(11/25/2016) Happy Post-Turkey Day! Did all you Americans have good food comas like I did? Om nom nom…
Thank you RHatch89, thedarkpokemaster, ArmyWife22079, missmeow1968, philly cheese dude, and jkmp28 for the reviews! And if you favoriters and followers leave a little word or two you get leftover pie!
Sunday ended up being thankfully uneventful and Buffy thought it safe for everyone to head back to their respective homes. When the other teenagers expressed reluctance, Dean pointed out that a grenade lobbed in through the window would easily finish everyone off all at once. Xander, Willow, and Cordelia departed rather quickly afterwards. Before they left, they established that, including Buffy and her brothers, they would text one another regularly with assurances that they were safe.
Joyce called to check in late in the evening and she informed them that the weather in France wasn't looking very good. It was most likely that she wouldn't be back until Wednesday. Buffy's mother was actually relieved that her daughter's half-brothers' visit was to be longer than they'd initially planned. Sam assured the woman that they were going to keep watch on the house and their underage sister before gratefully commandeering the queen sized bed in the master bedroom.
Over cereal Monday morning Dean noticed Buffy checking her phone an inordinate number of times. "The hell you doing?"
"I haven't heard from Angel in hours."
"So?"
Buffy glowered at him. By unspoken mutual agreement she wasn't bringing up Dean's crossroads deal and he had shelved the debauchery and recklessness while he was in town. That didn't, however, do anything about the lingering wrath over his decision on Buffy's end. It was making her less inclined to humor her brother's ill will towards her boyfriend.
As Sam placed a mug of coffee in front of Dean and then sat down with one of his own he noticed the rising tension between his two siblings. Before Buffy could do something drastic (like introduce Dean's face to the leftover milk in her bowl), he quickly offered, "I'll go and check his place. Maybe his phone is just out of battery or something."
"Thanks, Sam," Buffy said. She rose from her seat and planted a kiss on her younger brother's cheek. When Dean whined about being ignored he got a slap to the back of the head. "Come on," his sister ordered. "I thought you were going to drop me off."
"I dunno. I might have a freaking concussion."
"Cut it out, you big baby." Buffy hauled her elder brother up by the elbow. "If I'm late again Snyder might kill me. Or expel me. I'm not sure which would be worse."
The eldest and the youngest of them headed out the door with friendly jabs at one another the entire way. The middle one shook his head. Sam then recalled the number of old books Angel had in his underground home. Maybe the vampire had something they hadn't yet seen that would unlock the secret to getting Dean out of his deal. It couldn't hurt to ask.
Unfortunately, Angel's home was vacant.
Sam sighed and looked around. The vampire's bed was made, a novel carelessly tossed onto the top, and a few tomes were piled casually on his desk. A partially finished pencil drawing of Buffy was beside the stack, eraser leavings scattered randomly about. Sam also saw the black canvas of a duffel bag peeking out from under the bed; Angel hadn't done any packing for a lengthy excursion. His prolonged absence was now a cause for worry.
The hunter headed for the bookshelf and started perusing titles. He figured the vampire wouldn't mind if he borrowed one or two. Much to his disappointment most of the volumes were duplicates of ones that either Giles had in the school library or ones that Sam remembered spotting at Bobby's. The remainder appeared to be an eclectic variety of fiction. With a sigh, he turned around to leave… and was abruptly punched in the gut.
He instinctively tightened his abdomen in response and staggered back into the shelves. Somehow, as books rained down on his head, Sam managed to use his body to brace the bookcase well enough to prevent it from toppling completely. When he finally caught a glimpse of his attacker, he was completely dumbfounded.
The swarthy young girl was standing in a near textbook perfect sideways stance and had her fists prepped to both block and punch. She shared Buffy's age but her eyes didn't share Sam's sister's penchant for grim delight or mischief. This girl appeared to be focused completely on the business at hand.
