Chapter 4

Three Weeks after Black and White

"You sure this is the place?" Xander asked Spike, who was lying on the ground next to him. Xander was wearing all black and had black paint under his eyes. They were the last few tricks he remembered from being a soldier at Halloween, or was it just from some cheesy movie?

The bleached blond vampire belonged to the night, especially with the black trench coat that molded him to the cold ground. "You could go check yourself, if you want."

"I believe you," Xander paused, but purposely didn't look over. "Kinda. It's just an odd. I mean, how many vampires would take over a church?"

"The kind that want to prove they're the new big bad. Bunch of posers."

"Not at all like you."

Spike grinned. "Course not. This is the real deal, right here."

"Yes, oh chipped wonder."

Spike grinned and stood up. "If that's the way you feel, why don't I just go let them know we're out here?"

Xander grabbed the vampire by the arm and pulled him back down to the ground. "You nuts? There's got to be twenty vampires in there."

"Thirty-one," Spike corrected absently. Then he grinned. "Piece of cake."

"You do know what they did at the mall?" Xander's voice was low, and not just because he was afraid they'd be heard. It had been all over the news for the last two days. 'Mob War at Sunnydale Mall.' Sixty dead. They didn't even bother to feed on most of their victims. They went in and killed just because they could.

Xander was the one who got to sneak through the police lines with Faith to look the place over and spent the next twelve hours wishing he hadn't. The vampires had gone wild and torn there way through the late night shoppers. Blood was still dripping down from the upper floors five hours after the massacre.

Still, as bad as it was it could have been worse. At least Buffy and Anya weren't there. They would've been. They had been every night since Faith got into town. Buffy refused to let Faith patrol alone and Xander and Anya couldn't sleep knowing that Buffy was risking her life. But that night Buffy'd been put down by her first really bad case of morning sickness, apparently her body didn't care that it was almost midnight, and Anya stayed behind to take care of her. Xander would've stayed too, but he knew Buffy would force herself out of bed rather than let Faith go alone. So the two of them got to share the nightmares now.

Now Xander was here with Spike because Buffy and Anya had gone off searching with Faith. It helped that Spike had told him where the nest was. He just hoped that Buffy never found out that he had put them on a wild goose chase. Neither of his girls liked feeling protected, or knew that the other felt the same way. So he had to be subtle.

Xander felt Spike watching him, but he didn't say anything. Finally Spike broke the silence with a challenge. "You scared?"

"Like you aren't."

Spike just shrugged. "So we should get the gang together for the festivities?"

Now it was Xander's turn to grin. "That and a little something I've been saving for a rainy day."

The vampires were spread around inside of the ruined church. Some were asleep on the pews while the rest were still doing what anyone did after something big, bragging.

"You should'a seen this one girl," one vampire said to one of the female vampires. Not that she was paying much attention. She looked almost alive with her tanned skin and was wearing a green strapless dress with slits up both legs to show it off while he must've been three hundred pounds looked like it'd take a full school bus to fill him up. "Scrawny thing. Had to throw her back."

"You mean throw here over the railing," another vampire said as he leaned over and slapped the fat vampire on the back

The fat one just shrugged, but kept his eyes locked on the woman. "Just trying to teach her how to fly. Gave her three stories to do it in too."

"You didn't," a female vampire said with a small smile because it was a good story. But she wasn't really listening. She was mostly just looking up at the water stained roof, which was just slightly easier on the eyes than the big vampire. She took a long drag from a cigarette and hoped he'd go away soon.

The message went right over his head. "Did. You should've seen the mess she made when she splatted. Like a mosquito on a windshield." He said and slapped his hands together for the sound effect.

The female vampire leaned back and blew a perfect blue ring of smoke into the air. "Just as well. You've got a blood belly anyway."

The big vampire jumped to his feet. His weight didn't slow him down, but it did produce a few extra jiggles. The female vampire didn't move. "You're going to regret that, sister."

"Sure I am," the woman said. She leaned back and her long brown hair flowed down the back of the pew. "Hey, Dors, throw me a brew!"

Another female vampire, this one a blond with a vacant look in her eyes reached into a blood stained cooler and threw her a bottle.

"Can't offer me a drink to make it up this time, Kris," The fat vampire said as he moved closer.

Kris caught the bottle out of mid-air. "Really, too bad." With that she flung the bottle and shattered it across the chest of the fat vampire.

He looked down at his beer soaked Guns'N'Roses t-shirt and lunged at Kris bellowing, "Bitch!"

