BAD BLOOD

A Buffy the Vampire Slayer story.

P.J. Dickinson

Part Three

"Well you want to go out, Cause its raining and blowing.

But you can't go out, Cause your roots are showing.

Dye them black. Black Number One"

Black No.1

Type O Negative

Prologue: London 1976

The house was in a run down area of Spittalfields. It was weevil ridden and damp but it fitted their purposes beautifully. The houses on either side were abandoned and this allowed Chris and Baz to jam whenever they pleased. Lemmy Kilminster, bassist for the psychedelic band Hawkwind was a regular in the Drunken Duck just two streets up and could always be relied upon to have a few groupies tagging along with him who would invariably be carrying killer weed. Mama LaForce, London's preeminent witchdoctor and Jazz's great aunt lived just ten minutes away on the tube. It was perfectly located, at the center of the web.

Giles favorite shop, Baba Yaga's apothecary, a music and magic shop which was also a cover for the local pirate radio station, SNOG AM was only a few minutes walk downhill. It looked across at Sir Christopher Wren's most baroque construction, Gotterstun Spire; the haunted church in which Sir William Withey Gull was buried. Freemason and surgeon to the Royal family during the nineteenth century, Gull was the man most likely to have carried out the series of murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. When leaving the shop Giles could never resist the temptation to step within the churches cold and draughty interior and simply breathe in the mystery.

He loved Spittalfields; it was London in its purest form. It was both frightening and violent and yet homely and terribly, terribly English. Just not the sort of England foreigners would immediately think of. This was the England of myth and legend, a place where the past and present shared the same space without disagreement. Heroin addicts sprawled against statues of Bodicea the Celtic warrior queen as well as statues of Jesus on the crucifix. But the Christhead had little influence here. The raw magic of the ancient island of Albion permeated this part of London much like its famed fog. Its choking fingers coiled around the buildings like the World Dragon that Merlin had once tricked into imbuing Excalibur with its power. Pubs in this part of London had strange evocative names such as 'Apollo's Harp' and 'The Worms breath'. Stray dogs ran from butchers shops with chains of sausages in their mouths as if in a child's storybook and large, homeless men who seemed to have antlers growing form their heads could be seen in fog shrouded alleys, staring sadly at walls, as if remembering a different, simpler time.

Roaming the streets with a joint between his lips Giles was almost able to feel the presence of the fleeing Atlanteans who had settled here and called the new land Lyonesse. This was his home, he wanted to die here. Be buried beside Gull and have ghosts visit his grave.

*** ***

"Wah-Hey! Ripper is home."

"What you get us man?"

Giles swept his long hair from his forehead and tossed it back out of his eyes. He opened a shopping bag and peered inside it.

"Lobster thermidore epiverts marinated in Buckfast and served in a white wine sauce garnished with Swedish truffles so fresh they still have pig snot on them with a delicate red Merlot to accompany said feast."

Chris and Baz looked at each other.

"What you really get us man?" said Baz.

"Did you get baked beans?" chanced Chris.

"Sorry," said Giles, "No beans. Problem at the Heinz factory."

Giles crossed the room in front of them and entered the kitchen. Calling this room a kitchen was a joke. It was whiter than other rooms in the house and had a sink that worked but using that classification it could just have easily been a bathroom. In fact that may have been closer to the mark. Giles set the shopping bag on a stable part of a counter and took out a loaf of sliced white bread, some Lincoln bangers and two jumbo tins of Heinz baked beans. He stepped back into the main room with the tins of baked beans held aloft and was greeted with two 'Wah-Heys' and four fists punched into the air. His stoner housemates were always easily pleased.

He went back into the kitchen and after arranging as many slices of bread as he could around the bangers under the grill poured the beans into a large pot on the hob and added lashings of Worcester sauce. He stuffed the rubbish out the top of the kitchen window and let it settle on the rest of the accumulated debris that filled the small yard to the level of the windowsill.

He went back into the TV room and perched himself on the back of his favorite chair. Coronation Street was just starting. He watched the black and white screen for a few minutes. Baz and Chris were sharing a stringy joint.

"That Deirdre Barlow is a vixen." Said Baz around hissing tokes. "She wants me."

"She's ganky," offered Chris. "I wouldn't touch her with yours."

