CHAPTER 4
Buffy sank down onto Aurora's bed, her head hanging in motherly worry and despair. "The Powers couldn't be happy with just us," she said. "They had to take my baby too." She leaned into her husband's comforting strength, letting Angel stroke her hair, softly shushing her.
"Let me tell you something about your baby, Slayer," Spike said passionately. "She has been through hell since she's been called. She's a stranger in this country fighting to keep the demons from destroying what little life she has. And she still manages to be happy and beautiful and amazing."
The blonde vampire paused briefly to take a calming breath and continued before either of his ancient history made flesh could interrupt him. "You should have told her. She was always so worried about what you would do when you found out you didn't have a nice normal daughter. Do you know how much anguish you could have saved her by just being straight with the girl?! Aurora had a right to know what world she was born into."
A perverse sense of pleasure ran through Spike at the sight of the guilty expressions fixing themselves on Buffy and Angel's faces. "And now she's out there, alone and in a state! You of all people should know how dangerous it is when a Slayer goes hunting when her mind's somewhere else. And she's being hunted right this minute by some Raz'lah demon for a reason her useless Watcher can't figure out."
Spike ran his trembling fingers through his platinum hair, and finished his tirade with a final vehement statement. "If I loose her because you two were too bloody spineless to tell the truth, I swear I will make you wish Angelus did kill me."
Angel rose slowly, his thoughts racing. He stepped up to his once-favored Childe and looked him square in the eye. "Do you love my daughter, William?" he asked, demanding a brutally honest answer.
Spike met his Warrior Sire's forceful gaze without fear. He knew what Angel was asking. Could he, a soulless vampire prevented from hunting the innocent with only a piece of technology stuck in his brain, be trusted with the life of this man's Slayer daughter.
"Yes," Spike answered, conveying the depth of his feeling for the young Aurora completely with the one simple word. And for the first time since he met Aurora and lost his heart, he knew it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. He would lay down his own immortal life, would gladly spend an eternity in Hell, if it meant Aurora would live to see one more sunrise.
"And what about Aurora?" Buffy asked, also rising along with her voice. "Does she love you?"
Spike faltered, not sure how to answer. "I think she does," he offered carefully. "She told me she does, and I feel in my soul she means it."
Silence fell over the room. Spike waited for some snide remark from the blonde mother of his beloved about his mention of his soul, but none came. Buffy, after sharing one of her silent conferences with her own soulmate, simply nodded and led the group out of her daughter's room to the downstairs training gym.
"What? No snide little remarks? No threats?" Spike prodded. He wasn't used to the Slayer and her humanized vamp mate being so nice to him.
"Leave it to my kid to go and hook up with you," Buffy sighed, shaking her head.
"You hurt my baby, I'll rip you apart, my boy," Angel growled in Spike's ear.
Spike felt better. The world as he knew it was back on its axis.
***************
Lindy Rothchild was just about to give up. She was at the end of her rope. The carvings on her archeological discovery were slowly but surely driving her up the canvas walls of the research tent.
"Coffee?" Lindy rose her weary eyes to the lead archeologist, Samuel Wolff, standing at in the doorway created by the raised tent flap.
She smiled tiredly. "Yes, please," she sighed, accepting the offered cup of steaming black liquid.
"So how's it going?" Sam asked, nodding to the stone dominating the room.
Lindy rubbed the back of her neck, frustrated at the knots throbbing there. "It's useless. I can't even figure out what language the carvings are, much less decipher them."
Sam reached out, stilling Lindy's hand. "It's okay," he said, concerned. "Give it time. You'll figure it out. Just don't rush it. There's more than enough time."
The younger archeologist pulled away, agitated. "And that guy… that private eye, Angel… He knew what this is! I know it! How can he know and not tell me!"
"I'll tell you what it is, dear."
The two scientists whipped around in fright at the sound of the unknown female voice.
Sam Wolff swallowed hard. The owner of the voice was beautiful. A petite blonde with the sweetest smile and skin like milk. She entered the room with feline grace, her eyes locked on the relic under discussion.
