Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Smallville, or Van Helsing.

A/N: When in her POV Willow will be referred to as 'Aleera' because for now that's the dominant memories and personality. When in that personality she will refer to Chloe as Marishka.

Things mentioned here happened in VAN HELSING, from which the Brides are from.

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"Well…" Spike was the first to break the silence as everyone looked at the mess of what had been a lovely window. "That was unexpected."

Noticing growling, the blonde turned in time to see his sire, face feral, about to attack the newly arrived Slayer when the brunette Slayer stepped in.

"Now is not the time, Angel." Faith placed a forceful hand on Angel's chest, pushing him backwards and away from Buffy. "Something has happened to Willow and like it or not, Buffy is her friend, and if we want to get Willow and the others back we're going to need Buffy."

Spike, having expected Angel to use his superior strength to throw the petite woman away and attack Buffy, was surprised and mildly disappointed when his sire gave Buffy one last hate-filled glare before his face returned to its human disguise and he nodded at the brunette Slayer who was giving him a thankful look.

Spike shook his head at the understanding a comradeship instantly formed between vampire and slayer.

Only he would have a Sire who had a weakness for working willingly with Slayers.

"Will someone tell me what the hell Chloe was doing here and what happened to Willow?!?!" While she was tense, Buffy seemed more angry than worried about being attacked. Probably because she was sure she could take them on.

Spike snorted at that.

Cordelia spun around and walked up to the Slayer, her palm coming down violently against the other girl's face.

She'd just risen up a notch in Spike's books.

"How dare you?!?" Cordelia Chase growled, anger and fury directed at the small woman rubbing her jaw in surprise. "First you abandon us to survive how we must, you trade us in for other friends, and now you think you have the right to just come back and act like we're idiots and we couldn't do anything right without you here?!?"

Buffy glared up at Cordelia, cheek red. "Yeah, well, Willow was sired and has just kidnapped Chloe while I was gone, forgive me if that makes me wonder about your capabilities of handling the situation!"

"WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HANDLE IT!" Cordelia cried out, tears of rage filling her dark eyes. "This was your job! YOU were called to guard the Hellmouth, NOT SMALVILLE! This was your job, not ours! But we're doing it all the same!" Turning, she stormed out of the room.

Faith looked at Angel, Buffy, and then passed her at Cordelia's retreating back, as if wanting to go after the other girl but not sure if she should leave the vampire in the room with the other Slayer.

"Hey, Buff." Xander said sadly, going to give the girl a soft hug. "How's life been treating you?"

She hugged him back before smiling weakly. "Not so good. Willow's been sired and gone and kidnapped Chloe. I failed both my friends."

Spike nodded in agreement to that statement.

She ignored him.

"Xander Harris." Xander was shaking the hand of the bald young man. The blonde bint Chloe had called him Lex.

"Alexander Luthor." Lex's handshake was quick and dismissive. "What do we know about what happened to your friend and why she took Chloe?"

"Alexander Luthor?" Angel asked, eyes narrowed. "As in heir to the Luthor fortune?"

Spike could sense the human tense, yet he was amazingly stoic and didn't allow any emotion to show in his face or body. If Spike hadn't been a vampire he wouldn't have realized that the question bothered the other man.

"Yes." His voice was clipped. "What of it?"

"I met your father some years back." Angel said in a clipped voice as well.

Lex scowled. "You a vampire?"

"Yes." Angel tensed. "What of it?"

Lex shook his head. "Then you should have drained him when you had the chance."

Spike sputtered out into laughter, deciding that while he was somewhat resentful against the blonde bint for the garlic spray incident, and detested the once-blonde Slayer, he liked this human.

Angel even managed an amused smile. "I keep telling myself that every time I hear of the things he's doing."

Buffy's cellular rang and she quickly flipped it open, placing it to her ear. "Giles!" She whispered something to Lex and walked out of the room. "There's a situation here!"