"I suppose you prefer that biffer Bette."

"You know I do mate."

"Ugly fat tart."

"I don't care. I'd let her do dirty things in my underpants."

"I meant you."

And so the puerile conversation continued. Hour after hour, night after night it was always the same. Giles loved it. He rarely joined in but he laughed out loud often as the two idiots verbally sparred in words of two syllables or less.

"Can I scrounge a rollie?" asked Giles during the Ad break. Chris threw him a Golden Virginia tin and Giles took it with him as he went to check on the dinner. He rolled a thin cigarette in between stirs of the beans and thought about how much his life had changed over the past six months.

This time last year he had been in the Classics library of Cambridge University pouring through Plato's 'Sophocles' as part of his love stories course when he had raised his head and looked about him as if with new eyes. He hated this life. He was bored beyond belief. He looked at all the other students, furiously scribbling in notebooks with their shoulders hunched over and their heads in books and he realized that he was different. This is not who he wanted to be. He wanted music and beer and women and noise, not this useless silence. He had shut the book with a muffled thud that had echoed throughout the musty building, allowed his chair to scrape loudly against the floor and had left without a backwards glance.

Giles had dropped out of the University shortly after his twentieth birthday and much to his parent's shock had packed a small bag and left for the bright lights of the countries capital. There, while standing on street corners throwing his long hair about in an effort to look cool he had met Kit. She had had beautiful dark hair with streaks of blue and red throughout it and the sexiest ass he had ever seen in his life. They had started sleeping together almost immediately. Punk had the center of the city in its anemic chokehold at this time and it was always easy to find a squat to doss down in and have sex.

It was around this time that Giles met Chris. He had been introduced to him one night at a party. He was a friend of one of Kit's acquaintances and Giles was told that the boy was a bit different. It had taken Giles thirty seconds to work out what it was about Chris that set him apart. He was a psychic, or as Baz insisted on pronouncing it 'physic'.

Where Chris went Baz was never far behind and the four of them started hanging about. After a few weeks the group decided to look for somewhere more permanent to live. When Giles had found the house in Spittalfields he had instantly known that it was their home. Life had then settled into a pleasant routine revolving around nights in the Duck and mornings taking turns to vomit in the bathroom. After about two months Giles relationship with Kit had begun to deteriorate. It had been based entirely on sex and Giles began to believe that Kit was too wild a spirit to be satisfied with just one man. She began to go on long drinking binges which became longer and more crazed. Giles realized that a line had been crossed when she returned from a four-day bender with dashes tattooed around her neck and the words 'Cut Here' across her windpipe. She had left that night and Giles and the lads had not seen her since.

In truth they were glad to see her go. They were young and wanted to play. After Kit's departure the partying in Spittalfields had moved up a couple of notches as the lads cut loose with complete abandonment and a glorious disregard for the consequences. The following months had born witness to debaucheries that would have left Bacchus himself in need of a detoxification clinic. It was during this period of mayhem that they had met Ethan.

*** ***

They had been in the Duck one night. It may have been nighttime; well chances were it was at night. It was difficult to tell with the Duck. Normal licensing laws didn't seem to apply to it and the windows were so encrusted with fliers that sunlight needed a visa to gain entry.

Liverpool were playing an important match and a large crowd had gathered to watch the 'pool. Chris was a huge fan and had dragged them all out, not that they had needed much encouragement. Lemmy was in his usual spot at the bar high as a kite and telling stories just as colorful. He had a couple of groupies with him though one of them seemed more interested in Giles than the rock star. Giles was playing it cool.

Deadly Dave, an occasional drinking accomplice and a serious vendor of illegal substances was with them and he and Baz were deep in conversation about different film stars they wanted to shag and the positions they would do them in. Chris was not his usual bubbly self. He had had a bad feeling about the match and his premonition was proving itself to be accurate. The 'pool were three goals down. At half time he got up from the table with his scarf around his head like a turban and wobbled out of the bar to get some portions of chips to cheer himself up before the second half.