"Who—?" Sam started to ask and got an incoming kick for his query. He blocked it with his arm and tried skimming away from the wall. As Angel's home was in an L-shape, and the hunter was in the smaller part, he ended up sliding across the vampire's desk and knocking nearly everything off of it.
A flurry of attacks followed. Sam suddenly realized that the strength behind the girl's swings belied her small size. "What are you?" he snarled as he leaned away from a backhanded punch. "A demon? One of the Order of Taraka?"
A swift swiveling backkick slammed the hunter in the chin. His teeth clicked together harshly. Pinpoints of pain drove into his skull and down his neck. Dazed, Sam ended up on the ground with his back against the wall.
"Neither," the girl stated proudly. Then, in a light Jamaican accent, declared, "I am Kendra. De Vampire Slayer."
Sam settled the standoff between the two of them by taking a bottle of holy water from inside his jacket and pouring some on his hand. When the supposed Vampire Slayer saw no deleterious effects she agreed to follow the hunter back to the school.
Angel lived relatively close to Sunnydale High and the pair arrived within the hour. School was well in session by this point and the man Sam assumed was the infamous Principal Snyder was prowling the halls. He caught a terrified young man lingering at his locker after the bell. The subsequent chastisement allowed Sam to slip himself and Kendra into the library.
His brother was already there perusing what Sam hoped to God wasn't pornographic material on Giles' computer. Dean's presence wrought an astounding change on the girl. As soon as Kendra laid eyes on the eldest of the siblings her spine stiffened and she focused everything she had on Giles. At the Watcher's inquiry she began a stilted recitation on who she was and why she was in town. When Dean stood up and looked her up and down in disbelief her litany came to a mumbling end.
"Well that don't make sense," said Dean as he planted himself in front of Kendra. "Buffy ain't dead. Thought the new one don't get called until the previous one goes belly up."
"Well," stuttered the new Slayer, "I mean… Dat is… I'm not sure if—"
Kendra was saved by ringing of the school bell. Sam and Dean glanced at one another and retreated into Giles' office in case a student came waltzing in for actual library business. The new Slayer stood where she was, her back straightening even further, and monitored the door with her hands locked behind her back. When Buffy, Willow, and Xander came in, offhandedly chattering about their history class, the Kendra stuck her hand out and demanded, "Identify yourselves."
The three teenagers were nonplussed. Giles hurried out from behind the circulation desk (where he'd been attempting to act as a normal school librarian) and explained. "Buffy, this is Kendra the, um…. the Vampire Slayer."
"Who the what is a what?" came the blonde's bewildered query.
"Hah!" Xander exclaimed. "I knew this 'I'm the only one, I'm the only one' thing was just an attention-getter." He turned towards Kendra. "So you're a Slayer, huh? I like that in a woman."
Kendra turned away and hunched her shoulders. She stuttered out a few half-formed words as Buffy's brothers emerged from Giles' office. "Hey, Buff'," called Sam.
Worriedly, Buffy walked up to her younger brother. "Did you find him? What's going on? Who is this?"
"Angel wasn't home. She was there. I guess there's two of you now…? Kendra?"
Being surrounded by strange boys had apparently robbed Kendra of her composure. Giles stepped in and said, "There's obviously been some misunderstanding here. Do you have a Watcher?"
The presence of a familiar authority figure appeared to steady the new Slayer. "Sam Zabuto, sir."
"We've never met, but he's very well respected."
"He's a real guy?" Buffy asked doubtfully. "As in, non-fictional?"
Kendra ignored the other Slayer's question and addressed only Giles. "Do you allow dis many people to know of our world, sir?"
"Well," he replied, adjusting his glasses nervously, "there are a few people, civilians if you like, that know of Buffy's identity. Her brothers here, obviously, and the others spend time together… well, socially."
"And you allow dis, sir?"
As Giles grasped for an answer, Dean let out a snort. "What's the big deal?"
Without looking at him, Kendra answered, "I was taught the Slayer must work in secrecy for security."