Faith, seeing that Buffy wasn't in close vicinity to Angel or Spike, hurried to try and find where Cordelia had gone to, Xander hot on her heels. Both knew that one distraught female could do stupid things, like run out into the night without a stake or at least a crucifix.

"You know, for a human being left alone with two Master Vampires, you sure are bloody calm." Spike didn't know whether to be impressed or insulted.

Lex smirked. "When you live with a man like Lionel Luthor from childhood you get used to being alone and in close contact with dangerous blood-suckers."

Yep. Spike definitely liked this human.

The smirk disappeared from Lex's face as he ran his hand over his bald head. "What happened? Why did your friend take Chloe? She---is she going to hurt her?" Worry was beginning to seep through his pores, filling the air. "I promised her that I'd keep her safe from those goddamned blood-suckers, and she'd been safe—why did she come here alone?"

Angel frowned. "Keep her safe? You mean she's been attacked before?"

Lex sat down on the bed where Chloe had been dead on some hours before. "Yes, she's been attacked by vampires a number of times now, and while she has been bitten before it was never a killing bite. Buffy thinks that they were trying to drain enough blood to knock her out so that they could take her easier and without a struggle."

Spike frowned and exchanged worried glances with Angel. That was not normal vampire behavior. They tended to go for the massacre with smiles on their faces.

When vampires were in packs or working in numbers they were working under someone else, a Master, and if they were able to control their bloodlust enough to drain a certain amount and not kill the victim this spoke of someone powerful leading them to have them fearing his wrath so much they could control their bloodlust.

"Someone's been after Chloe for a while now, we believe he might be a vampire or something similar. So far we'd been able to foil his minions' every kidnapping attempt." Lex shook his head, laughing wryly. "Her house, car and office at the Torch look like a shrine with all the crucifixes we've had put around. There are also stakes and vials of holy water that we have hidden all over the place."

Angel turned to Spike. "The bastard."

Spike frowned. "Not sure who we're cursing, sire."

"He's the only thing I can think about." The brunette vampire went on as if Spike hadn't said anything, which really pissed off the blonde.

"What are you two talking about?" Lex asked, frown darkening.

"Last night we were attacked by this strange person." Angel looked back at the human. "He was stronger and faster than a vampire should, even a Master. He had contact with Willow, even if it were only visual and audio---that'd be enough to trigger whatever happened right now if he had any sort of magic-based power. It was after that encounter that she began to eat human food again and this happened."

Spike's eyes widened as he understood where his sire was going with this. "And Red told us that she'd been talking to Blondie about the bleedin' guy---that your girl might know what he was!" He frowned. "But what the bleedin' hell did he do to her? My pet was bloody batty!"

Angel frowned at Spike, obviously not liking his choice of words, but Spike didn't give a rat's arse.

"I mean, she was speaking with this admitingly sexy accent, but she acted as if she didn't know who we were!" Spike continued on. "And she called your bint Marishka."

Lex frowned. "Marishka? That sounds Russian."

Spike nodded. "I knew a Marishka once. Russian Prima Ballerina. Dainty little feet. Blood type O Positive."

Angel growled at him. "Not now Spike!"

Lex, surprisingly enough, ignored that little nostalgic comment from the blonde. "Didn't she call Buffy and I something else as well?"

Angel nodded. "Anna and Velkan."

"I'm guessing you're Velkan." Spike smirked.

Lex snorted, shaking his head. "Well I'd hope I couldn't pass for an 'Anna'."

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"What is this strange place?" Aleera, having returned to her human form, looked around the darkened park with a frown. Her pet was shaking slightly in fear, and she'd had to hold onto Marishka's hand tightly to keep her sister from running away.

Aleera didn't want to be alone. Not in such a strange, unfamiliar place filled with so many new sounds, sights and smells. "Are we still in Romania? Where are Verona and the Master?" She turned to look at her younger sister, who had stopped trying to pull her hand from hers and was sitting still, looking up at her in confusion and fear. "And why are you different?"

