Thank you Keren for her expertise and time as an excellent Beta reader, to Pam for her encouragement, and to Diana for her unceasing enthusiasm and her very welcome and necessary cyber-nagging ;-).

Sequel to ONE LONG NIGHT - and you really do need to read that one for this one to make sense.

Also – torch means flashlight in the UK and Australia (and other countries I am sure – sorry if I have left you out). If I mean a torch of the flame variety then I will make that clear. Where the point of view of an American character is being used then I have used the term flashlight.

Do not go gentle (sequel to One Long Night)

Chapter 1

It is not for the meat

But for the sake of the game

That we hunt.

'Hausa Hunters' - Hausa

Yippee-ky-ay motherfuckers!

Bruce Willis

Hunting.

Moving through the silent moonlit graveyard as quietly as a shade. Bare feet padding over disturbed earth. Feel how fresh it is between the toes. Feel it. Smell it. Taste it in the air.

Birthing soil.

The former occupant is still close by, newly born, naked and vulnerable. Hungry. Looking, blindly seeking, its first kill. Thrashing through the first hours of its life like a new born foal trying to stand, not thinking, not knowing anything but the necessity to rise up and live. It is a sacred time, a pure time, a naked time. A time consumed with a burning lust for blood.

She doesn't need to tell him what she has found. He knows. Crouching silently beside her, toes curled into the grave's disturbed soil, he knows. She can feel him shivering with it. He inhales the night air, searching: her partner, her other half, her Watcher.

A twig snaps somewhere in the darkness and he growls beside her.

They run.

Hunting.

Chasing through the undergrowth. Branches whipping by; leaves and cold turned earth sent flying. Heart racing with excitement. It burns and smoulders through her chest, her belly, lower.

And there it is. Breaking cover to flee over the open ground. Eyes flash, pure carnivore desire, and she is sprinting as fast as a cheetah, as fast as Death itself. The ground flies under her feet and the trees are a blur. Then her Watcher veers away and takes off on an angle, anticipating an ambush up ahead. Now it is just her and the Prey. And the chase.

The glorious chase.

Gaining ground on it as it flees through the graves. It's swerving, jumping, leaping and stumbling over the tombs. But her feet move in an effortless blur. Each footfall perfectly placed. She is flying along the ground, leaping over the grave markers like they aren't even there.

Then one flawlessly timed vault and she has it. They go down in a skidding heap, churning up the leaves and rot until the air smells like perfume; incense. Its newborn claws scratch at her and every wound feels like fire. Like power. Like bliss.

Fangs snap and chew air. Foam flies from its lips. And then the stake. Its sharp point, like lightning, striking the chest and piercing the heart. She can feel the heart sack tearing as the sharp wood forces its way through into the tough heart muscle and for a moment she wishes she had used her hands, her teeth. But then the dust. Dust. Exploding dust. And she inhales it, eyes half shut, dreamy.

Stoned.

...

...

A growl: confident and predatory.

And right behind her.

One twist and she is up, whirling to face the new comer.

And there he is. Pacing slow and deliberate on the edge of the clearing. Skin like alabaster, like marble, glowing under the moonlight. Eyes on fire, watching her. He's gauging, judging. She smiles. He isn't going to run, he isn't going to flee: he's going to fight.

Better than the chase, better than anything.

He returns her smile and his fangs glint in the moon glow. She shivers. She can feel the energy radiating from him, the barely contained power, and her skin burns where it touches her. This is the one.

Finally, this is The One.

They clash. Claws and fists and feet and fangs. Blood and bruises. Looking for the killing moment. Looking for death. But it never comes and they fight forever and it is perfect. It is ecstasy.

Then he throws her back. She hits the ground, rolls and is up again, ready. And he is still there. Blood like black glistening spider webs streaking the porcelain of his skin. Bruises like storm clouds. Pretty. Sexy. And he is still there, waiting, snarling around a smile: feral and knowing.

Her blood feels hot in her veins and she knows he can smell it. His nostrils are flared, chin lifted, eyes intense. She looks into those eyes and sees herself reflected. Sees fury and death. Then he swipes his tongue over his split lip, tasting his own blood and she frowns. His blood is hers by divine right, but he's taunting her with it, showing off bloody fangs in a sharp smile.

And suddenly she understands.