"Me and him," said Buffy's eldest brother as he gestured from himself to Sam, "We're hunters. This whole monster thing ain't anything new."
Kendra finally fixed her eyes on Dean. Distaste drew up a corner of her lip. "Hunters? My Watcher says that hunters are bumbling apes dat have no business in our world."
Dean lifted his eyebrows and frowned at his sister. "I don't like her."
"Can't say I'm feel the friendlies either," Buffy replied. Then her eyes widened. She walked up to Sam. "What do you mean he wasn't home?"
"Just what I said," he answered. "Ask her."
Buffy clapped a hand on Kendra's shoulder and jerked the other Slayer around. Once they were face to face, Buffy demanded, "Did you see Angel?"
"You mean Angelus," Kendra replied. The disdain in her voice deepened even further. "He is a monster."
"No no no," corrected Giles. "He's good now."
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Gypsy curse. It-It's a long story. His soul is clean now."
"But he looked just like another animal when…" The new Slayer trailed off.
"When what?" Buffy growled menacingly. "What did you do?"
Buffy wanted to skip classes immediately in order to go to Willy's (where Kendra had apparently trapped Angel), but Willow abruptly remembered that Principal Snyder had been prowling about. His intention, apparently, was to determine who was missing Career Day and to subject them to harsh administrative justice. Reluctantly, Buffy allowed Dean to go in her stead with Kendra. The teenagers headed out to their assigned booths and Sam stayed in the library as backup against the Order of Taraka.
As the hallways filled with milling students and ardent recruiters, Sam perused a Watcher's diary. Half an hour in and he commented, "You know, this is almost like a hunter's journal."
"I believe hunters took the practice from the Council," said the Watcher.
"So then the Council was in contact with hunters. If that's the case, then why doesn't anyone know about the Slayer? I think if Buffy had never been Chosen then we would have never found out."
Giles drew in a deep sigh. He locked gazes with Sam, his expression stern. "If I tell you then the information goes no further than you and your brother."
"Uh, okay," the perplexed hunter assured him.
"You must understand that this was established for the safety of both the current Slayer and the hunter community. I think it was… yes, 1958. Something happened, I'm not certain exactly what, and we lost our direct method of contact with the Americans. The Council did the best it could under the circumstances, but somehow the majority of the hunters were never informed of the identity of the newest Slayer."
"So, what, some kind of big misunderstanding took place?"
"That's… an understatement. The Slayer was named Maria Gutierrez. She lived in Tijuana, Mexico. Surprising number of vampires there." The Watcher removed his glasses and cleaned them on a corner of his sweater. "A group of hunters were there on holiday. Evidently one extremely inebriated individual spotted Maria doing something that would have been impossible for a normal human girl, took her for a demon, and shot her in the face."
"Jesus," Sam gasped.
"Her Watcher, in his… his grief became obsessed with finding her killer. He succeeded in his endeavor a few days later. The hunter was still in the city, drowning in guilt and drink, being consoled by several friends."
"And?"
Giles cleared his throat and placed his glasses back upon his face. "Maria's Watcher killed them all. Magically. And painfully."
Sam took a few moments of silence to digest the tale. "Wait," he finally said, "but that was just, you know, a couple of assholes that made a mistake. Why the big coverup?"
"You of all people should know how closely knit some hunters are with one another."
With a chill, Sam surmised, "Someone retaliated."
"More than one, and on both sides. For a while it was war between our two societies, a guerrilla war that seemed like just random murders to the general populace. Eventually the Council felt that enough was enough and ordered all Watchers back to England. Until a Slayer was called in New York during the 1980s we remained overseas and cut all ties to North America. We couldn't afford to lose another Slayer like that."
"Why?" Sam scoffed. "Because then the Council would have to bury its head in the sand again?"
