And
now what you've all been waiting for…
The Queen
Part Three
The drive to the Sunnydale General Hospital was both cold and quiet for Xander and Giles. They both sat stunned, Giles driving, thinking about what they had discovered and what it might mean if Buf… if the Queen got what she wanted, or what they assumed she wanted. They had left the others behind at Giles house to prepare for the battle that they both knew very well might be the end for them, for Sunnydale, and quite likely the world.
Giles parked the car in the handicapped place next to the door and without speaking to one another the two ran in through the sliding glass doors and straight to the check in desk.
"I need to see a patient here," Giles said hurriedly, "a coma patient."
The butch overweight woman in the nurse's outfit behind the desk looked unamused. "Do you realize that it's two thirty in the morning?"
"Look lady," Xander started, a bit miffed that she wasn't complying. "We have to find this woman. It is a matter of…"
"Life or death," the nurse finished. "Save it. I'm here to keep nuts like you out of this hospital at night."
Xander's temper flared in frustration and without another word he leapt over the counter and started pushing the woman out of the way. She wouldn't understand and they didn't have time to explain to her that if they couldn't find this coma patient, the world could very well end before tomorrow night at midnight.
"Security!" the woman yelled at she hit the floor behind the desk. "Help! Help!"
By this time Giles had made his way around the corner and behind the desk too. He grabbed the nurse and covered her mouth with his arm, forcing the inside of the elbow into her mouth to quiet her. Xander was already furiously trying to find Faith's name in the computer but to no avail. After a minute or two he turned around and looked down at the woman with a fire not even Giles had seen in his eyes before.
"Listen to me lady," Xander started, sounding more like the demons that he fought on a consistent basis than anything resembling human. He could feel a new desperation in his heart, aching in his head. It was the desperation of knowing the entire world rested on your shoulders. Something Xander guessed Buffy had felt everyday of her life. How did she stay sane?
"We have the power to kill you right now. We also have the chance to save the lives of millions and which one I decide to do depends on how you answer this next question," he continued angrily.
Giles felt the nurse start to cry, her tears wetting his arm and her large body convulsing with sobs. Xander was scaring him a little here. Hopefully these theatrics would help them. Otherwise they'd be back at square one.
"There was a young woman here, a coma patient," Xander continued, eyes still burning. "She was young, around 20; had brown hair; thin; athletic; and her body was guarded 24 hours a day by two armed police officers. Do you remember her?"
Beneath the near strangling embrace of Giles the nurse's head nodded as best it could, tears still streaming in fear of the man standing over her.
"Good." Xander said. "Where is she? Did they transfer her somewhere else or is she still around here somewhere?"
Giles released the nurse as she started speaking.
"S-s-s-she's gone…" the nurse stuttered out.
"Where?" Xander almost screamed. "Where is she now?"
"I, I don't know…" the nurse stuttered again. "One day she was just gone, the guards said she got up and left on her own. But we d-don't know for sure…"
Giles fell almost limp to the floor next to the nurse, knowing that the Queen must have what she needs now. Xander just stood there for a minute, starring into space. His lungs were burning like he had run a marathon; his heart was beating at a ridiculous pace. Somewhere deep inside he had known that he would find Faith gone, that this trip to the hospital was just a waste of precious time.
The two men left to nurse crying on the cold tile floor of the hospital and walked back out to the car. As they opened the doors and sat down Giles looked at Xander and Xander back at Giles. They both knew what was going to happen next.
"Ready to kill the Queen?" Giles asked hesitantly
"Nope," Xander said, "but I'm willing to die trying."
***
Riley Finn had been sitting in the same spot for nearly two days now with nothing to do but to talk to this Angel character and hope that somehow the Queen would make a mistake and he could find a way to escape. Nothing so far had given him any hope.
Twice a day, five vampires would come into the cell and take Angel away in chains for an hour each time. The screams as they tortured him were horrible, but seemed more tired than anything else. Angel moaned as he screamed, as they burned him and bleed him, as they cut new holes into him and stitched them back up with crude thread. His torture had broken his spirit and it seemed that the pain didn't bother him as much as his yearning to die.