Her charge is met move for move even as she knocks him from his feet and they fall. Down into an open grave. Soil falls like a rain shower to cover them as she takes her right to his blood. A Slayer's right. She feels his fangs bear under her lips and she answers his growl. Even as his claws rise to sink into her throat, even as she stabs down with her stake, she finally understands and she is alive: finally Alive.

"Spike..."

"ARGH!" Buffy sat bolt upright in bed. Oh my god. No, no, no, no, no. Not again! Not again. Adrenaline and something she didn't want to acknowledge was still racing through her veins. She was shaking. Sweat was making the bed sheets stick to her skin. Oh god. That freaking dream. Every night since the ghouls, since the dammed hell blood.

FUCKING SPIKE!

(ARGH: horrifying Freudian mental picture!)

Ohgodohgodohgod.

What the hell am I going to do?

Call Giles. Yes: call Giles. He'll know what to do. Tearing back the covers she practically leapt across the room to her dresser. Her hand curled around the phone. No, wait. What was she going to say?

Hi, Giles. Sorry to call so late. Yes, everything is fine. Sure - I'm fine. Except for the horrible, shameful, hell-blood induced lust fuelled death dream featuring mucho nakedness, blood and Spike, everything is great...

Oh god it was so shameful she couldn't even say the words out loud. Not to Giles. Mom, Willow? God no! She let go of the phone and sat back down on the damp sheets. Just calm down. Deep calming breaths. Yes, everything is fine. Just a dream. Not prophetic or anything, just a plain old dream. A run of the mill technicolour Slayer type horrible mixed up nightmare of blood and hunting and death and lust and sex and Spike and - oh my god ... With a groan she fell back on the bed and covered her face with her pillow.

Giles jerked upright in his desk chair and blinked. What the-? Something had just woken him. Something... He looked curiously at the phone, his gaze drawn to it as if by a magnet. What was he expecting? A call? He rubbed his face with one hand.

Buffy?

He waited a moment but the phone stayed silent. Odd. He was sure for a moment that he had been woken up by something outside of himself. He sighed and rubbed his face again; massaged tired eyes under his new glasses. Just as well probably. He had been having some seriously disturbing dreams ever since the night of the ghoul attack and was not sure he wanted to put himself in the position of accidently mentioning them by talking to Buffy so soon after having one. He drew in a deep cleansing breath. Back to work.

The desktop in front of him was splattered with layer upon layer of notepaper, pens, pencils, rune stones, bones, books and parchments and his Magia. None of it was helping much though. There was nothing anywhere that told him anything more about these Hell god blood pools. Not even Tilea's writings, easily the most extensive of all the scratchings he had come across, took him from the above ground search down into the Hellmouth proper. How could the Council have let this happen? How could they have been so lax? Actually he knew the answer to that and it was one of the reasons he had rejected the offer of a position on the High Council Inner Circle. Whether concerning themselves with the acquisition of new books for a school library, planning for a national budget or working on a yearly Hellmouth threat assessment, committees were committees and usually stuffed it all up. He hated committees. That was something he and his Slayer charge shared in common.

Thinking again of Buffy, Giles looked at his phone. Something had woken him up and if it hadn't been Buffy then what-

RING!

"Buffy." Giles answered on the first ring.

"I'm sorry to say not Mr Giles." An Englishman's voice.

"Oh, its you." Giles pursed his lips and sank back in his chair. He tried, very unsuccessfully, not to get irritated. If there was one thing worse than committees it was dealing with their lackeys.

"Oh yes Mr Giles, it is me as it has been everyday since I was born. Begging your pardon Mr Giles sir, but you said to call at anytime of the day or of the night. Night or day."

"You've found something?" That was unusually quick. Even though he was chief librarian at the Council headquarters Barnabas Bartholomew Longbottom was not an especially sharp tack.

"Ah, well," there was a hesitation. "Mayhaps something Mr Giles. Mayhaps something." Giles frowned, then he felt it. Even down the phone line he felt the rotten little bastard at it. Of all the nerve-

"Put him on Barnaby."

"Oo, er, I - I'm not sure I know-" Old Barnaby stuttered.

"If you are going to spy Knightly you could at least have the decency to put some effort into it." A moment of soft cloth sounds against the phone and some muted whispering. Then a new voice:

"Rupert old boy!"

"What are you doing Knightly? This is none of your business."

"Oh but it is my dear fellow. Anything that takes up Council resources is my business and it seems you have been taking up quite a bit of Old Barnaby's very valuable time these past few days. I don't think we've ever seen him quite so -"

"What are you after?"

