A/N: As usual, I own nothing. The majority of the characters are Joss Whedon's own creation. The newbies, however, are products of my own overactive imagination.
Chapter 11-First Attack
Spike lay in bed watching Chandra sleep. When he was sure she was completely out, he got out of bed and went into the kitchen. He opened up the refrigerator and debated for a minute between the blood and a beer. The beer won. He couldn't sleep right now and he knew that Chandra needed her rest. He went into the small dining room and turned on the TV. Of course, it was late and nothing was really on except for the infomercials so he turned on his Playstation and proceeded to kill as many zombies as possible. He was on the fourth level when he heard a noise coming from the bedroom.
"I'm in here love." There was no answer. He put the game on pause and went to check on her. He made it to the hall and heard another noise coming from the dark bedroom.
"Chandra?" He started toward the bedroom door.
Drusilla emerged.
Spike started and stumbled backwards.
"My dear Spike. You don't look happy to see me."
"Dru…what are you…where did you…" In a flash he thought of Chandra.
"Have you missed me my pretty boy?" She walked towards him, smiling.
"Oh god, Chandra." He knew he had to get past Drusilla and see what she had done. He wouldn't forgive himself if she had hurt Chandra.
"You found a new pet didn't you Spike?" Drusilla's smile was wide. "Another Slayer." She clucked her tongue in disappointment. "Didn't I make you happy?" Drusilla was standing right in front of him and reached out to touch his face. He jerked away.
"Aww, the kitty doesn't want to be petted." She made a small purring noise. "All in good time, all in good time…"
"Where is your daughter Spike?" That snapped him out of the trance.
"How do you know about Kira?" He could barely get the words out through his clenched teeth. She laughed and spun away from him, dancing lightly in the hall.
"A little birdie told me. Tweet tweet! So sweet…so pretty…she is so pretty, isn't she Spike? She'll make a tasty little treat for Mummy." She stopped dancing to look at him. That pushed him over. He vamped and lunged at Drusilla but, instead of attacking her, he passed right through her and landed on the floor.
"Oh look at the pretty daddy on the floor." He rolled over on his back and tried to sit up but Drusilla put her foot on his chest. "Can't even catch smoke."
"You're not Dru." While he couldn't grab a hold of her, he still could not dislodge her foot from his chest. "You're the First."
Dru, or the creature pretending to be Dru, laughed and backed away. The Dru image faded away and then Spike was looking at himself.
"You really are a stupid git aren't you?" The Spike-thing glared at him. "The First is dead. Your Slayer whore buried it." It began walking towards Spike who got on his feet. "You know who I am mate."
"The Darkness," Spike whispered.
"Well aren't we the bloody genius." It grabbed Spike by the throat and slammed him against the wall. "Now why don't you tell me where that sweet little girl of yours is?"
"Spike?" Chandra called from the bedroom. "What's going on?" The bed creaked as she got up. Without letting go of Spike, The Darkness/Spike turned and called
"Nothing love. Just getting the paper. Go back to bed. I'll be right there." It turned back to Spike and smiled, an evil glint in it's eye. "Should I join her and make you watch? I can do that you know." It tightened it's grip. "Then when she screams it will be me she feels inside. And she will scream. Would you like that?" Spike clawed at the hand at his throat but it wouldn't budge. Finally The Darkness/Spike released him and Spike dropped to the floor.
"Your Chandra and I will meet soon. Then I will find your daughter and introduce myself. Her demon grandfather can't hide her forever."
"You bastard. You leave Kira alone." Spike got to his feet. He felt completely helpless. His only consolation was that he knew what was happening unlike when the First was tormenting him.
"All in good time pretty William." It was Dru again. "You must come and play with me. I've so missed our games. Daddy won't play with me anymore and I'm all alone." It looked towards the bedroom door. "Time to go home and rest. Bye bye, my pretty, bye bye." Like the smoke it was, the Darkness vanished. Spike felt his legs give out and he collapsed to the floor. Just then, Chandra appeared in the doorway wrapped in a sheet.
"Spike..." she trailed off when she saw his face. "William? What happened?" She rushed over to him.
"It was here."
"What was..."
"The Darkness. It was here. It was Dru and then it was me. It's looking for Kira." He looked up at her, his face a mask of torment. "It knows D'Hoffryn has her."
Chandra blanched. "I've got to call him..." She moved to get up but Spike grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.