Giles was surveying the bar, pretending not to notice that the groupie was watching him. A young man caught his attention. He was dressed in a spiky black leather jacket, which would have looked mean on most people, but on him it just looked wrong. His hair was too short and neat and he was wearing gray, recently pressed slacks. He moved through the pub and made his way to the bar. Pigment the barman took his order quickly, which surprised Giles because usually he would make a square wait until he could be bothered to lower himself to serve them. Pigment set his order on the counter and accepted the note that the youth handed him. It was a five-pound note, Giles could tell by its blue color.

Then while Pigments back was turned as he worked the cash register the youth took a large silver talisman from one pocket of the coat waved it through the air in front of him and then slipped it into a different pocket. Pigment turned back to hand him his change and Giles started in his seat. The change included a couple of twenty pound notes. The youth thanked him, pocketed the money and took his drinks back to his seat. Giles couldn't believe what he had seen. No one else in the bar seemed to have noticed.

Chris returned from the chippy with a portion of greasy spuds for Giles but he was no longer paying attention to anything happening at his own table. He was watching the youth on the other side of the bar. Time and time again throughout the night the young man pulled the same stunt; giving Pigment a fiver and raking in a couple of twenties after swiping the talisman. Smiling politely the whole time.

Midnight had come and gone and the day changed name when an angry and very drunk Giles levered himself up from the table and decided to confront the pseudo-punk. He was furious, not because this was his local that the stranger was ripping off but rather because he had shown Giles up to be small time.

They had been supporting themselves for the past few months on Chris' psychic abilities but this guy had lifted more in one night than all three of them did in a week. Every Saturday morning they would congregate in the TV room and put their business hats on. The TV would be changed to the racing channel, the radio would be switched on for live commentary and they would surround themselves with the sports sections of all that days papers.

Chris would sit in front of the goggle box and whenever he had a strong feeling about a team, a boxer or a horse they would mark it off in the papers. They would all take turns at nominating winners. Chris had a sure shot ability but tired quickly. Giles used a pendulum to dowse his winners and got more right than the odds allowed and Baz was simply horrendous. He nominated winners through a process of elimination. He would choose a horse that he believed had a chance of winning. The other two would tell him to forget it and choose another. This would continue until Baz had only one remaining horse that he believed didn't stand a chance in Hell of even getting past the starting post which Chris and Giles would then back heavily.

At lunchtime they would order three taxis and leave individually to place the bets. It was very important that they weren't seen too often or won too much in one place or they would be marked by the London bookies and their easy life would come to an end, as well as the ability to use their knees. Saturday afternoon they would congregate in an agreed watering hole, get the beers in and watch the winnings start to roll in. Saturday nights were always great in Spittalfields.

Giles staggered over to the other side of the pub and almost collided with the youth who was on his way to the bar for another round.

"Hey," slurred Giles putting a hand in his chest. "Whast ur gime?"

The youth just smiled up at him, innocent as an angel.

Giles tried to say that he had been watching him and that his game was up. Giles knew what he was up to and was on to his scam and was giving him ten seconds to up camp and get out of town or he, a Drunken Duck regular, was going to use the full power that this credential allowed him to see that the youth got the beating of his life. And that his coat was crap. What came out was closer to,

"Hrmm guupppp mmmnnn nnn fugging crap."

He shook his head in an effort to organize his thoughts and engage his mouth.

The groupie took that moment to slide a hand across his shoulder and bump his hip with hers.

"Hey sweetie. I've been watching you. Wanna play?"

"Hhrrrggghhh guff kak?"

Ethan touched her forehead with his little finger, the nail of which was painted black and said, "You have crabs. They itch terribly."

Immediately the blood ran out of her face and one hand went to her crotch. She squirmed, her 'sweetie' forgotten and dashed for the toilets. Ethan pulled a small silver vial from his slacks pocket and handed it to Giles.

"Here. This will help."

Giles took swift chug from it and with the immediacy of a slap was sober. Ethan took the vial back and smiled.

"I'm Ethan. I'm a bit of a bastard but you'll get used to me."

"Ripper," said Giles shaking his hand, too shocked to say much else.

"I'm going to be a great sorcerer one day. Want to come along for the ride?"

Giles simply nodded. That had been four months ago and the ride was still only starting.

*** ***

Giles piled the toast on the plates as high as he dared, ladled on loads of spicy beans and garnished the three plates with the sausages. He presented the meals to a round of heart felt applause and accepted a joint as his prize for being 'Britain's bestest baked bean burner'. He sat in his normal seat and toked on the ganja just to set him up for his dinner.

