A/N: I'm sorry this took so long. I got completely obsessed with Glee, and I had to write something for that. It's called "Texts and Insanity" if you wanted to check it out.

Carnivore

Chapter 7 – An Old Friend of Mine

As I sat in the darkness with Spike, waiting for help to come, I wondered if this was it. The end of the Scoobies. Willow was so close to going off the deep end that she'd escaped to another dimension! Buffy had been captured – I couldn't remember the last time that had happened – and I was stuck in the dark, unable to do anything for either of them.

I wondered if Willow would come back, and if she did, would she miss me and Buffy? Or would she move on? I hated to admit it to myself, but I also wondered about what Fred would think when she got back with Willow. We could have used her help here. Illyria made her as strong and even faster than a slayer, but she wasn't one. Carnivora wouldn't have been able to touch her. Would she feel guilty that she wasn't here with us? Would she be sad if we didn't come back?

I tried to talk to Spike about her, just a little bit, but he growled at me whenever I tried to speak, saying something about making sure he could still hear Buffy. We both sat there, going slowly crazy worrying over things we couldn't change.

And then Angel showed up out of nowhere. As happy as I was to have some help, to be rescued from sitting in the dark, I hated him for leaving the rest of the slayers like that. Buffy knew that there was a line, a time to call it quits and do whatever needed to be done for the greater good. Angel used to understand that. Hadn't he left Buffy after graduation because of the greater good? I mean, not that he shouldn't have done what he did. But him showing up here was just wrong! And Spike said absolutely nothing.

"I've counted thirteen demons between us and the girls, luv," I told Angel, leading him by the hand closer to the dungeon. "How d'you reckon we get past them. You gotta weapon?"

"Yeah," he whispered, and I could almost feel him wince. Letting his presence wash over me, I realised how much pain he was in and wondered how I had managed to overlook it before.

"What's wrong, Angel?" I asked, grunting when Xander ran into us. "Why all the pain?"

"Left the Aegis," he panted, licking his lips nervously, "behind."

"How does that even work?" Xander asked in a whisper that almost sounded relieved.

"No time to explain," Angel growled at him, until I rubbed his shoulder to soothe him. "Castle's safe, but it hurts like a bitch. Spike's blood helped. Satisfied?"

"All we need to worry about," I spoke up, grabbing his attention, "is whether or not you can fight." If he couldn't, what was the point of waiting for him to come? What was the point of feeling like it was all going to work out, if it couldn't? What was the point of making it this far if he couldn't help push this through to the end?

Angel sighed and cupped my face with one hand before saying, "I think fighting would actually be a relief. Get my mind off how awful this feels."

"Alright," I nodded, putting my hand over his and peering around the corner to check on the state of things. "You take the six on the right, I'll take the six on the left, and the whelp can go after the stragglers?"

"Sure," Angel nodded, with Xander grunting in assent. I knew he was a better fighter than I was making him out to be, but I had no intention of getting our lady's best friend killed while she was out of commission. Once she was free and back in top form, then I could put the boy in danger again, because she would just frown at me and then go save him. Was it sad that I even loved the way she frowned at me?

"We all know why we're here," I murmured to the two men behind me. "And we all know that the goal of today's little exercise in heroism is to get the girl and be smart about doing it. If either of you thinks we need to fall back, go ahead and shout that out, yeah?"

"Wow," the whelp snarked before chuckling. "This is surreal. How did we end up here?"

"Shut it," I growled, squeezing Angel's hand, "and follow my lead."

"God help us," Xander whispered and Angel actually laughed. He laughed! That's my job, that is!