"No! If you bring D'Hoffryn here, you'll lead the Darkness right to her. She's safe as long as she's with D'Hoffryn. It would have to go through an entire clan of vengeance demons to get to her. D'Hoffryn can move her to a dozen different dimensions if he needs to. Here, she's an open target." He could see by Chandra's face that she was prepared to argue with him so he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. "Don't worry love. As long as she is far from here, she's safe."
Chandra put her hand on his face, trying to get a clear read on his thoughts. "It didn't want me out here? Why?"
"I don't know love. More than likely, it just wants to toy with us some more." He stood and helped her to her feet. "I guess we should call Angel. He and Faith need to be warned that it could be after them next. And Angel's son. It may go after him too. I mean, it only makes sense. Kira and Connor are children who, by all of nature's laws, shouldn't exist. It could want them for their power." Chandra shook her head.
"Kira doesn't have any powers."
"She's a slayer, pet. The youngest slayer in history, I gather. And Angel's son is almost indestructible, or something like that." He kissed her. "Go get dressed. I'll call Angel." Chandra frowned and then turned to go back to the bedroom. Spike went over to his phone and called Angel.
"Hello?" Spike almost dropped the phone when he heard Faith's voice answer Angel's phone.
"Faith? Where's Angel?" Oh man. Please don't let him be perfectly happy.
"He's in the shower. What's going on?" Spike filled her in his meeting with the Darkness.
"You and Angel need to get over here. We need to work out a plan."
"We'll be over as soon as Angel gets out of the shower…"
"No doll, you better drag him out now. If he just got in the shower then he'll be in there for a while."
Faith laughed. "Someday Spike, you'll have to explain to me exactly how you know that. We'll be over as soon as we can." She hung up.
……………………………………………………………..
Faith hung up Angel's phone. She walked over to the bathroom door and avoided the steam that poured out.
"Angel! Hurry it up in there. We need to go." She went over to the dresser and grabbed her cell and her jacket. She heard the water turn off.
"Angel! C'mon man. Time's a-wasting. Let's go!" She turned around and saw him standing in the doorway with a towel around his waist.
"What's the hurry?"
"Spike called. The Darkness just went after him. It tried to find out where Kira is. Spike suspects it will go after Conner too. We need to get over to his place and figure out what's what." Faith's eyes swept his body from head to toe. She raised one eyebrow and then turned to conceal her smile. "I'll give you a little privacy so you can get dressed." She walked out to the living room and tried to keep her mind off of the night before.
"Oh dear Faith. Didn't I teach you better than that?" She snapped her head around.
"No." She backed up against the wall. She was looking at Richard Wilkins. "No, we went through this six years ago. You're dead. You're not really here."
"Oh, you're not happy to see me, are you Faithy? I am so disappointed in your manners. Didn't I teach you that you must always make your guests feel welcome?"
Faith shook her head. "We're not dancing this dance again. You don't exist anymore." The mayor's face melted away and was replaced by Buffy.
"First, you turn Spike over to the demon whore. Then you fly all the way out here to sleep with Angel." The Buffy thing laughed. "You really didn't need to go so far out of your way to prove what a slut you are. We all already knew." Faith flinched but didn't respond to the accusation. Instead, she laughed.
"You big bad, evil creatures that go bump in the night. You all have the same M.O. Swoop in, pretend to be a bunch of dead or used to be dead people, get us all riled up to psych us out but in the end, you all go poof into little piles of dust."
The Darkness/Buffy walked closer to Faith. "You can't touch me but I could snap your neck before you could even scream." It smiled. "Did Angel do that for you too? Make you scream?" Faith took in a deep breath. She knew that it was trying to bait her, to catch her off guard.
"So what do you want? You want a play by play account of my sex life? Hope you got a few hours because…" Darkness/Buffy cut her off by knocking her across the room where she crashed through a coffee table.
"Faith! What's going on out there?" Faith heard Angel running into the room. She caught one glimpse of Darkness/Buffy as she waved good bye and blew a kiss before disappearing.
"It was here. It was the mayor and it was Buffy. It was the same ol' show as the First." Angel helped her to her feet. She pulled away from him and walked to the door. Standing in the open doorway, she turned back to face him. He was watching her but she wasn't going to get into this right now.
"Angel, let's go meet with Spike and Chandra. We need to pick up Conner first. We can't leave him alone. If that thing tries to go after him, no telling what mojo it will try to work on his head." She turned around and walked out the door. A few moments later, she heard Angel follow.
When this is all over, she thought, Angel and I will have a sit down. Until then, we can't be distracted. She smiled. One happy couple in this equation is more than enough.