"So what's the plan for tonight lads?"

"The Duck." Suggested Baz. "We could drink cider just to make it different."

Giles shook his head; somehow the Duck wasn't going to cut it this night.

"Or there's the Limelight…"

"Slimeshite." Corrected Chris.

"Right Slimeshite. Mucous Membrane are playing tonight and Valerie will be there." The last part of this sentence became singsongish and was directed at Giles. Giles had absolutely no idea who Valerie was as he refused to set foot in the Slimeshite without having consumed at least two bottles of Buckfast. This meant that he had no memory of any of the occasions he had been there. Baz assured him that Valerie was after some 'upper-class action'. Giles had been burned by the whole Kit incident and now considered himself to be a choosy man. But Kit had been gone a third of a year now and Giles self enforced cold turkey was beginning to get to him.

"She good looking?"

"I'd do her."

Giles looked to Chris knowing that Baz could not be trusted to know what the truth was let alone what it might actually be. Chris pulled a face and shook his head. That settled it for Giles. Valerie was a no-go.

"So what are we going to do tonight?"

Baz shrugged.

"Watch TV?"

Giles slumped. He suddenly felt very down.

"I have an idea," said Chris wiping bean juice from the corner of his mouth.

"This should be good," said Baz without much enthusiasm.

Chris gave him the two-fingered salute. Baz gave him three fingers back, which didn't really exist except in Baz and Chris's world where three were more insulting than two. Chris replied with four and suddenly the finger confrontation escalated. They dropped their forks as they rushed to get to all ten fingers up in the air before the other.

"Lads. Lads. Calm down. Chris what were you going to say?"

"Tell him to stop."

Baz was leaning back in his chair with his feet up and the toes obviously wiggling in his boots.

"Baz pack it in or I'll give you both twenty one."

The two idiots thought about this for a moment then began to laugh.

"Good one man."

"Twenty two," said Chris sticking out his tongue.

"Bastard."

"Go on." said Giles. "What was your idea?"

"Well. I haven't thought this through completely so it might be a bit crazy but how's about this for a plan? I suggest we finish our delectable dinners, drop the plates at our asses and sally forth with all due haste to the Duck where we attempt to consume more beer than is commonly regarded to be humanly possible. About ten we give Deadly Dave a phone and get him to bring some class A's to the gathering. When he arrives we go into the bogs and do as much coke as is required to sort ourselves out. Then we phone taxis to take us to the Marquee club where Black Sabbath are playing tonight. As we wait for the said transport I recommend we drop the acid which Deadly has kindly donated. If my calculations are correct we should be munted by the time the Sabs come on for their encore. Then we hustle in a brisk fashion to the Regency for the end of the nurses disco where we endeavor to cram as many of those hussies into taxis as we can, head back to Spittalfields and start to get seriously wasted."

Giles and Baz looked at each other.

"By Jove," said Giles.

"I think she's got it," said Baz finishing the quote.

"It's a plan."

"A bleeding battle plan."

"Worthy of Wellington."

"I don't even know what munted means," said Chris.

The door opened and Ethan walked in with Olivia in tow. He was carrying a bag from Baba Yagas.

"I heard all that," he said, "And you can forget it. Tonight we do some magic. Some real magic."

*** ***

The front room on the first floor in Spittalfields was the biggest in the hovel. It spanned the width of the house and belonged to Ethan. It had bare twisted wooden floorboards that seemed to have their own weather system blowing through them. Ethan had attached a black curtain to the roof with thumbtacks and it screened his mattress from sight. No one had any idea what else he might have had behind there. They were very rarely invited into his sanctuary.

Giles sat cross-legged against a wall under one of the boarded windows smoking a rollie and watched the proceedings. Ethan had draped a purple robe over his shoulders and was sitting at a chalk circle on the floor. He had a Wampyr bestiary open on the floor before him. Giles had not known that Baba Yaga's carried such hardcore literature. He had been quite happy with their selection of Colin Wilson books.