"You haven't changed have you Rupert. I would have thought a spell in the colonies would have loosened you up little."

"Knightly." Warning tone now. Annoying little prick.

"Fine, fine, fine. We know you have Barnaby searching the archives for information on the Hellmouth pools, even though we have already searched and given you what we had nearly a week ago, I might add. So glad to hear your good self and the Slayer made it through by the way. One might even think you don't trust us."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Giles retorted through his teeth. "You haven't answered my question Councillor: what do you want?"

"Barnaby hasn't found anything new because there isn't anything else here that you have not already seen yourself or we have not passed on to you. So, the Council has held a session and decided that your concern over our knowledge gap is not only justified, but highlights a situation of grave concern." Giles froze in his seat. They couldn't be suggesting-? No, they weren't that stupidly naive. Couldn't be. "The vote was unanimous: the Council is going to mount an expedition into the Sunnydale Hellmouth." Oh no, here it comes. "Obviously the selection of the party is something that we have not yet finalized-"

"No."

"Come come Rupert-"

"No, absolutely not. Its a stupid idea."

"Really? How then do you propose we gather the data you have justifiably pointed out is sorely lacking in our archives? I never pegged you for a coward Rupert."

"Don't patronize me with your childish attempts to manipulate, Knightly. I cannot go and neither can the Slayer and you know very well why."

"We have protective magicks-"

"Not that powerful."

"I think you underestimate us Rupert." Knightly actually sounded insulted which Giles found childishly pleasing. "We have discussed all the aspects, the expedition will be going ahead."

"Then it will do so without myself and without the Slayer." A pause on the line.

"Very well, if you insist." All right, that was unexpected. He was silent for a second and then forced his thoughts through the song lines, the ley lines, through the misty places and found Knightly. "OW! That is uncalled for Rupert!" The Councillor's voice squealed down the line and Giles found himself blocked. "I have been nothing but honest with you."

"Really? So who have you chosen to die this time?"

"No one is going to-" A frustrated sigh. "This is no longer your concern. You will kindly desist monopolizing Barnaby's time and move on to something else. We will send you a copy of the data once it has been collected." Giles did not speak for the longest time. The bastards. The bastards. They had him and they knew it. He could not let them choose someone, no doubt some young, eager, hopelessly naive and inexperienced someone (Wesley's fresh, stupid young face popped into his mind), to go in his place to die because of some committee decision taken during a late night sherry session.

"Alright." Giles clenched his teeth. "I'll do it."

"Well-"

"Don't be an ass on top of a son of a bitch Knightly."

"Welcome aboard, you-"

"Wait a minute, you haven't heard my terms."

"Terms, old boy?"

"You will give me command of the party."

"Giles I-"

"Shut up and listen. If I am going to risk my life, and more importantly: the Slayer's life, for you then you will bloody well listen to me."

Buffy couldn't sleep. Actually scratch that: she was afraid to sleep. Instead she drew the curtains against the seductive pull of moonlight, flipped the light switch and got down to some Tai Chi. Clear the mind. Yes, don't think of anything except the forms. Slow and fluid just like Angel had taught her. Angel. Control the body and the mind will follow. Who was she to argue with a century of learned anguish control?

Thinking of Angel though got her thinking of other vampires she had encountered which lead to thoughts of the Master, Darla, Drusilla, and then, inevitably, back to Spike. She pursed her lips, concentrated harder, but just got more Spike.

Rrrrrrr...

Dammit, why didn't Giles tell her about all this earlier? They could have prepared. They could have searched out a protective charm, or something, that would have put a wall between herself and her Hell dimension attraction. Dammit! And if he couldn't tell her, why hadn't he fixed it himself? She sighed, straightened from the crane form and repositioned herself for another run through - she was being unreasonable and she knew it but jeez...

"Please, sit down." Giles had motioned her to a kitchen chair and turned to the kettle. Then - nothing. He fussed with cutlery and teabags and she sat there getting more frightened with each passing second. After breaking a second nail picking at the cracked plastic tabletop she could stand it no longer.

"Giles!"

"What? Oh yes. Yes." He turned around, leaned against the counter and took off his glasses. He still could not look at her. "Right. I've been meaning to have this talk with you for some time now." He bit at his lower lip.

"Okay." Buffy prompted, not even trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice. "Seriously freaking out now."