Marishka took in a deep breath before speaking. "Willow, why would we be in Romania?"

Aleera frowned. There she was saying that name again. Or was it a word? Or maybe a code? "Because that it our home, Marishka! What has happened?!? All I remember is that horrid monster preferring to die with Doctor Frankenstein than to serve the purpose that he'd been created for—the reason why our Lord paid for the experimentations!"

Tears of blood filled her eyes as she remembered her children, born from the womb of the undead, dead in birth and lying in their birthing room lifelessly. While she hadn't wanted to be a mother as passionately as Verona, seeing her babies dead without having had a chance at unlife broke her heart.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she failed to notice the confusion growing in Marishka. She continued to lash out in anger and confusion. "And why are we dressed in men's attire and why is the air filled with pollutants? Why do you all speak with such an odd accent? And why isn't the Master or Verona with us? What is this Willow?"

Marishka gasped and looked down at Aleera's silent pet before clearing her throat and looking back up at her sister. "Who are you?"

Aleera frowned. What had been done to her sister to remove her memory of such a trivial thing? "I am Aleera, once the wife of the brother of King Boris Valerious yet he took me from that life and made me his second bride, he taught me the ways of the night and the lullaby of a night filled with the cries of mortals." Her frown darkened as she leaned over and caressed Marishka's cheek with worry. "You know this, my sister."

"W-what y-year are we in, Aleera?"

Aleera brightened. Maybe Marishka was remembering after all! "1897!"

"Oh boy." Clearing her throat nervously, Marishka straightened in her seat and squeezed the hand Aleera had holding her. "I want you to listen to me and listen good, okay Aleera? This might be confusing, no, this IS confusing, but it's the truth, okay?"

Aleera nodded. That was all she wanted. The truth.

"We're not in Romania. We're in California, North America."

Aleera's eyes widened. "We're in the Americas?!?" Only the criminals were being sent there!

Marishka nodded. "And the year isn't 1897."

Aleera listened silently as Marishka spoke to her of how they were more than a hundred years in the future, and Aleera couldn't understand how she'd managed to forget more than a hundred years. She looked down at her little sister, the Favored Bride, and felt her stomach clench in fear. The Master wasn't here, neither was Verona. They were alone, and Marishka was insisting that her name was Chloe and that Aleera's was Willow.

But they'd been human.

How was that possible?

Vampires didn't have souls to be reincarnated…

"When a vampire is created, their soul is stripped from their bodies." Marishka was explaining, it was odd to hear her speaking without their native accent. Her voice seemed flat and wrong. "But it's my theory, after reading up all of Giles' books, that once a vampire has been---erm---dusted, killed, uh, that their soul is free to return to where souls are stored to be recycled and can be reincarnated."

Aleera didn't like this theory, because if it was true then she'd died. And since Marishka was here with a different identity and no memory of her being her sister that meant that she'd died as well. Why—how—had they died? Why hadn't the Master protected them?

And she refused to believe that the blonde vampire in the strange mansion was her sire. He was her sire, her maker, her creator and her lover and husband. Not this stranger with the odd accent who'd called her a color.

"And there was this Buddhist—or I think it's Buddhist—theory that if two or more people who were associated closely in a past life were in contact they'd be able to recognize each other on some level." Marishka continued on. "That's why you could meet someone or just see them for the first time across the room and feel instant dislike for said person---because you two weren't close in a past life----or be the other way around and feel like you've been friends you're whole lives---because you two HAD been friends your whole lives, just not the life you're leading at this time."

Aleera had forgotten that her youngest sister had always been a deep thinker.

While Marishka was the youngest of the Brides and by far the most playful---she could never just eat, had always wanted to play with her food before---she'd thought things over before doing anything.

Well, actually, in the raids Verona had had to teach Marishka to think things over, she'd always been too distracted with all of the things she'd planned on doing to whomever she caught.