Baz was on his knees leaning over the circle as he lit the candles that Ethan had around the room, Giles wondered whether they had any actual significance or whether they were just for show. This was his first actual spell. Ethan and Olivia had been spending a lot of time in the room over the past two months and said they were spending their time in contact with ethereal spirits but Giles had his own ideas about what they got up to. Since he had first met him Giles had seen precious little of Ethan's professed abilities and was beginning to put the occurrences of that night in the Duck down to the amount of alcohol he had consumed.

Baz finished lighting the candles and sat down near Giles. He gave Giles a thin smile and shrugged. Giles nodded back. Whether Ethan was sorcerer or not he had a strange effect on people and Baz became unusually tame in his company. Chris was sitting opposite Ethan with a worried expression on his face. He was staring at the book Ethan was reading from and his eyes moved, not in the normal fashion of someone following sentences but rather as if the contents of the pages were moving in a fashion only he could see. Dancing in a world that only Chris had access to.

The bedroom door opened and Olivia came in. She had a bottle of Buckfast in one hand and a small brown bag in the other that Ethan had sent her to her aunts to get. She set the bag beside Ethan but he was immersed in his preparations and ignored her presence. She sat down beside Giles with a small shy smile. Baz leered at Giles behind her back making hand movements that indicated the size of her breasts. Giles glared at him and he stopped clowning for a while.

She offered Giles the bottle of tonic wine and Giles accepted it and took a short drink of the thin alcohol. It was rank but somehow that fitted the occasion. He handed it back. He and Olivia had never really talked. She always hung about with Ethan but she was always making doe eyes at Giles. His young ego had taken her lack of conversation with him as a sign of attraction. Giles thought that Ethan's girl fancied him more than she fancied Ethan. He handed the bottle back.

Ethan turned to a new page in the book and Chris moaned. His eyes closed and he began to rock slightly. Baz gave Giles a look but it was Giles turn to shrug.

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Olivia into Giles ear. Giles felt a sudden wave of goose flesh cover his arms that surprised him. She had a beautiful 'proper' London accent and her breath was warm and moist against his ear lobes. She was leaning very close into him.

"Why does everyone call you Ripper? It doesn't really seem you."

Giles couldn't stop a blush creeping up his face. She really was an attractive woman. He suddenly realized that he was very jealous of Ethan.

Baz butted in, he had overheard the question.

"Its cause when you need a play list the Ripper's the man to get it for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, a play list. The sheet of paper that a band sticks to the monitors on stage so the singer knows what song they're going to play next."

Olivia looked back at Giles and there was a strange expression on her face. To Giles it was almost post-coital.

"See we were at this Pistols gig and we were all bollixed and there was a lot of talk in the pub before about who was going to get the play list from Rotten. Those things are worth a lot of money in the right circles. So anyway at the end Johnny holds up his list teasing the crowd and he's about to tear it up so nobody gets it and from out of nowhere the drunkest man in the planet rips it out of his hands and stage dives into the crowd."

Baz jerked a thumb in Giles direction.

"Ripper. Get him drunk enough and he'll get you whatever play list you want. It's a gift."

Olivia nodded.

"I thought it might be for another reason,' she said to herself but for everyone to hear.

Baz went back to leering behind her back so only Giles could see.

"Lets begin." Said Ethan suddenly.

*** ***

They all shuffled closer to the circle. Chris was on Ethan's right, Olivia on his left. Giles was beside her and then came Baz.

"Join hands." Ordered Ethan. Surprisingly Baz didn't complain about having to hold the hands of two other men. They all joined and almost immediately the temperature of the room changed. Giles shivered and could feel Baz doing the same. Ethan began the spell.

"At this time we gather to call upon the spirit of the ancient and awful hunter the Wampyr. Demon of the shadows, listen to our plea and engage our souls with your vaulted essence."

Ethan's eyes rolled back in his head showing only whites.

"Give to us this day a glimpse of your majesty so that we may spread your beautiful and terrible glory to all the ignorant in your domain. Let us be your unholy disciples. As the Jew sent his own vessels amongst the flock send us into the world to claim it as your own. Bless us if it so pleases you. Show us your spirit. Reveal to your children how lowly and reviled we possesseth of souls truly are."

