Chapter Seven

Giles trudged sleepily down the stairs, clinging to the rail so as not to fall if he missed a dark step. It was late, almost two in the morning, but even then, the doorbell rang. It was strange, but he'd seen stranger things, hadn't he? Instead of thinking on that, he thought about what sort of git would come ringing his doorbell at such an hour. Probably just some kids, he thought. He flicked on the porch light and (in a moment of unthought common sense) grabbed a small dagger from the table by the door, tucking it into the sleeve of his shirt.

Spike reached to ring the doorbell for the fifth time just as Giles swung the door open, his eyes just barely more than slits on his face. He smirked at the old man, leaning up against the door frame, "Evening, mate."

Giles squinted his eyes against the harsh glare of the vampires radioactive hair. "Looks like I chose the wrong weapon," Giles said, placing the weapon back in it's place.

"Not here to fight," Spike said, throwing his hands innocently. "Now how 'bout you invite me in and discuss what I came here for."

"I didn't have your invitation revoked just to invite you back in," Giles snorted, crossing his hands over his chest. "What do you want?"

There was a giggle that came from behind Spike and for the first time, he noticed the girl behind him. His eyes locked on hers and he felt the overwhelming urge to invite her in for a cup of tea. "I like him," she smiled, her dark eyes piercing through his own. "You said he's the Watcher?"

The look on her face sent chills down his spine and his mind spun away from his body. Giles blinked, forcing his eyes away from hers. "Who is this?"

"This is Blythe," Spike said, putting a protective arm around her bare shoulders. "I've found one of your Hunters."

Giles stepped back, retrieving the dagger again and holding it up in front of himself. "You brought her here?!"

"I'm here to help you," she said, her eyes willing him to come closer again.

Giles shook her from his head, focusing on the ground. "What is she doing to me?"

"The gypsies called me a Siren," she purred. "The very atmosphere around me wills you to come closer to me. You can feel it, don't you?"

Spike leaned down to nibble on her neck, and she let out a quiet laugh. "Spike! Get away from her, she going to kill Bu-" Giles stopped himself; he wouldn't give away the Slayer's identity so easily.

"Don't worry, Watcher. I know her name... I know your name too; I know everything that I need to about this place."

Giles scowled at Spike, his hand twitching to grab a stake he was sure he had hidden on the bookshelf to his left. "Have you no self control?"

"I knew this all before I arrived here," she continued, placing a defensive hand over Spikes chest. "I'm very good at finding out the things I want to know. I happened on your Spike by chance."

"He's not mine," Giles growled.

"Nonetheless," she cut in. "I'm not here for your Slayer; I followed my brother here."

"Abel?"

She nodded, "I haven't seen him in half a century, but when I found out he was hunting again, I came to find him."

Giles shivered at the normality of the conversation. "So you could hunt?"

"I tired of hunting a long time ago; I followed him here to get my ax back."

Giles' eyebrows knit together in confusion; nothing either of them were saying made any sense. "What does that have to do with Buffy?"

"I came to find better things to do with my time, but I think my brother believes if he can capture a Slayer, I will come back to him."

Giles rubbed his fingers over his eyes, "How is that?"

"Invite us in, and I'll tell you everything."

Giles sighed, turning back to go the kitchen. He left the door open and the two vampires stood confused in its wake. Giles bent down to reach under his sink, retrieving an axe and a stake from behind the pipes. Upon returning, Blythe looked up at him expectantly, running a sharp finger nail over the contours of her collar bones. "Don't give me a reason to kill you two," he glowered.

Spike raised a scarred eyebrow, "Go on then."

Giles shuffled into his living room only giving a small wave of the hand to allow them to come in. Blythe sauntered in first, pulling Spike behind her by the hand. "Have you ever heard of something called the gem of Amara?"

Both Giles and Spike's heads turned in interest. Visions of Angel's weak and bleeding flesh hanging from chains played behind Spike's eyes. He smirked at the thought. Giles nodded his head, "We recently had it in our possession."

"It's gone now," she said casually, perching on the couch across from the them. "Lost in L.A." Irritation swelled in Spike's gut, of course the nancy boy couldn't keep up with it. "It was my mother's."

Giles eyes widened and he leaned forward. "Amara? That was your mother."

"No, my mother was Phaidra. Amara was a goddess she worshipped; the goddess of eternal life."

Spike looked to his right, the ex-librarian's eyes were wide and he could just see the list of questions behind his eyes. He couldn't deny that he wasn't curious either. "Your mother made the ring?"

"All in good time, Watcher." She settled into her seat, evaluating her nails. "I grew up a very long time ago in a city named Corinth."

"Ancient Greece?" Giles asked.

Blythe nodded, "My mother was a... companion to my father; they called them the hetaerae back then. It was a sort of courtesan. I loved my mother, but she was ambitious and had plans beyond me and keeping my father entertained."

"She was a prostitute?" Spike smirked.