Slipping on my demon's face, I scented the air, loving the stink of fear surrounding the demons. They were skittish. Good. Might scare a few of them off right away then. When one of them wandered a little too close to our passageway and the rest were watching a scuffle between two of the big ones, I grabbed the figure, realizing almost right away that it was a vamp. One arm around his throat and another on his mouth, I pulled the guy back toward the other two as quick as I could, letting Angel stake the bastard before he knew what hit him. When I looked up, I could feel and almost see the soul in his chest, pulsing deeply letting me know it was still him in there. I knew his soul was linked to the damn artifact and I was damn glad to see it still in there even a few hundred miles from the Aegis. Without the soul, my love was gone. And in his place? A demon even worse than this Carnivora fellow. Angelus was never very picky about his victims. Only that they be conscious and preferably terrified.

The battle, which I entered first with a silent beheading and then with a battle cry, flowed over me like water, or some flowery shit. I couldn't quite take it in, just living from second to second, enemy to enemy, knowing that I had to be there on the other side for Angel. So I could help him get to Buffy. So we could save her together. We had to save her together. There was just no getting around that fact, yeah?

I'd never been good on my own. Was with Dru on and off for so long. Before her it was Mother, and after Dru it was Buffy. After Buffy it was Angel, though it had always been him in one way or another. Even before I died, I'd been waiting for him. And there he was. With me now, suffering and bleeding because I needed to save our girl. And it wasn't for the greater good. It was for him. It was for me. It was selfish and stupid going after our slayer, and I promised I wasn't going to be stupid.

But the bloody bastard made the first stupid move, leaving his Aegis behind at the castle and coming after me. That gave me a bit of leeway, I reckoned. Let me get a little loose and a little above the situation as I fought. Simultaneously in the moment and out of it. With him and stuck in my own head. One ear out for Buffy's chant, louder now that he and I stormed the last few demons back against the iron door between her and us; and one ear on the ever-present thump-thump of Xander's ticker and a curiously similar pulse from Angel's soul. Had it been that way before? Making its presence known so clearly? So loudly?

I roared my fear and relief, tearing demons apart limb-from-limb when I lost my sword somewhere. Blood rained down everywhere. And not even the good kind of blood. Demon blood. All nasty and oily. Putrid, filthy, disgusting. Even the vamp blood has that taste a little. Despite what you read in those crazy romance novels, vamps do not bite each other, as a rule. Oh, there might be little exchanges between sire and progeny on occasion that you grin and bear. But usually it's like accidentally tasting earwax. Disgusting. Rotten. Dead. Soulless. Or maybe I'm remembering it wrong after tasting this new and improved Angel over and over again for the past, what, seven months? Eight? Couldn't be bothered to remember at the mo.

Then, while I was wiping some blood out of my eye, the screams started. Something was going on beyond the heavy iron door. Something disastrous. My heart up in my throat like it was trying to remember what adrenaline did to it, I finished off my last demon by breaking its neck and slammed myself against the door, trying to figure out how to open it. Barred and locked, it kept me from her, though it couldn't block out the scream that was obviously hers. God, what have I done to deserve hearing this? What?

Oh, yes. That. Lovely.

"Spike!" someone behind me yelled, and growling at the door one last time, I turned to look. There, fighting off a demon with some sort of axe that he must have picked up, was Xander. When he saw that I was looking, he lobbed something in my direction before retreating towards Angel, who had three demons left. Knew I was a better fighter than the old man. Even if he did have a painful handicap at the moment...

I caught what Xander threw at me, taking a moment and turning the heavy metal object over in my hands a few times before I realised it was a key. A large cast-iron key. That probably fit the door at my back. With a grunt, I married the two together, gritting my teeth as I turned the heavy bolt, my hands slippery and sticky with blood and sweat.

"Fucking work, you bloody, miserable – ah!" I growled, sighing with relief when the bolt slipped aside and the door snicked open like an invitation.

That one there, given the screams of pain and terror coming from the dungeon beyond, I would not refuse.

"But you gotta be smart about this, Will," I murmured to myself, crouching down and taking a knife from one of the fallen demons at my feet. Then, half-crawling and half-crouching, I sneaked into the dungeon, leaving behind the lights of the battle. Leaving behind Angel and Xander to finish off what I couldn't. Couldn't wait. Couldn't listen to those girls. Couldn't smell the sharp, smoky pull of slayer blood and not rush to help them. Couldn't be the monster this time. Had to be the hero. Had to let Buffy be her own hero. Had to stop whatever the fuck he was doing to them.