Giles gently took the Watcher's diary out of Sam's hands. "All of us are trained with the knowledge that our Slayers will most likely die before us. We know eventually some vampire or demon or monster will get to them, but most of us love them like our daughters. For one of them to die from simple drunken idiocy at the hands of a supposed ally—"
A gunshot rang out from the outer halls. The Watcher and hunter both snapped their heads towards the library doors. A panicked mob fled past the doors' windows, their speed growing exponentially when further shots were fired. Sam and Giles cautiously peered out of the swinging doors, then, when they couldn't see anything, began swimming through the crowd.
By the time they made it to the scene the danger had passed. One male student was lying in Willow's lap bleeding from a bullet wound to the arm while the rest were beginning to recover from the sudden fright. Dean had evidently returned and was hurriedly stuffing his favorite ivory-handled handgun into the back of his jeans. He spotted Sam and Giles and walked over to them.
After drawing them around the corner away from the incoming emergency personnel, Dean whispered an explanation. "One of those Taraka dicks was masking as a policewoman. Totally freaking gun-happy, like I don't think I've got that many weapons on me. Buffy was at her booth and bitch fired on her."
"Good Lord," Giles gasped.
"So where did the Taraka member go?" asked Sam.
"Took a hostage," explained his brother, "got to the door, then ran off. Dropped the kid before she went sprinting away."
"And Angel?" asked the Watcher.
"Gone. Dunno what happened."
Giles pulled out his phone. "I'm going to contact Kendra's Watcher. Council should have his number. I think between Spike, Drusilla, and the Order of Taraka we'll need all the help we can get."
After Sam Zabuto gave the green light to Kendra's extended presence they began to try to dig up the details of Josephus du Lac's vampire cures. While Buffy and Kendra went over the more dangerous armaments inside of Giles' office, Dean asked for volunteers to go keep watch on Bela; with a trigger happy member of the Order of Taraka around they couldn't risk others getting hurt if fake-policewoman decided to go after the thief. Whether Bela herself became collateral was of little consequence.
Cordelia and Xander both hopped on to the opportunity to escape doing research. They returned a few hours later with Bela in tow. All four of them were disheveled and tense.
"What the hell happened?" Sam asked.
"Bug man," Xander replied.
"Ugh!" Cordelia uttered. She glowered at Buffy. "Why is it that anytime you're involved with my life something incredibly disgusting happens to me?"
Bela lifted her eyebrows at the teenager's self-absorption then planted a glower of her own on Sam. "Thank you for telling me the Order of Taraka was in town, by the way."
"Why?" Sam wondered suspiciously. "Someone put a hit out on you?"
"No, it's just that when these bloody assassins are around they cause unnecessary chaos. Barreling through the populace to get to their target, no finesse whatsoever."
The still wan Bela sat down at the table along with Dean. Cordelia was about to do the same when a black beetle scurried out from under the thief's sleeve. The teenaged girl let out a shriek as Bela pragmatically reached down for one of her boots and slammed it down on top of the bug.
"Oh, hush," Bela chastised. "You and your little friend here ran and hid anyways. Frankly, I'm surprised that the two of you fit so well in that closet."
Willow peered at Xander and then at Cordelia, both of whom suddenly looked distinctly uncomfortable. Thankfully for them, Dean launched into the story of their verminous encounter. "Guy came in and said he was a nurse. Looked just like any other person, scrubs and glasses and all. Then he freaking bursts apart into a gazillion fucking bugs right on top of Bela."
"Didn't you say that the bugs ate your neighbor's dog?" Sam asked Cordelia.
"Yeah," she replied, "but man, this lady's got some reflexes. She rolled away and then shoved the bed towards the window."
"We were stomping and kicking and I even tried shooting the goddamn things," Dean continued. "Nothing. Then security comes in and Lego bug monster swarms all over the dude and fucking devours the shit out of him."
"How'd you get out?" Willow asked.
Bela jerked her head towards Buffy's elder brother. "Dean here kicked the bed completely out of the window and threw us both onto the mattress. Thank goodness for California and your lack of high rises."