She looked at him as though she could set fire with her mind, "Do you want to hear my story or not?" Spike threw his hands up, allowing her to go on. "Mine and Abel's father was a very wealthy landowner. Abel and I shared six other siblings; I was the only one by my mother."

"You were illegitimate." It wasn't a question, Giles had obviously done some reading on the matter.

"I was resented," she corrected. "The other children hated me for the attention I received from my father and I was envied as well; I was allowed to go into the city, I learned things that they would never even know of. They hated my mother and I so much that they threw rocks at us in the courtyards when I had my lessons." She waved her hands in the air as if they were standing in front of her and she could simply turn them to smoke. "Abel was different from them all, and there was a very special bond between us. When I was fourteen, my mother introduced me to three men who called themselves warlocks; it was then that she confided in me her goals of becoming a god. I thought it was silly at the time, but the warlocks were powerful with their combined power. By the time they were ready to complete the spell, I was nineteen and more willing than ever to take my mother away from her suffering; I was to be given to a Spartan within that year and I feared leaving her by herself..."

She stood, pacing in front of the coffee table and rubbing her hands together nervously. "The ritual was complicated and... unlike any I have seen since. It required the compromising of both of our souls. My mother had to do a number of things before I became involved, but once she was immortal, it all became very simple. They bled me on an alter made of human skin and split her immortal soul in two, placing one half inside of me. Then, they cut my heart out and fed it to her on a platter made of silver, and just as the soul inside of me was to die, they fed me her blood."

Spike could hear Giles' heartbeat quicken and he looked over. He was standing. "She turned you."

A sad smile came over her face, "It worked. My mother reigns as a god in her own dimension, but it turns out that the consequences of such majicks were the abomination that lived inside of me; the demon and it's need for blood."

"You're the first," Spike and Giles breathed at the same time.

"The warlock's always said that's why I have the Siren's song."

"What about the Master?" Giles said.

She let out an annoyed growl, "I turned that little weasel in the same month that I acquired my axe. Had I known he would become such a pain in my ass, I would have let the plague have him."

Spike snorted, but Giles didn't seem to be listening anymore, rambling to himself instead. "What about feeding? Sunlight? Stake's don't work, obviously."

She smiled, "The first time I fed, I allowed the demon inside of me to have full control. First, we took the children to the courtyard and I crushed each of their tiny little limbs with boulders, save Abel. I couldn't bring even my demon self to take him, so instead, I left him sleeping in the house. After that, I killed their mother." A sick smile came about her face and she closed her eyes as if to relive the moment. "I spent extra time with her. When I was done, I asked Abel to come be with me forever, he was only eight at the time, but he followed blindly; kissing the cheek that still had his mother's blood on it. The next time I fed, I attacked the city in broad daylight, killing people in there own homes. By the time I was gone, I'd heard rumors of the Spartan warriors coming to their aide." She giggled, "I wish I could have stayed for that.

Unfortunately, the warlocks were ashamed; I felt no guilt but they felt it all and they cursed me so that I would never be allowed to do something like that again; sun would burn me and houses became havens for my victims. They became mine and Abel's unofficial guardians after that."

"So, who made the ring then?"

"A scaled courier came to me one day to deliver a parcel; my mother had sent him from her dimension to restore the powers that were rightfully mine." Giles scoffed. "It is lost now and can bring no harm to you."

"How did you know to turn Abel?"

"For ten years, Abel remained mortal at my side; he fed me when I could find no food, and cleaned up the messes I made. The transition was very hard for me; I felt alone even with him taking care of me, so I demanded that the warlocks help."

"They turned him with majicks as well?"

"Not quite, we performed another ritual; a simple exchange of blood and I bore my first childe. Even in his advanced years, Abel has always acted as a silly fledging, but he's powerful; the gypsies called him 'the seer with short sight', he uses that sense to beat you to your every move. Only I was able to keep him under control for all of that time."

Spike rolled his eyes, "A vampire's a vampire, let's stake him and get it over with."

"An easy task had I not angered the warlocks and the Powers that Be; they now sit as his and only his guardians. They are powerful and very involved in the dark majicks; with their protection, Abel is practically untouchable."

Giles shifted his weight between his two feet; it wasn't possible to allow himself to trust her, but he was in no position to deny her assistance either. "Why would you help us?"

She smirked, "Have you ever heard of the axe of Bjork?"

His forehead wrinkled in thought and he brought his hand up to the top of his nose, "It was an axe possessed by the Slayer Bjork... I believe she came from a viking tribe. They passed it down for some time before it was lost in the fourteenth century."

"Lost to me," she corrected. "It was in my possession for quite some time."

Giles replaced his glasses on his face, his train of thought slowly coming to the right track. "Abel has it."

A snarl came from the back of her throat, "I intend to get it back." She straightened herself, shaking the yellow from her eyes and replacing the scowl on her face with a timid smile. "No harm will come to your Slayer, of course, if she agrees to help me."

"And what if she doesn't?"