"That's right, big boy," Kris said and leaned back and flicked the ashes off her cigarette. Then the second the fat vampire was in range her free hand shot out and shoved her lighter into his shirt. He froze in amazement as his alcohol soaked clothes went up in a blue flame. He beat at the fire with one hand while he tried to pull the shirt off with another, but he was too slow. He screamed one more time and dusted.

Kris and the other vampires laughed, but the laughter died when something came crashing through one of the broken stain glass windows and bounced onto the pew in front of her. "What the hell?" Kris leaned over the wood pew, not caring how much leg she was exposing, to take a closer look at the olive-green metal device. Her eyes went and she screamed, "Grenade!"

The explosion lit up the church and blew out all the windows that weren't already broken. Faith, Buffy, Xander, Anya and Dawn all stood by the front door while Spike, Tara and Giles circled around to the back.

"Now, that was cool," Faith said with a grin as they watched a burning vampire throw herself out of the window and dust before she hit the ground.

"A little something Riley left behind for a rainy day," Xander said.

"Was it a holy hand grenade?" Dawn asked with a nervous grin as she lifted her crossbow.

"You better believe it."

"Here come the roaches," Buffy said and lifted her crossbow as the vampires started pouring out of the church. A few were trying to slap out their still burning clothing, but they all looked dazed. So dazed that five were dusted by crossbows bolts before they figured out they were under attack.

Then they recovered and saw the Scoobies in the flickering light of the burning church. As one they growled and charged.

"Looks like we're going to get our hands dirty. Good thing I brought soap." There was a gleam in Faith's eyes as she dropped her crossbow and pulled a wicked looking ax off her back. She gave a cheery scream and charged.

"Let's give the psycho an ax," Buffy muttered under her breath. "What can go wrong?"

"You have to admit, she's enthusiastic," Anya countered as she rubbed her sweaty palms off on her jeans and took aim again.

"She is at that," Xander said.

They watched Faith decapitated two more of the vampires with a single blow and pulled the ax back for more. Then she made a mistake. She swung her ax at the same time a vampire jumped at her. She buried the blade halfway through his stomach. It would've killed anything human, and hurt like hell anything that wasn't. But somehow the vampire managed to grab the shaft of the ax before she could pull it back. They could hear him howl in pain even fifty feet away, but he managed to yank the ax out of Faith's hands before he collapsed to the ground.

Buffy was the first one to realize that it had all gone wrong. She dropped her cross bow and pulled out a stake as a group of vampires separated off from the charge and surrounded the unarmed Slayer. "Looks like she needs help. Again." With that she charged into the melee.

"Buffy, wait!" Xander shouted, but Buffy ignored him as she focused in on the vampire that was trying to sneak up behind Faith and staked it in the back. "Gotta love irony," she said into the ashes.

Faith grinned over her shoulder at the ex-slayer as she ducked under the arms of another vampire. "Didn't know you still had it in you, B."

"I'm full of surprises. Catch!" Buffy shouted as the tossed her stake at Faith. "Besides, someone has to watch your back. Make sure you're using the stake on something already dead."

Faith's good mood vanished in the instant it took to grab the stake out of the air and jam into the grabby vampire's heart. "Oh, I know. But what I don't know…" A vampire who looked like he was fifteen kicked Faith in the face. "Oh, you're going to pay for that."

The fifteen year old grinned and looked over Faith's leather pants and midriff baring shirt. "Sorry, I never pay for it. Don't have much use for hookers."

Faith glared and kicked the vampire in the balls as hard as she could. His eyes crossed and he dropped to the ground, moaning and clutching himself. "I bet you thought that was funny."

Buffy shrugged. "Kid has a point. You do sport a fine line of hookerwear."

"You're one to talk," Faith snarled as she finally put the vampire out of his misery. "Like I was saying, never thought you'd be playing both teams at the same time. I know about Xander, but is the demon chick really that good? Cause I was thinking…"

"Don't even bother," Buffy snarled as she stomped over to the raven-haired girl, the fight around them completely forgotten.

Faith grinned. "Why not? I got to find out with Beefstick. So is she that good or is more a combo deal?"

"You stay away from them, you whore, or I'll…"

"You'll what? Gut me? Put me in a coma? Been there, B. I wanna try something new." Faith ran her hand down her stomach to leave no doubt as to what she wanted to try. "Or maybe they do."

Buffy glowered at Faith as her hands tightened into fists, but she never got a chance to wipe the smirk off Faith's face. A crossbow bolt shot between them and they heard a vampire scream behind them as it dusted, but neither girl turned to look.