When they brought him back each time Angel would sit there and cry for a time and then fall asleep. After his painful nap he would wake and talk a bit, but only of how powerful the Queen was, and how he longed for death. At some point, Riley got a little fed up with him and his broken spirit and finally lashed out in anger.
"Why don't you just die then," he said after another one of the broken man's comments. "Just give up and die. Stop eating. Antagonize one of the men torturing you and get him to jab a little harder. I don't know how the heck you've lived this long anyway."
For the first time since their first conversation Riley saw Angel smile.
"You really don't understand, do you Special Agent Riley Finn?" he said with a rasp from the blood in his lungs.
"Of course I do," Finn said mad. "You want to die, you complain that you want to die. You hurt and you want peace. So do something about it."
Angel looked up with an anger that Riley hadn't seen yet. Even without eyes, it seemed that Angel was looking right into him and that sent shivers down his spine. What is this guy?
"I am a vampire!" Angel forced out, answering Riley's silent question. "I cannot die. No matter how many times they poke me, or how many times they cut me, or how many times they burn me, I will not die."
"You're a what?" Riley said aghast.
"A vampire," Angel said annoyed. "You know, a blood-drinking, scared-of-the-sun, no-shadow evil thing! I was cursed with a soul. I tried to stop the Queen and she made me into this."
"So she gave you a soul?" Riley said confused.
"No," Angel replied and then without pausing began to tell Riley the story of how he came to have a soul and how he fell in love with the Slayer and all the chaos that followed, His death and resurrection with a reunited soul and body; How he had decided to end it and leave for Los Angeles; and how when the Slayer became the vile Queen that she is now, how he returned to stop her.
"I fought her when she was alive and she was my match. A centuries old vampire and I couldn't stop her when she was the Slayer. Once she became the Queen, she was more powerful than even I could handle. We fought in one of the cemeteries for near an hour and when we were finished she dragged my beaten body down into these tunnels and put me here. Since then, everyday is a torture. Everyday I am cut and bleed and burned and beaten. Everyday she comes and mocks me and allows her vampires to make me their plaything."
Special Agent Riley Finn shivered. He couldn't tell if he was a little cold or just that his heart, and his iron will, had been chilled. Suddenly the door to the cell swung open and two vampires came in, armed with small dart guns. Angel shriveled up in the corner, bracing himself for a beating or some other torture.
"Not now Angelus," one of the vampires said and then pointed to Riley. "It's his turn."
With that both vamps fired the darts into his chest and almost immediately Riley felt his head to start to spin and his world fade to black.
***
Faith was still steaming, almost a day later, from her last encounter with Buffy. The rocking in her chains had become almost obsessive now, causing her Slayer-enhanced wrists to bleed from where her shackles had starting digging into her. The blood, the anger, the sight of Buffy mocking her; it had all sent her over the edge. She was mad with a passion to kill. Nothing would satisfy her until she saw that whore dusted.
The hum of conversation and activity had picked up in the last few hours since Faith had woken up, like something big was going to happen very soon. It made sense after-all. Months of sitting and hanging, never once being spoken too, never knowing who was behind her capture and then all within the last two days she had discovered that Buffy was the Queen vamp behind it all. And then when Buffy told her that she was going to be gone, that something better was going to rise in her place… yeah, B had something planned and it was big.
Before those final thoughts could finish making their way to the surface the "something" Faith had been expecting seemed to start happening. A group of eight vampires came around the corner, all carrying little guns that looked like they were loaded with darts.
"Comon you bastards!" Faith yelled, rocking hard on her chains. "Let me down from here and we'll see how good those guns are!"
Without speaking a word, all eight vampires fired their darts at Faith, all hitting their mark.