My throat ached and my voice grew weary time and time again as I waited for help to arrive. Where were they? Where were my boys? They were coming, weren't they? Wasn't that Angel I felt getting closer and closer? How could we still be locked up in here without help, without food, without hope besides that which I created for the benefit of the others?

That's when he came back. Of course. You know, before I became a slayer, my life wasn't nearly as predictable. It had been nice, but I'd never appreciated it. It's true that youth is wasted on the young. And being normal is wasted on the normal. Comfort is wasted on the safe.

"Sssummers," the voice hissed, drawing out his consonant as shuffling feet scraped forward along the stone floor in the darkness. Carnivora hadn't brought a light this time, so I had to follow him with my ears, my slayer sense, and – euggh – my nose. We walked by me, the cloth of his robes brushing against my feet.

"Ready to take me up on that offer?" I asked, like I couldn't really give a crap one way or another. "Let us go, and you'll probably live again to creep another day."

Carnivora chuckled dirtily, but he didn't answer, just shuffling further away until he stopped. "Ssslayer Melissa Rutlin," he hissed. "Any last words?"

"Oh, god," a girl gasped in a southern accent. "Lord protect me in my hour of need!"

"Oh," the demon laughed, "how quaint! You actually believe in this God creature? Oh, how I wish he could help you now, sweetling."

"What are you up to, roadkill-breath?" I called out, trying to call attention to myself again, even though that downer of a girl had told me what would happen.

"If you could see her," he replied, "you would see that Melissa has gorgeous blonde curls, big brown eyes and an amazing body for a human. If you could smell her," he continued, taking a deep breath, "you'd know she smells like raspberries, tears, urine, and fear. She smells like food, Ms. Summers. And yes, your little friends have accelerated my plans somewhat, but that's just fine, isn't it Melissa? "

"Help is coming," she whispered. "I will survive. The demon will not–"

"Now, that's where you're wrong," the demon insisted, the dull thud of flesh hitting flesh forcing the air from Melissa's lips. She was silent for a long time, and I thought that was the worst thing I would ever hear. But I was wrong, too.

As Carnivora shuffled in place and murmured to himself, the sound coming from Melissa's lips grew and with each passing second. Choking, wailing, screaming, the girl called out in pain and fear.

"What are you doing to her?" I called out. "What are you doing?"

Melissa's cries were horrible and ghastly. Others started screaming along with her and it was so much worse not being able to see what he was doing to them. I tried to keep chanting, to keep the girls with me, but it was so dark and the screams were so, so loud that I couldn't keep it up.

Something pulled at my voice, silencing me either with fear or power or some combination of the two, weakening me and making me curse the demon who would dare do this to me. Even though I was the head honcho slayer, the elder, the leader, I couldn't keep my voice going. The last bit of power I had, I lost to Carnivora, even if it was just a few seconds of silence, he won. He beat me and there was nothing I hated more than losing. My screams joined the others unwillingly, pulled from my throat without thought on my part. What was he doing?

Then, the demon howled, my screaming faltered, and I thought for a second that he bellowed a cry of victory, but no. There was a squelching of metal piercing flesh and the demon howled again. "How dare you attack me, vampire?" he grunted, shuffling around in the dark again, lunging for whoever it was that had attacked him. And suddenly, there was a cold body next to mine, the smell of his hair so achingly familiar and the touch of his hands as he brushed my face with tender fingertips so very welcome. He was here! He had come for me! I hadn't been dreaming an impossible dream. I had kept fighting for a very tangible reason, and he was here now.