A surge passed through the human circle. Their hands seemed to fuse and Giles felt himself drop as if he had slid into the floor or the world had risen up around him. The room seemed to grow darker and the candles wicked slower, undulating rather than quickly flickering. Chris's lips were forming silent words from the bestiary. Ethan continued.

"Gastis-Konos. Errigus. Teppes. Von Richter. Your lineage is known and adored by all assembled in worship. Show us your spirit. Show your adored and hated spawn the depth of your dark light. I command ye to obey this lowly vessel. Find us to be your sustenance and feed us with poison. Let the phlegm from your throat be as manna for a thousand of our young."

"Ethan?" hissed Giles. "Stop. It's too strong. We have to go slower."

Chris's chanting grew louder and more fevered. Giles recognized the language and it chilled him to the core of his being. It was one of the lost languages. During his teen years he had on occasion secretly removed some of his mothers tomes from her personal library and taken them to quiet places where he had absorbed their contents without her knowledge. He knew of his connection to the ancient order of Watchers through his mother's bloodline. After University she had wanted him to follow her into the council. His move to London had struck her like an icicle through the heart.

Ethan ignored Giles plea and continued with his devotions. On Chris's face a honey like fluid began to flow like sweat. He was unaware of the secretion; tied in knots by the rapture. Giles tried to pull away, tried to break the circle but his body was not his to command. They were under the thrall of another force.

'Dawnrazor!" Ethan suddenly roared. "I implore thee. Reveal your birth into this world so that we may rejoice."

In the air before them a dark shadow began to swirl. Faces appeared in its center. They wore expressions of tormented damnation and screamed in Giles soul. He became aware of a single consciousness at the core of the apparition. It had no name as would be understood by corporeal mortals. Its presence was terrible and overwhelming. The closest Giles could come to naming it was to describe it as a sensation; a burning hunger. The presence was an unquenchable pain in his abdomen. This was horror personified and he couldn't stop himself from whimpering, partly from the horrendous pain of a predator's stomach that was not full of prey. This demon would never stop. The more it spread its hunger the hungrier it would become.

He felt lost. He was completely detached from the group; alone on a savanna, far away from the protection of the trees. Somewhere in the shoulder high grass there was something hunting him. It was coming closer. Tearing towards him with death in its eyes. He was running, running as every man runs from their mortality, running as the first man to be taken down by this predator had run.

Suddenly it was upon him and its ferocity was beyond the design of nature. Ethan had summoned the first spirit that had come to earth and claimed the first human. It was black and fast and terribly inhuman. It sprang at him from the cover and he allowed it to take him for now, in death, his life made sense. It was completed. He saw himself for the animal he was; the animal all humans are. The Pnarwaidh lived to feed. It lived to propagate and spread a hunger that could never be satiated while humanity lived on earth. Giles could feel its teeth piercing his body, could feel the demon spill his fluids and drain his soul. It had its first taste of human and it changed. Began to adapt, to take on this new form in order to make its prey easier to hunt.

The pain became worse as its desire to maim and kill was added to his own desire to live. The two did not cancel out; they were both base and primitive wants. They had the same source in the universe. He was staring up into the bright sun beating down on the savanna and its rays seared his retinas and slowly he drifted away as the changing demon finished feeding and moved into the darkness that surrounded his death. Sun was life. The vampire's new shape feared the sun. Giles died as the first man had died. A twisted monkey in the middle of a vast continent.

Giles jerked forwards with a shout. Olivia fell against him. They were back in Spittalfields, if they had ever left the cruddy room. Ethan gave Giles the biggest shit eating grin Giles had ever seen and Giles had to admit he was impressed. The experience didn't seem to have fazed Ethan in the slightest.

"I was expecting Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. That was way cooler." He said.

"How did you break the spell?"

"I didn't. Numb-nuts here did."

Giles looked about the group. Chris was wiping the sticky ectoplasm from his face and onto his 'Van DerGraph Generator' T-shirt. He seemed to be back to normal. Baz however was on his hands and knees and leaning over the chalk circle with one arm outstretched. His face was as white as a nun's inner thigh and he was shaking as if petrified out of his mind. He had clearly wet himself.

At some point during the spell he had been able to break from the circle, had taken a safety pin from his jacket and rammed it right through the meat of his palm and out the other side. Its evil point projected skywards from between the bones on top of his hand. Blood was running from his outstretched fingers into the center of the circle.