"We, uh… hid," Xander added.
"People were screaming," Cordelia said. "We just stuffed paper towels under the door crack and waited it out."
"Kid texted me when it was safe," Dean concluded. "Bela and I had peeled out of there and waited at a safe spot until then."
"Where did bug man go?" asked Buffy.
"Dunno, don't care. Hopefully dove right into a pool of Raid."
"Actually," Giles inserted as he tapped a page of the book in his hands, "that solution might not be far off from the mark. Your bug man is apparently an awahondo."
"He makes cars?" Xander wondered.
"No, you fool, awahondo are ancient insect creatures that were thought to sting its victims and enslave their souls. In reality they're a colony of carnivorous beetles whose queen has a single mystical attribute: the ability to cloak her entire hive in the guise of a human being."
"Why a person?" asked Willow.
"I imagine it's because it's just one of the many things out there that have risen above mankind on the food chain." The Watcher adjusted his glasses as he looked down on the page. "They're incredibly rare, sort of inadvertently hunted down to near extinction by modern pest control."
"So he can die," said Sam.
"Only if he is disassembled and only if you kill the queen."
"How do we even know which one of them that is?"
Giles gestured at the flattened beetle on the library desk. "The drones are all black. The queen is apparently black as well but has an iridescent sheen. Sort of like an abalone shell."
"Ugh!" Cordelia uttered again. "I'm going to the locker room and taking a shower." She marched off, a single beetle falling from her hair and landing on the floor. Kendra promptly stomped on it.
"So d'ere is de woman with the guns," said the newer Slayer, "and dis man of bugs. Plus Spike and Drusilla."
"Uh oh," Willow suddenly murmured as she stared worriedly at the book in her hands.
"Uh oh?" Buffy repeated. "What is this 'uh oh'? Is it a bad thing? It's always a bad thing."
"I think I found the ritual thingy. At-At-At least what du Lac said was the one surefire method to cure a sick vampire." She read from the page. "'Upon the new moon you must find hallowed ground. The sire of the vampire must be present.' There's… not much else of-of consequence… hey! Do you think we can go on a donut run?"
Bela yanked the book away from the red-headed girl and continued reading. "'The ritual shall renew the vitality of the vampire by depriving the sire of his life force.' So this ritual of theirs will kill Drusilla's sire."
Buffy paled and Giles placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"
"Angel. He's Drusilla's sire."
"Man, that guy got major neck in his day!" Xander quipped. Dean promptly whacked him on the back of the head.
"We need to find this church," Buffy declared. "We need to find where this ritual is going to take place."
"Agreed," said her Watcher, "and we must work quickly. We have only a few hours before sundown."
"Don't worry, Buffy," Willow told her friend, "we'll save Angel."
"Angel?" Kendra scoffed. "But our priority is to stop Drusilla!"
"Angel's our friend!" Xander exclaimed. "Except I don't like him."
"We find Angel we find Drusilla," said Sam. "If we don't save him then we've got a bigger problem on our hands. When we saw Drusilla in Montana she kind of seemed insane. I can't imagine what she'll want to do when she's healthy."
Buffy was tempted to reveal the extent to which Angel was complicit in Drusilla's ugly mental state but she knew Dean would take the damning evidence and run with it. She decided to keep the information to herself. Instead, the Slayer looked around at the gathering. "We find Drusilla. We rescue Angel. We make Spike fit into an ashtray. Are we all in on this?"
A chorus of affirmations, some more enthused than others, answered her. Buffy nodded. "Good, because I've had it. You can attack me, you can send assassins after me, that's fine. But nobody messes with my boyfriend."
Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode "What's My Line, Part 2" (BtVS 2.10).
Author's Note : 1958? Yeah? Subtle nudge nudge to later Supernatural funtimes.
Maria Gutierrez was the Slayer I made up way, way, way back in chapter 7. Feel free to backtrack!