"Then I will allow my brother to rip apart everyone she loves before I kill her myself." She approached Giles carefully, lifting a hand to his cheek. "I will get my axe back, Watcher, do not fool yourself into thinking you or any of her little friends are untouchable. You're playing our game now, the only question is whether you want to win or not."

Giles sat thoughtfully for a moment, "What will you do once he's gone?"

"My brother holds something else I want, a gem I gave to him in the early fifteenth century. Similar to Amara's, it allowed him to travel in the sun with me; there's none of the fun immortal trinkets, but it'll have to do. Once I get it, I'll continue traveling as I was before."

"I will agree to this on one condition," Giles said, feigning conviction. She fell back onto the couch, a confident smile playing on her lips and urging him to go on with her hands. "You tell us how we can kill you."


Buffy stared up at her living room ceiling in a daze, the figures of Willow and Tara above her nothing more than shadows. Her thoughts clashed, but slowly, everything spinning around in her head as though it were on a merry-go-round. Only bits and pieces of how she made it home came to her; there was a fight and... Abel flew through a window... no... maybe I fell. One of the girls had ripped her jacket and shirt off to treat the wounds on her stomach and sides; the sound of glass peeling from her flesh loud in her ears. She noticed that she still held what felt like a stake in her hand, but it was much smoother and colder than she remembered any stake she had ever used. "Buffy?" Tara called. Or maybe it was Willow, she couldn't tell. "Buffy are you sure you don't want to go the hospital?" Buffy's head flopped from side to side in an attempt to tell whomever it was no. Her head throbbed, probably from the coffee table Abel had smashed on top of it, but when she lifted a hand to feel the bump, there wasn't any blood. I'll be okay, she reassured herself.

Tara and Willow glanced at each other nervously; Buffy had tears running from her eyes, but her lips were curled into a peaceful smile. They locked hands over her unconscious body, both murmuring Latin in sync and closing their eyes. Giles came in then, worry flowing through the lines on his forehead. He stood over the girls, forcing himself to hold his tongue; whatever they were doing, he knew he couldn't disturb them now. Blood soaked spots on Buffy's body began to glow red and then blue, Dawn entered then holding a rather large first-aid kit. She smiled wearily up at the man before kneeling down at her sisters side. "They're taking the pain away," she explained. "It'll help us keep her from falling asleep and it will be easier to clean the wounds."

Giles nodded assessing the now white glowing spots on her body. "What happened?"

"We don't know yet, Tara said the spell should make Buffy lucid enough to speak."

Tara and Willow broke hands then, the light seeping into Buffy's body. Her eyes opened slowly, a week groan coming from her body. "What's the damage?"

Willow exhaled relief, taking the wet cloth Dawn handed both her and Tara. "Mostly superficial wounds... A piece of glass was lodged pretty deep in your stomach and that bump in your head looks like it could grow it's own face, but I think you'll be fine."

Buffy smiled weekly, but didn't reply. Giles took a rag and wiped a few drops of blood from her face, observing his beautiful, broken Slayer in her weakness. He continued to wipe down her face and onto her neck, hoping that the wound he saw there wasn't more glass. With a quick thought, he took that back and hoped it would be glass; anything but what he knew it was. A renewed panic rushed through his veins as he evaluated the deep bite. "Buffy, you've been bitten."

Her shoulders rose up in an attempted shrug and she laughed lazily. "Stupidity has it's consequences, I guess." The group around her exchanged worried glances, but she seemed unaffected by any of them. "Not like it's the first time," she grumbled.

Giles stepped aside to help move her to the couch; lucidity finally coming to her eyes. Though she didn't seem to be in unbearable pain, she still looked uncomfortable as she gingerly touched near the bump on her head. "What happened?"

Buffy let out an annoyed sigh, "You were right, I shouldn't have trusted him."

"Cain?" Willow said excitedly.

Giles cut in for Buffy, a scowl on his face, "There is no Cain."

Buffy's eyes shot to Giles, surprise written inside of them. "You know?"

Giles rose to sit on a chair across from Buffy, and finally revealed everything Spike and Blythe had told him. The occupants of the room, Buffy especially, listened with wide eyes and open mouths. Giles told them every detail he could remember, beginning with the oddity of the hour all the way to Blythe's confession of her sordid past. "She's agreed to help us," he finally finished.

Again, surprise shot through the room. "Help?" Buffy scoffed.

"Yes," he said defensively. "When her and Spike came to me last night, I thought they were going to kill me and then I thought they were going to come and find you too, but... they didn't. I still don't want to trust them, but we're not in a position to turn down the help we desperately need, Buffy."

"It's a trick!" Buffy shouted. "Spike found himself a new fuck and now he's helping them."

Dawn frown, stepping closer to her sister. It was so unfair how she treated him, especially after everything he'd done for them. "You know he couldn't do that. Not to you."

"You just expect me to put my friends and family in danger like this?

Giles stared almost guiltily into Buffy's green eyes, "We don't have a choice."