"They seemed hungry,' he said in a shaky voice, "I thought if I gave them something to eat they might fuck off."

"Good thinking man." Said Giles wearily. He had completely been caught up in the spirit of the first vampire. He tried to remember the name that the first predator had called itself but the experience was already evaporating and slipping away. He looked to Ethan but he was wearing an unbelievably smug expression that spoke volumes about how awesome he considered himself to be. Perhaps it had been having them all here with their different talents, perhaps it was because they were in Spittalfields, or perhaps there was some cosmic event that they were unaware of. Whatever the reason, Giles felt sure that an amateur like Ethan should not have been able to cast such a powerful spell by himself.

Olivia had pulled the pin from Baz's hand and was helping him staunch the bleeding.

"So what should we do as an encore?" asked Ethan.

"Go to the fucking Duck and get mindless and not think anymore about vampires and demons and magic ever again."

No one argued that Baz's idea was the best anyone would come up with. At some point during the proceedings of that night the Scourges of Albion decided to start working towards someday summoning a real demon. They eventually did. Only four survived the experience.

Hell

One

Buffy leapt up into a tree and scaled the thick trunk with the sureness of a monkey. She found it surprisingly easy to get a good grip on the rough bark. Probably something to do with the talons her nails had grown into. With a sideways leap she cleared the foliage and bounced along a thick branch that ran parallel with the ground. Glittering insects franticly fluttered out of the way of the approaching Slayer. At the swaying termination of the branch she hunkered down and took a moment to enjoy the sensation of the warm night air blowing through her dreadlocks.

Anya glided through the air towards her.

"Do you see it?"

Buffy nodded. Poking out of the jungle ahead was the pulsing point of a pyramid.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Hell." replied Anya simply.

"Should we worry?"

The Succubus settled on the branch behind the Slayer and spread her wings for balance. Buffy regarded her for a moment. She was naked and her jet-black skin had become sleek like the leather of fetish boots. Her face, while still recognizably that of Anya, was more demonic and perversely, terribly beautiful

"Do you feel worried?" asked Anya.

Buffy stared at her hands. She opened and closed them a few times feeling strength she had never experienced before. Her senses were wired and the fauna of the whole jungle were an open book to her. Her hearing was so acute that she could hear beetles rummaging in the mulch below and the sucking sound of wasps laying their eggs under leaves. Her visual and olfactory senses were also augmented beyond belief and she was able to perceive all the many different levels of life in the swarming rainforest. She was the top predator here. There was nothing in Hell she feared. She was the Slayer. Not the current Slayer, nor the fractured spirit of the first human Slayer, but rather, Buffy was the complete Slayer. It had finally come home; returned to where it had been stolen from many millennia before. She breathed in deeply then snorted the air out through her nostrils.

"No. Not in the slightest." she replied. She understood why the passage through the rift had altered them. There was no room for humanity in this place. In Hell mortality was an alien concept; Anya's injuries were part of her humanity and therefore irrelevant. They were still themselves, Buffy Summers and Anya Harris. Though Hell was now their reality and they had adapted in accordance with its inhuman influence. These were their demonic aspects and they were powerful. Buffy, who had always felt drawn to the evil she protected earth from suddenly thought she understood why it had enthralled her so. It was simpler. Hell rewarded power for powers sake. Earth was not as generous to goodness, as her life had been testament to.

"We should go there." Said Buffy indicating the pyramid with a tilt of her head.

"Why? We can go wherever we want. We can be whatever we want. Our lives in Sunnydale can be over if we wish them to be. Why go there?"

"You can do what you want. I have to go. There's something waiting for me."

With that Buffy sprang from the branch and with arms outstretched flew into the next tree. She caught another branch and landed on all fours. It bent under her weight then flipped back propelling her high into the humid air.

With a hiss of irritation Anya launched herself into the same space between the trees that Buffy had cleared and soared high into the sky above the treetops. With gentle, flapping corrections of her wings she followed the trail of disturbed bats and swinging vines that was the only evidence of the Slayers passage.

Far away the stepped pyramid, exactly like those built by the Mayans in Guatemala, began to pulse like a beacon. Its light drew Buffy towards it like a pup to a teat.