"Oh no Buffy." That galvanized her Watcher and he pulled out a chair to sit at the table, then he reached out and engulfed her hand in his larger one. "There is nothing to worry about. I haven't been reticent to tell you because it was something - threatening. I just haven't told you because, well frankly, it was of greater concern to teach you the more immediate facets of being the Slayer, initially. The, uh, actual Slayage if you will.

"Then, with the fuss with the Master, Angelus, Adam and such; not to mention various and sundry panic attacks regarding overdue papers and tests, the right time just never arose."

"So, you're going to tell me now right?" She took a deep breath. "How is the Slay - how am I connected to the Hell dimensions?"

"As you know, for every generation there is a Slayer. One girl, chosen from all others to fight the darkness." He looked at her for a moment, curiously. "Have you ever wondered how each Slayer is chosen?"

"Sure." Buffy said. "But I thought it was all - you know - some mysterious mystical unknowable thing. Like Britney Spears."

"Brit - What?"

"You know, Britney Spears. Blond, dancy, can't sing for nuts. Virginal my ass." She muttered darkly. "Anyway, I mean, how did she get so big? Who knows? Its one of those mysterious things - like the meaning of life, or pixie boots? I mean who would have thought suede-?"

"Stop, please." Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. Squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. "Alright, from that unfathomable string of analogies one takes it that you haven't given it a lot of in-depth thought?"

"Well-"

"Alright." Giles replaced his glasses and looked at her. "Here it is: from the beginning of knowable time, for as long as vampires have existed, from the dawn of human kind there have been Slayers. We are not sure how the first one was created, who created her I mean, but there has been a lot of research conducted and a lot of knowledge preserved from ancient times." He took a breath, paused for a moment - "the first Slayer handed down a legacy. Along with saving humankind from a very premature demise she left another mark of her passing. Her bloodline."

"So-"

"So, you are a direct descendent of that first Slayer." Buffy blinked at him - woah, heavy. "Her essence flows in your veins."

"So that means that Mom-"

"No."

"Dad then."

"No."

"Hey, is this your very not subtle way of telling me that I'm some freakish foundling left on my parent's doorstep?"

"No, your parents are your parents." He smiled. "We aren't talking about genetics Buffy. It's something more primal than that. If it were only genetics then the bloodlines would be so weak by now that no new Slayers could arise.

"You have the Slayer's, well, it is hard to put into words like this, but within you is part of her very essence. What made her the Slayer, you have inherited. By detecting this essence the Council is able to pinpoint the location of each new Slayer."

"Okay, handling that." She nodded slowly. "So, what about the hell attraction bit?"

"From what we know, the first Slayer was formed in response to the creation of the first vampire. Somehow, the progenitor of the vampire bloodline slipped into this dimension and so the first humans were murdered and in their shells parts of the essence of that demon took over. Now, whoever or whatever, created the Slayer to counter the vampires did so by using material from that very vampire demon. It makes a perfect kind of sense if you think about it." Giles had that geeky guy on speed look in his eye: staring into space, faintly excited, oblivious to his freaked out Slayer charge.

"Okay, thinking about it." Buffy prompted. "So far seeing no perfect." Giles did not appear to have heard her.

"The best analogy is the criminal profiler." He went on. "How does the profiler catch the killer? Answer: by figuring out how the murderer thinks. What will be his next move; how does he arrive at that point? The profiler reaches inward to find some sympathetic chord that allows him to intuit the next move of the killer." He broke off from his musing and looked at Buffy. "It doesn't mean that profilers are killers. It doesn't mean that they are one and the same as the murderers they are hunting, just that they, unlike most of the population, have the innate ability to empathize with the murderer. That ability enables them to catch their quarry and prevent more deaths.

"It's the same with the Slayer. The ability to understand the motivations and desires of the Undead, and I mean really understand them, in here," he tapped his chest "gives the Slayer the supernormal ability to hunt them down. It doesn't mean that the Slayer is a hell beast. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"I think so." She picked at her broken nail. The kettle suddenly whistled and Giles instantly moved to the counter. She smiled behind his back: Pavlov's Watcher, conditioned to make tea at the sound of a whistle. It was a strangely comforting thing to watch. "What about you then?"

