Part 11
Faith's POV
We find Marko with no trouble at all. He's standing over David's charred remains, with a stunned look on his face.
"Hey vamp." I cordially greet him.
He turns to face me in fang. "You did this?" He's shaking with anger.
I smile, and he lunges at me, I'm ready for him, but he doesn't make it because B sloshes holy water in his face. He reaches up to cover his face, I'm impressed to see that his skin is simply dissolving at the touch of holy water.
I knock out his legs from under him and he hits the ground like a ton of bricks.
B approaches with a length of rope.
We tie Marko to a chair, all the while he's cursing us all for destroying his pack.
So this is the one that nailed B. I don't get it. I've seen her exes, they all have a tall, dark, broodiness to them. The guy is short, blonde and I don't think I've seen anyone less pouty, except for maybe Xander.
Not that Marko's at his most perky right now.
"Marko, let's cut to the chase," B says. "Who's the head vampire?"
"I don't know."
"Think he's lying?" She asks me.
"Dunno, I thought vamps were known for their trustworthiness." I tip her another wink.
"What are you going to do? Kill me?" He attempts a contemptuous laugh, and nearly makes it.
"Eventually." I say. "But the question is, what shall we do in the mean time? B?"
"How about this?" She tosses me a cross, and I press it into Marko's cheek. He yells and curses a little.
I see B wince, and worry, I'm only getting warmed up, and she's already getting guilt about it.
"B, wanna take a step back?" I ask, giving her a look so she knows what I'm asking.
"You're so much better at this than me." She reaches in my pocket for a cigarette. "Think I'll just smoke this and watch and learn." She comes across as a total hard bitch, but I see her hands shake.
Poor B, she's not cut out for torture. It's not her style. She's got too much of a conscience to deal with it, even against evil. She kills 'em quick and moves on. After this I'm definitely taking a leaf out of her book.
Buffy's POV
I take a seat on the couch where I first drank the 'wine' they gave me. Where Marko first kissed me. Where I became a half vampire. I'm half vamp, half Slayer, and I'm beginning to understand how Angel feels. It's all too easy to give into your darker side.
I could have really got off on torturing Marko, but I didn't want that feeling. I'm just going to watch Faith. Not what she's doing, but just her, the lines of her body, the way her hair falls in her face unevenly, the little changes in her expressions, everything about her has so much grace and beauty.
In a few moments I'm back to myself. Faith has saved me so many times recently, and she only knows about half of them.
Faith's got a determined look on her face. Marko still claims he doesn't know who the head vamp is. Now, either Marko is part of an honourable (snort) pack, who won't give each other up, even if death is the price, or he genuinely doesn't know.
Either way, he isn't going to live much longer. Me, I'd have lied by now, anything to stop the pain. Faith's having fun with the holy water and crosses now. Marko's not having fun.
Faith steps away from him, lets him catch his breath, metaphorically speaking, of course. She digs in her bag of tricks and brings out a knife, a can of petrol and a box of matches.
"You ever see Reservoir Dogs?" She asks him in a throaty voice that drives me wild.
"Except in the film," she continues. "It was a good guy strapped to the chair, and a bad guy torturing him, with no motive. But me, I'm one of the good guys, so's she." She points in my direction. "And you're just a pathetic vampire with a really outdated hairstyle.
"My motive for torturing you is because you turned B. Right now, I really believe that you genuinely don't know who the head vampire is, but I really don't care."
She leaps forward and the knife flashes, blood pours down Marko's cheek. It's not a deep cut, but enough for the blood to really flow.
I bite back my urge to feed by focusing on Faith. I light another cigarette.
"You still with me, girlfriend?" She asks me.
"Always." I reply.
"You're dykes?" Marko momentarily forgets his pain by this new development.
"Yes." I reply before Faith can. "She's the jealous type, what can I say?"
Faith gives me this look that pretty much makes me fly, it's a mixture of happiness, pride and disbelief.
She turns back to Marko.
"Faith, not the ear thing." I say. "That gave me a wiggins for weeks."
"You just got lucky." She tells Marko. "Well, luckier." She empties the petrol all over him.
Faith's POV
"Don't." He pleads.
"Why not?" I ask.
"I don't wanna burn, man."
"The head vampire." I remind him impatiently. "Tell us who he is and you get a stake through the heart instead of being immolated."
"I don't know anything about him. I swear. David didn't tell us anything." Marko is trying to chair-walk away from me. He's not making much progress. "C'mon. Let me go. If I knew, I'd tell you."
"And even if you did tell me, I'd still kill you." I reply with a laugh. "What do you think, B?"