"And sometimes, if placed in contact with a lot of important people, the past might catch up with the present and the mind gets confused as the reincarnated remembers the past life."

"Bravo, Marishka." His voice came to them from the shadows as he appeared in the moonlight.

Aleera's eyes widened and with a squeal she threw herself off of the bench and onto her Master, arms around his neck, comforted in the stillness of his chest where his heart should be. "Master! You are here!" She held onto him tightly, onto the only anchor of reality she had.

"Of course I am here, Aleera." He placed a kiss on her forehead before trailing it to her nose and lips. "I have returned, and you have remembered."

Purring contentedly after he'd pulled his lips from hers, Aleera closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest.

"Marishka…"

"Who are you?" The youngest Bride asked, voice strained and nervous.

Aleera felt his muscles grow tense and she withdrew, whimpering.

"You do not remember." His voice was darkness. "You are not one of us. Why are you not one of us? I saw you reborn!"

Marishka grabbed hold of Aleera's pet human and pulled her off of the bench and behind it with her. Green eyes wide, she took a couple of steps back before pulling something out of her pockets. "This is garlic spray. I've already tried this on two Master Vampires tonight, and believe me, it works, so stay away!"

"Marish--…" he continued to stalk her as she hurried back away, pulling the frightened human with her.

"Chloe!" Marishka cried out. "My name is Chloe!" Not looking where she was going, Marishka tripped over something and screamed as she fell over.

Aleera's eyes widened, that scream echoed throughout her mind and suddenly a memory raced within her.

Marishka's scream still rang throughout her head.

Sitting in the bedroom, Aleera cried against Verona as the elder vampiress tried to comfort her yet unable to do so since she too was suffering. The Master had made some comment on getting a new bride, but both Verona and Aleera knew that Marishka's death was torturing him inside and he'd said that to comfort them more than because he truly was searching for someone else, especially not so soon after the murder of his Favored.

After giving each of them a kiss he'd locked himself in his room, and the sounds of destruction and hellfire could be heard from inside as he vented his fury.

Aleera cried harder when she heard yet something else break from within his private chambers.

"She's gone…she's gone!" Aleera whimpered.

"I know…" Verona sniffled. "I know…"

How could such a routine feeding go so wrong? They'd wanted to go and snatch a few villagers to take back with them to have later for the banquet they'd been planning on having, and Aleera and Verona had wanted to have Anna Valerious as the main course. Since they'd known that Marishka wouldn't be much good in hunting the princess of the gypsies, they'd sent her off to kill the stranger that'd arrived in the village.

They'd thought he'd be an easy kill, being new to the area.

They'd never expected, while cornering Anna, to hear their sister's scream of pain as she was killed…

…By the man they now knew as Gabriel Van Helsing…

…A man their Master somehow knew.

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"Velkan?" Giles asked, phone against his ear. "I've heard that name…where have I heard that name?" Going through his large library of books, the Watcher could help but mentally thank Chloe for helping him categorize and put every book away in such a way that it was easy for him to find whatever he needed right away.

"Baldie says that Chlo and Wills were talking about someone who attacked Spike and Angel last night." Buffy said on the other line. "Said he was stronger than a normal vampire and disappeared into mist."

Suddenly the Watcher paled as everything suddenly hit him harshly. "Dear God."

"God? Giles? What's wrong?"

Hurrying to his room, Giles opened the chest where he kept his most prized possessions and pulled out a worn leather journal, written by one of his ancestors, who'd been a Watcher and friar, and who'd gone by the name of Carl.

Flipping through the carefully preserved journal, Giles paused when he came upon a passage. "And you said that she called Chloe Mairshka?"

"Yeah. And also was talking about some Master and someone named Verona." Buffy sounded excited. "You found something, didn't you?"

"Yes." Giles held the phone tighter. "And this isn't good, it isn't good at all."

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Hey everyone! Hope you liked the speedy update!