"Get you outta here in a mo, love," Spike whispered to me, dancing away again when Carnivora barreled past. And suddenly, the demon lit up the dungeon with single grunted words, flinging spell after spell at Spike as he slipped away again and again, keeping him busy. When they turned a corner, the flares of light retreated as well, leaving us in relative darkness again. I almost expected the girls around me to start whispering or asking what was going on, but they all stayed eerily silent. A few chains rattled and a few sobs escaped frightened lips, but no one spoke.

Maybe they were all just as tired of speaking as I was. We'd kept up our end of the bargain, our chant. It was time for someone else to pick up the slack now. I closed my eyes again to listen and wait, my heart beating quickly as I prayed that Spike would be safe and smart about distracting the demon. I didn't think he could fight Carnivora on his own without getting hit, but he could lead the demon on a wild goose chase until further help arrived.

Please, God, tell me further help is coming. That would be so cool right now.

My prayers were answered when another figure stormed the dungeon, switching on a flashlight and shining it all around. "Buffy? Are you here?"

"Xand!" I cried as best I could with a hoarse voice and dry, caked over tongue. "Over here! Here ... Here!"

"There you are!" he whispered comfortingly when a flashlight shone into my face, blinding me until he dropped it away again. He held the flashlight then between his chin and his shoulder, rattling somethin metal that I saw, when my vision came back, was a set of heavy, ancient-looking keys. "This one?" he murmured, fitting one of them into the lock at my left wrist. "No..."

"Hurrying would be appreciated," I managed to croak, keeping one ear out for Spike and Carnivora, who drew close again before retreating. No way Xander could fight that thing. Not without getting hit by one of its spells. God, he shouldn't have come!

But then he found the right key, freeing my wrist and letting me wrap that arm around his shoulder, leaning on him and breathing in his familiar, homey scent as he went about unlocking the rest of my chains. When I was free and clinging to him, Xander hugged me close for a few seconds before pressing a knife into my hands. "I need to find the ones who are still alive and get them down. Watch my back?"

"What?" I asked, hefting the knife and trying to remember how to stand on my own. "What do you mean, still alive?"

With a sad little huff, Xander pointed the flashlight at one of the girls, the loud girl who had been chained up across the aisle from me, I realized. Her face was pale and her eyes clouded over, everything about her body was slack, unmoving and dead.

"How?" I asked, snagging the flashlight from Xander and finding more and more dead girls. "They were just speaking!" I cried. "They were just screaming. Why? Why are they dead?"

"I don't know," Xander whispered, taking a few steps away from me, the light going with him.

Another voice echoed at the far side of the dungeon, opposite from where Spike had led Carnivora away, "He ate them."

"Angel?" I asked, hurrying over to the vampire. My vampire. As he stepped into the room carrying a torch above his head, he looked exhausted and hurt, but that didn't stop me from flinging my arms around him.

"The demon," he said, one arm around my shoulders, letting me help him as much as he was helping me as we hobbled over to one of the dead slayers, "took their power, fast and lethal. Not like he was planning to, but just as effective."

Glancing up at this slayer's face, I saw it was one I recognized, "No! Lu? Oh, god!"

"I'm sorry," Angel whispered, kissing my hair and squeezing me tighter as he moved the torch away. Lu was gone. Why was I still the one alive?

"Hey!" Xander called. "Hey! I got one!"

Angel and I rushed over to help him, but Spike came rushing back to us, his arm hanging limply as he barked, "A little help, luvs?"

Angel dropped his torch and drew a sword from his belt, running up to meet the threat. As I figured out how to follow him, I did, stumbling one foot over the other, my blade ready to end the bastard who had killed my friend. Probably all my friends. Carnivora crashed around the corner and I realized that I still couldn't see him very well. Maybe if I could see, he wouldn't be nearly as frightening. The demon threw a spell at us, but Angel and I both managed to dodge in opposite directions. Angel got onto his feet again first, while Spike joined us, fighting with his bad arm beside Angel, so matched up to him in every way.