She inhales deeply on her cigarette and breathes it out slowly as she walks over to me. "This is boring the hell out of me." She tells me. "The way I see it is we could either stay here and do more of the torture, or we could admit defeat and have a wicked-hot bonfire."
"Your call, B." I loop an arm around her waist. I can't believe my voice is coming out so smoothly. B's admitted she's having feelings for me, told Marko that I'm hers, and I'm still standing, I feel like I'm about to collapse. She's even using my sayings.
B turns her attention to Marko. "I've got a couple of things to say. First of all, you're not my type, I like brunettes, female ones. Second, she," a quick nod in my direction, "makes me quiver just by saying my name, you couldn't ever have that effect on me no matter what you did."
She takes my arm, and leads me out of the cave.
"B?" I gesture at Marko.
"Oh yeah." She takes another lug on the cigarette, then flicks it at him. It ain't pretty.
I'm glad to get out of the cave, the stench of burning vampire was an assault on my senses. I definitely need a new tactic, fire, petrol and matches have lost their charm.
I lean against the van, unable to stand anymore. This week has been way too intense for even me.
"You ok?" B asks, full of concern.
"Five by five." I reply on auto-pilot.
"Really?" She kneels in front of me and strokes my face.
"This week…" I tail off and take a deep breath. "Jeez, I know it's important, but this is one hell of a way for me to finally become your friend."
"Friend?" She laughs. "Yeah right."
"What?" I flinch. I can't take this. Rejection from B, I should be used to it by now, but not this week. Not after so much has happened. Not when I've had my hopes built up so far.
"Faith, we're not friends."
I bite my lip hard, too shattered by the revelation to even move, but I can feel the tears building up.
"We'll never be friends." She continues. "We'll be in love until it kill us."
I look at her to see if she's joking, but instead I see her face crumple, my silence wasn't the right answer to her statement.
"I mean, I will be, if you…" She tails off, and moves to get up.
I grab her arm. "B?" My voice is unbelievably shaky. "I love you too."
"Really?"
"Really." I confirm.
"I love you so much." She tells me.
My tears are flowing now, but they're happy tears. I'm so pathetic. I think I'm gonna die of happiness when her lips touch mine, hesitant at first, then growing more confident.
Buffy's POV
I'm still shaking. I was shaking so much that Faith had to help me get dressed. I keep looking at her and reminding myself that she's my girlfriend. I want to scream it from the rooftops.
"C'mon, beautiful, we'd better get back to the Boardwalk. They'll think we've been abducted by aliens."
I take her hand and she leads me to the van. "My tattoo." I say suddenly. "There are two symbols for Faith, one's religious, the other isn't. I've got the one that isn't."
Her face lights up and I'm glad that I told her.
"This day gets better and better."
"It's night actually." I tell her as we climb into the van.
"Whatever."
I put my hand on her leg as she drives, enjoying the fact that we're now official. She's mine, and I'm never letting her go. She turns to smile at me so often I'm convinced we're gonna have an accident before we get back.
"You should definitely do that more often."
"What?" She quirks an eyebrow at me. "That? I was planning on it."
I giggle. "Good. Me too, but what I actually meant was smile. You've got a beautiful smile. I want to see it more often."
She smiles shyly at me. Faith always amazes me, I always think I've seen all of her expressions, but there's always one more. This one's absolutely amazing. She looks totally innocent. Well, as innocent as an ex-rogue Slayer who just tortured a vampire then ravished the other Slayer for a couple of hours in one night can get.
The Frog's comic book store is trashed. One cop is there taking details, I wonder where the rest are. In Sunnydale, the cops at least show up and feign interest.
Edgar is looking pretty trashed himself. He's covered in ugly bruises and there's a long cut down the right side of his face. He pulls us to the side, out of hearing distance of the cop and his parents.
"What happened?" Faith finds her voice first.
"Head vampire, he brought friends."
"Where are the others?" I ask, knowing it's a redundant question.
"Took 'em. Star, Laddie and Alan. We've gotta find them. He's my younger brother." I've never seen Edgar so animated. He's keeping a lid on it, but he's panicking. I know how he feels, I'd feel exactly the same if someone took Dawn.
"We'll get them back." I tell him reassuringly, putting a hand on his arm.
He shakes it off. "Where the hell were you? You went to find a vampire, you were gone for hours! Did you even find out where his lair is?"
Faith and I look at each other wordlessly. We spent excess time torturing a vampire, even though he didn't know a thing, then we spend several hours making love, and now three of our friends had been kidnapped, and we could have stopped it.