Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Vampire Hunter D. Buffy belongs to Whedon, and Vampire Hunter D and related characters belong to Hideyuki Kikuchi and UrbanVision. No money made.
A/N: More on the subject of tying up loose ends from last August Fic-a-Day, This is the fourth in a Vampire Hunter D/Buffy crossover that I started. They're already combined into a series at TTH, but the first three are called All for Naught, Fate and Coincidence, and Sleep Softly. Please enjoy!
Dark Amazon
Tara was awake. She could sense that much. And she knew that Tara was searching… for her. And she was waiting. Her time of reckoning would soon be at hand. But until then… all she had was the wait.
Dressed in a wide mauve ball gown, her hair long and ebony, Willow traversed the abandoned castle's halls, her long fingernails scraping along the gray bricks of the walls. She knew what her Tara was really like, more than Buffy or any of the others had ever known. She had been her lover, her first true love, the first person to see Willow as she truly was. So Willow knew that the gift of the black leather duster and the holo-disc that had been found in the site that had formerly been Tara's grave would be well served. And, if rumors of this D that had found her were true, then Michael—the vampire Willow had entrusted the sleeping Tara to long ago, just before the start of the third world war that would bring the vampires into power—was dead.
Willow had had many years to ponder her choices, and the choices of her friends. The slayers had allied with their enemies just before the last great war in favor of fending off the powerful OSBs—Outer Space Beings; aliens in layman's terms. In return of such power afforded to them, the vampires, true to their own natures, had run rampant. And soon the slayers that Buffy had made just weren't enough. And that left only Willow, wild from her usage of magic too dark for her own good, with years that she should not have had, left to make a choice of her own: join with Dracula, the Sacred Ancestor as he was now called, or die. She chose the former.
And now she was known as "The Witch," feared all across the desolate land known as the Frontier. She had aided the vampires in the creation of new monsters, hybrids of several different species of demon, as well as helped boost the power of the monsters that already existed.
All these things that she caused lived in her mind constantly, replaying like a broken hologram as she descended the stairs of Castle Themiscyra. Down and down she traveled until she reached the belly of the beast—the dungeon. The smell of the blood spilled by those who had been imprisoned here—not just for punishment, but sometimes for entertainment value—still soaked the walls and floors. Willow found her way to her guest quickly, the only one still kicking in the dungeon. She lifted the skirts of her dress to avoid the rats that chewed on the bones of the long dead, and she did not stop walking until she reached the very back wall. Chained to it, dressed in simple black pains and a rough cotton shirt cut in the style of tunics, his hair between the dyed blond it had been and its natural red, was Spike. Or William the Bloody, as the stories like to re-imagine him as—"Spike" just didn't sound scary enough when you were trying to keep your kind's foothold in power. Besides, Spike had long since been gifted with a soul, making him a bit kinder toward the humans he had killed so many of in his younger years. And now that soul was not so kind to him.
Willow picked up the branding iron from its bed of glowing coals, holding it aloft. Spike's eyes widened, his attempt to focus.
"She's coming. Soon. Not too much longer of this," Willow said, pressing the iron into the vampire's right breast.
He roared, his face contorting back and forth between its demon self and its human visage. Willow shoved the iron back into the coals, gently shushing him. She placed a long, slender finger to her lips, floating her hand across to his lips to do the same.
"It's almost over. All the cuts, stabs, burning… all of it. And it serves its purpose. I have to buy myself time, you understand, Spike."
The vampire mumbled something, but she couldn't discern it. It didn't matter. She had deprived him of his sanity—for the second time in his existence—years ago. He was her one perk to being a servant to the vampires. She could do whatever it was she wished with him. And she had used him to set her plan into motion.
She pulled her finger away, pinching his chin in her hand.
"Tara's coming, Spike, just as I said she would. Now you have to be a good little vampire and tell her all about how mean and awful and evil I've become, okay?"
Again, he muttered something, but a nod accompanied it this time. Willow pulled her hand away, smiling. She had been told by several that her smile never reached her coal-black eyes. She wouldn't know. She had avoided mirrors for years.
"I'm going to wait for her. When she comes, all she will find is you, though. Play your part, Spike. Who knows? Maybe you'll become a real boy after all."
She turned on her heel, making her way back toward the upper levels of the castle. However, just at the foot of the staircase, she paused. Glancing over her shoulder, she added, "Especially since your competition died off years ago."
She got no response, and that was exactly what she had expected. She made her way up several winding staircases, coming to a stop only when she had reached the fourth or fifth floor of the decaying castle. She moved to stand at a window that overlooked the courtyard, its flowers long wilted and brown.
"I'm waiting for you, Tara. I've waited so long," she muttered to the one who could not hear her.
She stood at the window for hours, until those hours turned into days. And, on the fifth day, she spotted them. On a black cyborg stallion—created to best survive in this post-apocalyptic world—there were two of them. A gorgeous youth of a man with too pale skin, pointed features, and long ebony hair that extended down further on him than Willow's own hair did on her. He was dressed entirely in black, and seated before him on the saddle, dressed in a beautiful yellow dress, was a face Willow had never forgotten.
She leaned into the window, rested her hand on the frame.
"Soon, Tara. You'll find me soon."
Willow pushed herself backward, away from the window, and into a cloud of swirling blue clouds. When the clouds cleared, she was gone.
Gone… just before Tara and D entered the courtyard.