"Ah, well." He fussed with his tea bags. "Watchers are a little different again." He poured hot water into the cups. Steam billowed upward to fog his glasses. "To start at the beginning: not all members of the Council have the potential to become Watchers, you know. Very few in fact." He returned to the table and handed Buffy her tea. He blew on his as he sat down again.

"What, the essence of the First Book-Guy isn't all that common then?"

"Something like that." Giles gave one of his faint tolerant smiles. He sipped at his tea.

"So, give!" Buffy demanded when he floated away on a tea high. "If I'm going to be all Silence of the Lambs-girl then I want some company. What's the deal with the Watchers."

"Well, as you know, my grandmother was a Watcher. In fact, I come from a long line of Watchers. Going right back on my grandmother's side. Almost every generation of the Giles family has produced a Watcher." He sounded faintly proud of that which pricked Buffy's interest. There wasn't much about his family, or his inheritance that he spoke positively about.

"So when did they tell you about your destiny?" She asked.

"Actually about the same age as you were when you were first approached. I didn't take the news very well either." They smiled at each other. "Not much is known about the origins of the Watchers. It is believed that they were also created by those that made the first Slayer. For instance, Watchers have some of the Slayer's capacity to heal, and share a little of the instinctive understanding of the Undead, but compared to the Slayer herself it is piffling in degree. Why Watcher's were first created then is really a matter of conjecture. Maybe it was an afterthought, an accident; maybe there was no reason at all."

"Well, I for one am glad they were created." Buffy said. Then she grinned. "I mean, who would do all the book stuff for us?" She sobered again - "Actually, it all makes a kind of sense. When I, you know - with the Hell blood and kind of - you know what - and you and Xander, well, you know (her Watcher smiled, amused and paternal at the same time. He had taken the whole incident a lot more calmly than she had. Typical Giles). Yeah, well anyway I sensed something when I touched you."

"You did?" Giles sat up straight in his chair. His eyes burned brightly, his body tensed.

"Yeah. At first I thought it was another Slayer. It was very confusing, somehow I knew that there couldn't be another and yet..." She trailed off as a smile of pure delight briefly curled her Watcher's lips. It lit up his face like the sun and she couldn't stop an answering smile. That she had been the cause of this happiness rather than pain was a surprisingly heady rush. She should do it more often...

"So why the hell blood attraction then?" She asked

"Ah," He sat back in his chair and scratched at his forehead with a thumbnail. "An unfortunate side effect I am afraid. Vampires, Slayers, and possibly, well (he tried not to smile) probably, Watchers, having all stemmed from the same demon/human mix are attracted to the very darkness they were created from. It is not usually a problem. Its, ah, not everyday that one has to deal with hell material in this dimension."

They sat in silence and drank their tea. Very heavy, Buffy thought to herself, I have demon essence. The very concept was distressing. Here she was, having been taught to hate, despise and fight the evil Undead, now finding out that they were in fact mystically related. How sucky was that.

"Are you alright?" Giles had asked after a time. "Do you have any questions?"

"I'm fine." She had nodded, and crooked one corner of her mouth in a smile.

Now she wished she had asked more questions. Spike popped into her head again. Dammit! It was no good; she would have to find something else to do.

I know - patrol the house!

She slipped into the darkened hallway and padded down toward her mother's and Dawn's bedrooms. She looked into her mother's room first. A familiar long shape under a huge mound of covers emerged from the darkness. She squinted and reassured herself that there was actual breathing going on under the tons of wool and cotton. It was just amazing, her mother had to have equatorial blood lines, there was no other explanation for her utter hatred of the cold.

Further along she nudged the door to Dawn's room. It was a mess - as usual. Clothes, makeup, magazines, tapes, CD's and junk were strewn over every available surface. In the gloom it looked like mounds and twists of seaweed splattered along a beach. Why did Mom let her get away with it whilst she had to keep her room in mind-bending order? It was just typical: favouring the youngest, always looking after the baby; letting her frolic about in a Barbie fantasy land and live in a sty, whilst expecting the older sister to go around staking vampires by night and cleaning her room by day. She pursed her lips and frowned: like to see Dawn drive off a rampaging Mom eating monster and remember to vacuum up the dust bunnies under her bed afterward...

Speaking of Dawn... Dammit, not again. The bed was empty, and she hadn't even had the decency to fashion a dummy out of pillows and cushions like any other self-respecting whiny little sibling would have done. Rrrrrrr. Buffy curled her fists. There were no prizes for guessing just where her sister had gone either. Fucking Spike...