Sneaking around behind the fight, I crept up and knifed Carnivora in the back, right where I thought his kidney might be. If slayer-eaters had kidneys…

With another sharp howl, Carnivora cried, "Soon, my dear. Soon," and disappeared. Just freaking disappeared right in front of me!

"Did you guys see that?" I asked, wondering if he'd just managed to slip away from the light in the blink of my eye.

"Yeah," Angel sighed. "He's gone."

"Think he'll be back?" Spike asked, looking to Angel like he was god's gift, like he always did these days.

Angel shrugged and I joined them, stowing my knife and letting both vampires pull me into their arms. "I know I look awful," I whispered, "and I probably smell much worse. But thank you for coming to get me."

"Xander wanted to leave you here," Spike grumbled, running his hand up and down my side as if to make sure I was solid and real.

"I did not!" my friend called from down the corridor. "And can I get some help? Suzie isn't looking so hot."

Angel let go of me, leaving to help Xander. Leaving me in Spike's arms. "Couldn't resist coming to find you, kitten," he whispered, kissing me on the lips. "Just … just wasn't in the cards, is all."

"I knew you'd come," I whispered back, letting him lower me to the ground with his good arm, sitting beside me on the cold stone floor and holding me close.

Whispers started filtering toward us from the far corners of the dungeons, more and more slayers still alive. We'd only lost seven girls, all told once Angel and Xander set about freeing them. Giles and Bethany found us eventually, along with dozens of others who had survived the battle outside. Andrew, who managed to get a big gash on his stupid brow, a mirror image of my slayer-inflicted scar, came to talk to us. Bloody fantastic.

"All the sorcerers lost their mojo," he said, wiping the blood out of his eye and sticking that finger in his mouth to clean it away like an injured child. Or a vampire. Sodding stalker if you ask me. "And once their spells stopped working, all the demons ran away. Whatever happened in here helped us win out there."

"Yay, us!" Buffy cheered in her exhausted, bruised voice. "But he's not dead."

"No," I agreed, holding her closer and flexing my injured arm to get it to heal already so I could hug my girl properly.

"And Belial's still after Willow," she continued, burying her head against my chest.

"Aye."

Murmuring like she was about to fall asleep, Buffy said, "I should have slit his throat, instead of stabbing him in the back like a coward."

"I should have dodged a little faster," I returned, flexing my arm again and wincing at how the burned skin stretched and cracked. "But you couldn't have known he was going to pfftt away."

"Doesn't matter," she pouted, kicking out at a stone on the ground, sending it skittering away. "I lost. Twice. I hate losing."

Stroking her tangled hair as best I could, I nodded Andrew away before whispering to Buffy, "I'm just glad I got to you in time. You have no idea how long I was waiting outside that door before I could get to you. It almost killed me, luv."

"What changed?"

"Angel," I chuckled. "It's always him, kitten. Came for us, he did."

She looked around me to where Angel was speaking with Giles about something or other, the Watcher gesticulating wildly while Ange just stood before him stoicly. "What about all the others?"

"They're safe," I assured her. "Don't know how the bastard went through with it, but they're safe."

Buffy nodded against me and sighed before standing. "I need to get out of here, sweetie. Let's go."

Nothing had ever hurt as much as the Aegis tearing at my soul as I listened to Buffy scream over and over again from the dungeon. I couldn't get to her. Not yet. Not with all these demons in the way. There! Xander had the key, and then Spike had it. I just had to keep these last few demons away from him so that he could put whatever was going on in there to an end. When the screams stopped and I had finished paying my pain forward onto the bodies of the monsters dead around my feet, I followed Spike and Xander in to the dungeon, knowing Buffy was still alive but afraid my senses were tricking me somehow and I would find myself too late to save her. Again.

But there she was, standing and alive, unlike a few of these others. She grieved and she fought, she struck out at the demon that had captured her, her blow sending him away. She melted into our arms and I felt the pain in my chest let up again. She was a salve, as was he. My two … everything. He was my heart and my soul, as was she. From the beginning to the end. I just had to get them back home, where they belonged. Where I belonged now.

