but against a trained warrior, even one not mystically empowers, it not a good idea.
Slayers like me had superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, stamina, enhanced senses, and durability as well accelerated healing, innate hand-to-hand and weapons combat skills. These powers grew over time and since most Slayers only lasted year it was unknown how strong a Slayer could become.
We also had Prophetic Dreams, they weren't that handy, and while I'd never dreamt of the lives of past Slayers Buffy had. Perhaps this was because I wasn't a natural Slayer, or it could just be that I didn't remember the dreams. Some people just couldn't recall their dreams as well as others.
I suspected that these dreams were a result of the experiences of past Slayers getting passed along to future Slayers and while we weren't normally aware of these memories, they were what guided us when when we picked up and used like a pro a weapon we'd never even seen before. Buffy for example hadn't known how to fire a gun where as I had. Also I'd never taken a single driving lesson, but I could drive motorbikes, cars and even larger forms of transport with ease.
One consequence of this power was that a Slayer has essentially fought all the battles of the Slayers before her, or him in some universes, if we were aware of these experiences like our own memories I had no doubt that our minds would be fractured under the weight of so many life times.
Also I suspected the prophetic dreams were the work of the Powers That Be, the attempts of very alien beings to pass on information to creatures they couldn't talk to directly, and not an ability that came with the Slayer. This was supported by the fact that one of them had appeared to me while I was in a trance and had taken the form of Tara in order worn me of the demon known as the Judge.
Last but not least was the ability to sense vampires and demons to an extent, but not with our human senses, this was more mystical. It was hard to explain, if you didn't have this sense you couldn't understand anymore than a person born blind could understand what it was like to see colours, or how a deaf person would never known how music sounded.
Buffy also had this Slaydar, however her ability was unreliable, for me this ability was much stronger, and I suspected that was because I embrace my Slayerness and trained more rather than simply being more powerful than Buffy.
Also unlike her I had some magical talent, although not like a witch did. A proper witch came from a line of magic users, and were so much better at it than others, they could use it more safely too. However Willow seemed to be somewhat of an expection to this.
Things were a bit different for me as not that long ago a Mage who lived in Mareth had marked with mystic symbols to further enhance my powers, both physical and magical. I wasn't actually sure that was all they did as the Mage had tried to preform some sort spell on me, one that would allow her to control me I suspected, and she'd added more marks to me then. Still I was sure I'd find out.
"Yeah I'm getting an odd vibe" I told Giles "The same vibe as I picked up from Buffy when I dropped her off at home".
Clearly there was a connection.
"Where did this come from?" I asked.
Giles lent back from the cage in more than a little relief and started to clean his glasses yet again.
"I had a phone call from Buffy this morning" he informed me "She found a dead cat in the basement last night. She and Joyce buried it but this morning this thing had exhumed itself and was scratching on their back door. Wesley and I picked it up earlier today. We decided to bring it here rather than take it to the factory since our books are here and I don't think its much of a threat".
This puzzled me.
"Any reason you can think of for a zombie cat?" I asked.
This seemed familiar now, but I couldn't quite remember why. There was too much in my head to keep it all straight.
"Not that I'm aware of," replied Giles while replacing his glasses. "Although... Joyce does have a new decoration in the house. A mask, from Nigeria I believe. I was going to look it up later, but now I think we should do some research with a little more urgency".
Now I remembered the mask makes zombies, and if one of the zombies put on the mask some demon comes out to play. I must have been sensing the mask and simply assuming that Buffy's feelings upon returning home were the cause. Most likely she'd just been having a mood swing, although to be fair feelings did effect a Slayer's power and emotions were important when you used magic.
"Is this the mask?" Wes asked.
He showed a page of a book to Giles who nodded.
"Ovu Mobani" he then read out "A demon of Nigerian origin whose name means Evil Eye. You'll have to destroy the mask before it raises any more zombies. Its power was most likely dormant until it was brought to the Hellmouth".
That would explain why what seemed to be a harmless piece of tribal art would suddenly start raising zombies.
"I'll deal with it" I promised the Watchers.
A quick trip to the Oblivion Plane known as the Deadlands was in order. The mask wouldn't trouble anyone once it was thrown into lava, and even if it did the Deadra don't really die so they couldn't become zombies.
Or perhaps I'd take it to the Citadel, and see if any good magic users there could destroy the mask. I could even do myself, with the right ritual it was possible to make something called 'living flame' which was used to safely destroy dark magical artifacts.
I'd make up my mind on the way to Buffy's place, I'd be quick just in case any zombies made an appearance. I really didn't like zombies.