Then Xander came running up. "Ladies, ladies. Plenty of undead around to take you're aggression out on. So save this crap for later."

"But she," Buffy began, her eyes wide at the injustice of it.

"Later," Xander repeated himself, but softer. "Giles and Tara are in trouble. For some reason Tara won't use any spells. I sent Anya and Dawn over, but they could use some help."

Buffy glared at Faith one last time before she nodded and spun around on her heel, right into the face of a new vampire. This vampire had an ugly white scar that ran past his right eye and he had a purple band wrapped around his upper arm. "Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in?"

"Who's we?" Faith asked.

"That'd be them," the vampire said and nodded to the four other vampires who had surrounded the three Scoobies. They all wore the same kind of purple band around their arms.

Faith took one look at them and nodded. "Plenty for everyone." With that she threw herself at the nearest two, who both grinned as they pulled out tazers. She was still airborne when they pressed the tips of the guns into her bare arms and pulled the trigger. She couldn't even scream as the electricity poured into her body. Finally she fell to the ground, her arms and legs twitching from what was left of the charge.

"Buffy, run!" Xander shouted and brought up his crossbow, but the lead vampire laid a right cross on his cheek and everything went dark.

"…ander, Xander!"

The entire left side of Xander's face throbbed, and whoever was shouting in his ear wasn't helping. "Lemme alone," he muttered.

"Xander, get up!" Anya shouted.

He heard the panic in her voice and wished he could say his eyes shot open, but they opened and that was all that mattered. He didn't realize he had his head in her lap until he looked up into her worried eyes. "Don't worry, hon. I'm fine. Don't quite know who the president it, but I'm sure it'll come to me."

Anya frowned as she checked his pupils, but they must've looked fine because she smiled and ruffled his hair. Then he heard a woman groan and he turned to see Faith sit up. Then he blinked a few times saw the rest of the group surrounding them. "Hey, the gangs all here. Not even my birthday." He grinned and closed his eyes. It took him a couple of moments to realize someone was missing. This time his eyes opened a lot faster. "Where's Buffy."

"You don't know?" Anya asked with a hint of hysteria in her voice. "We can't find her either."

Xander sat up and watched the ground swim around him. "There were five vampires here…"

"Can't be, mate," Spike said. "We got them all. Told you they were posers."

He heard a moan and saw Faith getting up and rubbing the twin red marks on her arms. "No. These were different. The ones in the church were idiots. These looked like a gang."

"Are you sure?" Giles asked.

"Trust me, I know gang colors when I see them." Faith brushed the dirt off her pants and stood up. "Only thing I don't get is why they didn't kill us."

"They must've been after Buffy," Anya said and looked scared.

"That narrows it down," Spike muttered and lit a cigarette. "Only a few hundred thousand demons have a bone to pick with her."

"This is all interesting and everything, but how does it help us find Buffy?" Dawn asked as she rubbed her arms.

"It doesn't," Xander said and pushed himself to his feet. He started swaying, but Anya caught him. "Thanks Ahn," he whispered as he swung his arm around her thin shoulders. Then he looked at Tara. "We need magic."

Tara's shook her head and stepped away from the group. "I… I don't think that's a good idea."

"Tara, please. It's the only way," Dawn begged the Wicca.

"A simple locating spell," Giles added.

Tara hugged herself and turned. "I can't. Wh- what if I can't control it? What if I end up like…"

"You won't pet," Spike said as he shrugged off his jacked and wrapped it around her. "You can trust me on that."

Xander felt like a dog for pushing the Wicca, but he had no other choice. "Buffy'd do it for you."

Tara hung her head and nodded. "All…alright. I need some supplies."

Buffy's head pounded and the cold stone she was lying on was killing her back. But the worse things were the crickets that wouldn't shut up and the sick, sweet taste in the back of her throat. The only thing she did know was that opening her eyes was probably a bad idea. Since she didn't have anything better to do she drifted back to the fight. She saw Faith get stunned and felt the foul smelling rag go over her face. Everything went dark just as one of the vampires attacked… "Xander!" She shouted and tried to sit up, but something was holding her down.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the leather straps that were wrapped across her body and hooked to the stone table. She tried to yank the straps loose but they barely moved.

"Ms. Summers."

Buffy closed her eyes again and wished as hard as she could, but when she opened them the man was still there, surrounded by the five vampires who had grabbed her.

"How good of you to accept our invitation," Travers said with a grandfatherly smile.