But there was business to attend to. Bodies to take care of, survivors to find, and one I wasn't sure we could save. "Melissa," she whispered through cut-up lips when I asked for her name. Her clothes were torn and bloody and I recognized Carnivora's smell pressed into her.

Holding out my hand until she set hers into mine, I squeezed that hand and whispered, "I'm sorry we didn't get here soon enough to save you."

Looking up in confusion, like my words didn't mean anything to her, she asked, "Why? Why did he have to do that to me?"

"It was about taking power," I told her. "Yours and the slayers around you. He needs the act to feed. I'm so … sorry," I gasped, watching her eyes flutter shut and remembering what it felt like to be that used and broken. I thought about sparing her from that pain, that everlasting guilt and shame and fear, but then her breath stopped and her heart slowed. Someone might have been able to keep her alive, but I knew from experience that wasn't what she would have wanted. So, I held her hand and let her go, looking up when Giles crouched down beside us.

"She's gone?"

I nodded sadly. "Raped and tortured. It's a mercy this way."

He sat beside me for longer than I would have liked until saying, "I've been tortured. By you, in fact. The memories can be overcome. She might have done well, eventually."

"Not when it was her torture that killed these six girls around her," I shook my head, trying not to remember how much enjoyment Angelus had gotten out of torturing Giles. I was sure Carnivora, even if he had been rushed, had gotten just as much, if not more pleasure out of breaking this slayer and the others nearest to her. "Pang Lu is dead because of what he did to this one. That guilt would have killed her sooner rather than later."

"Why her," Giles whispered. "And not Buffy?"

I thought about it for a moment, resting Melissa's hand down on her unmoving chest and covering her face with a loose cloth. "Because it would have taken longer," I finally concluded. "With us pressing down on him, breaking Buffy would have taken too long. And, I think he wanted to weaken her just enough to take her with him when he fled. He would have kept her alive for as long as possible, if he could have taken her."

Growling, the Watcher followed me when I stood, "Takes one to know one, then?" Stepping up closer to me, he asked, "How could you have left the castle unguarded? I thought you understood the greater good, Angel, or was Buffy's peril just too much for you to rationalise? I have to know this, if you're going to be working with us."

"I'm already working with you," I pointed out, before saying, "and I didn't leave the castle unguarded. Call and ask Faith. She'll tell you."

"And about Buffy? Two of our sorcerers and a Watcher were killed today trying to rescue her."

"Spike," I muttered, trying to walk away before the man caught me again. He was the reason I'd done something so foolish. He was always my reason for everything. I needed to be there, to take care of him, to love him, to save him from the impossible situation he'd put himself in. As he and Buffy left the dungeon, I caught up behind them, again noticing how Spike's touch dulled the pain.

"Let's go," I insisted, helping Buffy walk, letting Spike wrap his arm around my waist and leading them both out of the cave the way I'd come in. The sky outside the cave was almost as dark as the cave itself, except for the stars. I loaded Buffy into the back seat of my car, letting her lay down there to sleep under one of my sun blankets, taking her soiled clothes as she threw them to me and putting them in the trunk.

Everything was going to be alright? Wasn't it? The pain crept away the closer we got to home until we were a mile outside the village below the castle and I couldn't feel any pain at all. If only home didn't feel so much like a prison, I might have been close to happy, getting both my lovers back in single pieces. Instead, I had to settle for uneasily content.

It's an old friend of mine.

A/N: So this is the last chapter of "Carnivore". The next episode, which follows directly after this one, is called "Sanctuary" and the first chapter is already posted. You can find it on my Profile page, or in the main Buffy Listing. It's an ensemble piece, including Willow, Fred, Xander, Buffy, Angel, and Spike dealing with the aftermath of the previous two episodes. I hope you'll check it out.

Also, please don't forget to review! It was a few pleas for me to continue that prodded me into finishing up this episodes, so more reviews are always better when getting me to write more. And, thanks as always, for reading!