Chapter 7
The phone shrilled in Spike's hand, startling the on-edge vampire. He yelped and nearly dropped the ringing box.
"Answer it, you idiot!" Angel snapped, his eyes never leaving the dark road ahead.
Spike glared furiously at the dark-haired hulk of a man before jabbing at the buttons on the phone, abruptly shutting the insistent ring up. "Yeah," he answered, anger rumbling in the back of his throat.
"Spike? Can't you two get along for five minutes without wanting to rip each other's throats out? Put Angel on."
"It's Buffy." Spike held Angel the phone.
"Put her on speaker," Angel ordered, watching his vampire passenger nimbly deposit the small phone into the speaker unit.
"Did you find anything?" Angel asked the dashboard.
Buffy's voice, sweet and clear, drifted up to the two men. "We found her bag. And some blood."
Angel's heart missed a beat, Spike blanching at the mention of found blood.
"There wasn't a body or signs of a struggle. I think whatever took her knocked her unconscious and took her with him."
Both Angel and Spike let out pent-up breaths in relief.
"Our 'whatever has a name," Buffy continued. "The Watcher identified the Raz'lah as Deh'ras, brother to Mah'lak. We have our familial connection. My guess is brother dearest wants to finish what Mah'lak started."
"And avenge his brother's death while he's at it," Angel finished his wife's thought, guilt darkening his voice and features.
Buffy heard what her husband must be thinking and said, "This isn't your fault, Angel. Don't blame yourself. I don't."
A small smile pulled at Angel's generous mouth. "Thank you," he said lovingly before his voice dropped again. Time to deliver the bad news. "But you might not feel so generous when you hear what we found."
Her frown was audible when Buffy replied, "Tell me."
"Deh'ras found himself some partners," Angel began, dreading how his wife will react to the news.
"Who?" Audible dread.
"Darla and Drusilla."
"Oh God," Buffy breathed. "Are you sure?"
"Of course we're sure, Slayer," Spike piped up from his side of the car. "Do you think we'd joke about a thing like that?"
Silence greeted the vampire's snide question. "Buffy?" Angel called carefully.
"They're going down. Permanently. And if either of you try to stop me, I will kill you myself." Barely controlled fury blazed from the hidden speakers, enveloping Sire and Childe in its heat.
After another uncomfortable silence, this time on the men's side of the conversation, Angel cleared his throat and said, "Some luck might be on our side in this. We found a survivor at the dig site. He told us the truck was heading to Oceanfront Hills. We're on our way there now."
"Oceanfront? That's a big area to cover, but it narrows it down. I'll meet you there. How long until sunrise?" Buffy asked.
Spike answered the question obviously asked with him in mind. "Not for a few more hours yet, pet. The Hills are riddled with caves. I won't get caught outside when dawn comes."
"Be careful. Both of you," Buffy admonished. "It's been a lot of years, but…"
"We will, Buffy. Please be careful, too. We don't know how many minions they control." A terrible feeling of foreboding was creeping up Angel's neck, making the short hairs stand on end.
***************
The Slayer frowned at the anxiety she heard in her husband's voice. It made her nervous. Angel had always had the ability to tell when she was in trouble, and he was very rarely wrong. She had to stay sharp, she knew, her enhanced Slayer senses going into overdrive.
"What's wrong?" Nate asked, pulling Buffy out of her reverie.
Buffy shook her head, saying, "It's nothing." She hadn't talked to the Watcher, except to pump him for information on the demon stalking her daughter.
Nate was getting tired of the woman's icy indifference to him. When he tried to bring up the subject of her own colorful past with the Watchers' Council, she outright ignored him. He'd expected as much from the rebellious Slayer, but when she refused to share the upsetting information she'd just received from her demon (or ex-demon) consort, it was just too much.
"It's not nothing! If it concerns Aurora, I have a right to know! Now tell me!" he ordered in his I'm-the-Watcher-you're-just-the-Slayer fashion.
Buffy whirled around, the tenuous hold she had on her tongue snapping. "Right?!" she roared. "You have NO right where my daughter is concerned! Tell me, Watcher, were you planning on letting Aurora go home to her family, to her home in Australia? Or were you just going to keep her here until you got her killed? Oh no, wait! I know what you would do. You'll send your special unit to kill us and get custody of her. That sounds like a Council thing to do!"
"Aurora wouldn't turn her back on her duty like you did. She would stay of her own free will, because it is the right thing to do and because it is what is expected of the Slayer," Nate threw back, his British stoicism slipping. "Furthermore, her own reckless behavior will get her killed. And I can see where she gets that from! But with the proper training, she could live to become one of the greatest Slayers ever."
"Training? Is that what you call it? Is that what you call locking a defenseless Slayer in a house with a psycho vampire? Is that what you call attempted murder?" The elder Slayer's hazel eyes blazed with barely repressed violence, forcing the bewildered Watcher to step back.
"And which one of you geniuses had the bright idea of moving Acathla from one Hellmouth, only to bury him a few miles from another one?! California is right next to the Pacific, the biggest damn ocean on the planet! What? You didn't think dumping the demon capable of sucking the world into hell into the ocean? Or would that have required you lot to use your brains?"
A vampire had seen the little human female's tirade as the perfect opportunity to strike. Bringing the Slayer's Watcher to his master would earn him quite a reward, he knew. He stepped up behind the screaming woman, and was just about to pounce when he felt the wooden death being shoved into his chest. "I'm busy!" was the last thing he heard before his world turned to dust.
Nate shrunk into himself when this angry Slayer raised her crossbow to his chest. She fired a bolt at him and he yelped, a wet spot appearing on his crotch. 'I don't even feel it,' he thought amazed, but yelped again when the exploding remains of the dusted vamp behind him hit his sweat-chilled neck.
"Wrong Slayer, genius," Buffy sneered derisively. "I never killed humans. That was Faith, the Slayer you tried to kill, remember? Fucking moron." As if to punctuate her final statement, Buffy kicked back, catching another attaching vampire square in the chest, sending the female demon flying.
In the blink of an eye, the two humans were surrounded by six minions chomping at the bit to avenge the deaths of their kindred.
"Make yourself useful," Buffy ordered the quivering Watcher, tossing him a stake. The pointy piece of wood fumbled in his shaking hand and dropped. He dropped after it, grappling desperately for the weapon.
The Slayer sailed over where his head was a split second ago, her hard boot heel caving in an advancing vampire's head. She pounced onto the downed demon's chest and drove a stake into his undead heart.
"Getting out of the way of the nasty demons would be a great way to make yourself useful too," Buffy offered as she turned to face off with a fanged twosome.
Nate's cry diverted Buffy's attention away from the attacking demons. The Watcher's slumped body was being lifted hurriedly by an eager minion.
Buffy gave chase, but didn't get far. She let out an involuntary yelp when the tranquilizer dart punctured her shoulder. Darkness crept into her vision's periphery as the drugs worked their way through her system.
"What a wonderful surprise! Two Slayers for the price of one."
Buffy craned her neck to see the owner of the crowing voice in charge of the few minions still left standing.
"Riley?" she gasped, shocked to the core at the fast dimming sight of the tall, smirking vampire holding a high-powered tranquilizer gun.