"Look at my present, Grandmummy. Isn't it beautiful? It sings to me."
Another vision of beauty entered Sam's view. She was tall and in dark contrast to her blonde companion, with skin as purely white as the full moon overhead. She didn't walk. She danced, moving to music only she could hear, her dark velvet eyes closing in the rapture of it.
"Who are you?" Lindy asked, chilled with fear. She tried to catch Sam's eye, but the man was staring slack-jawed at the female strangers.
The blonde woman, clearly the leader of the group (Lindy could see some burly men just outside the tent opening) turned to her, still smiling her sweet smile. "Oh, I'm just a history buff, dear," she said, her voice melodious with a hint of something darker under the surface. Lindy shivered under the strange woman's icy gaze.
"Can you hear it, Grandmummy? Can you hear it singing?"
The blonde glanced at the dancing brunette, irritated. "No, Drusilla, I can't. Will you please be quiet while I deal with our hosts? You do want your present, don't you? And stop calling me Grandmummy!"
"Of course." Drusilla danced around the stone to the frozen archeologists, capturing Sam's eye with her own. "Can I have a party favor?"
Darla sighed. The girl could be such a bother. "Not now," she answered curtly.
Lindy swallowed, her mouth gone dry. "What do you want with us?" she asked the blonde leader, not wanting to anger the woman any further.
"We don't want anything with you, my dear. We want the stone," Darla explained.
Lindy frowned, her curiosity getting the better of her fear. "What is it? I have to know."
"It's death," Drusilla hissed, dancing around Lindy. The scientist could see the madness shining from the dark-haired beauty's black eyes.
Drusilla twirled back to Sam, who was following her every step and sway. He thrilled at the long fingers whispering up his shoulders and neck. "Please, Darla, can I have a party favor? Angelus let me have a party favor."
Sometimes it was just easier to give Drusilla what she wanted, Darla knew. "Fine," she sighed, exasperated. "Have your party favor."
Sam turned his head to see the angel at his back, but his blood froze his heart when he found a demon in stead. Feral yellow eyes leered at him from under a heavy brow, light catching off elongated canines. His scream was cut short by the vampire's fangs ripping into his exposed throat.
Lindy stared at the monster draining her partner and friend of his life. She couldn't scream. She had no air in her lungs to scream. Dr Samuel Wolff's lifeless, bloodless corpse dropped to Lindy's feet. She finally screamed.
"Sam! Oh my God, no, Sam!" she sobbed.
Darla spoke softly, soothingly. "It's alright, dear," she cooed, letting her hand smooth the young human's hair. "You'll be with him soon."
Lindy looked up, terror singing in her veins. The blonde woman's face shifted, baring fangs to her in a monstrous smile. The hand stroking Lindy's hair closed into a fist, dragging her painfully to her feet. "No, please don't," Lindy begged, her heart hammering in her chest.
The blonde vampire let her tongue steal over her fangs, hunger flashing in her golden eyes. The trembling human's terror smelled delectable.
Lindy's racing heart sped up, hitched, skipped beats and fell silent as Darla pulled her life's blood from her neck, letting the body drop to the floor next to her dead partner.
"Okay, boys!" Darla ordered, her body glowing with the glorious blood pumping through her undead veins. "Let's get what we came for. Deh'ras is waiting."
***************
Deh'ras dropped his unconscious cargo into the iron cage, slamming the door shut and snapping the lock in place.
Aurora came awake with a start at the echoing crash of her prison's door. She sat up fast and instantly regretted it when the world grayed in and out, her head hollering in protest.
Deh'ras looked at the small human groaning in pain and grinned maliciously. "Awake so soon, Slayer? No matter. You'll be dead in a few days. You might as well enjoy your last days."
Aurora eyed her captor through the bars of her cage. "Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with? Make it easy on yourself, before I find a way out of this cage," she said defiantly.
The young Slayer's defiance was met with deafening laughter. "You'll never see the sun again, my pretty Slayer. And come the Night of Argonius, your death with bring on the Apocalypse." The demon left a stunned Aurora to the night, his roaring laugh echoing through the cavernous chamber.