"You stupid F*'ers!" Faith yelled feeling the drugs from the darts burning in her blood. "Come here and fight me! You worthless pieces of…"
Again the eight vampires fired in unison and again not one of them missed Faith's body, despite her continuous rocking. This time, the drugs took their affect on Faith and she dropped off into an uneasy sleep, muttering obscenities until her head finally drooped and body relaxed, leaving her softly swinging there, still naked, still bleeding from the wrists, quietly awaiting her destiny.
***
Xander sat alone on Giles couch and thought about the last eight months while the rest of the scoobies slept to prepare for that night. All this time they had been fighting, struggling, looking for how they could stop Buffy… no, not Buffy, Buffy was dead. They were looking for how they could stop the Queen. Buffy was dead and gone. Her body was just infested with half-breed demon scum that was abusing her body to it's own ends. That's what was going on. Right?
Xander couldn't remember how many times he had tried to get it into his head that this wasn't Buffy they were fighting. At first he was in such shock that nothing made any sense to him. He just knew that Sunnydale was changing and that Buffy wasn't there to protect it, in fact, she was causing it. But then again, it wasn't her. At one point he and Anya sat up all night and talked about it over and over again. They went in circles all night talking about vampires and demons and Buffy and how it all worked and slowly the idea fought into Xanders skull. Finally after that and numerous other talks he thought it was sinking in, he thought that he was starting to accept that Buffy was dead and that this Queen person wasn't her at all. One night though, he saw her. He saw the Queen out with her hoard of vampires and it all came rushing back.
They had been out killing vampires and saving any fools who had ventured outside in the night and suddenly, only a few minutes before dawn, a band of vampires fell on them, ready for blood. Willow had protected them quite well her magic and he and Giles had managed to dust a few with crossbows and then with the stakes they had brought along but the fight was still more than they thought they could handle.
When one vampire had leapt onto Xander from a trashcan nearby he dusted it but fell to the ground from the collision. When he looked up, he saw her. She was standing on a roof-top watching, giving orders and looking almost alive, almost. She still had her beautiful blonde hair, her enchanting smile and the stunning body that came with being a Slayer, but she was eerie somehow. Her flesh was a little paler than usual and there was something about her movements that was a little more violent.
Fortunately for the Scoobies the sun was rising and the whole band of vampires had to head for the depths below Sunnydale before they could finish off the outnumbered heroes. No one else in the group seemed to have seen her and if they did no one mentioned it, so Xander kept it to himself. Seeing her though, seeing Buffy made his head swim again, awash in the confusion of seeing a ghost, a long dead friend come back to life…
Again, Xander had to shake the idea out of his head. Buffy was not resurrected. She was dead. Her soul had left and a demon took what was left of her and made it it's home.
"I need to stop thinking so much," Xander smiled to himself, attempting to humor himself out of the stupor he was in. "Bad habit I've developed from living with Giles."
Getting up, Xander made his way back over to the book that Giles had shown him the night before, one of the Watchers diaries. The volume was leather bound and worn. It had that musty library smell that Giles adored. Astounding that it held the secret that they needed to needed to uncover, locked up in one tiny phrase in one sentence, right at the front of the book. For the twentieth time that day he read:
"Anna hath begun her labours as the sacred Slayer this year 1421, after vanquishing her first horrible foe…"
That was it. Had it been anyone but Giles, they would have known nothing and kept searching in vain, right up until the end but Giles, he catches every detail, every little mistake and un-dotted "i" that one can find. Thank God for Giles.
Watchers, as a whole, keep very, very good records. They record every name, every date, every detail of everything they and their Slayer encounter. Anything they miss could possibly mean their death, or the death of millions, or even the death of a later Slayer. They just never knew what detail could be the missing link to solve the mystery or defeat the foe. This time, the detail that saved humanity, was the one the Watcher omitted.
Giles noticed that the name of the "horrible foe," a common term in old watcher diaries for major baddies, was omitted. The Watcher didn't give any details as to the fight, the setting, or how the foe was defeated. It was like this foe was just bad and that was all the Watcher felt obligated to write, or was able to write. It peaked Giles interest.
When Giles looked back at the previous diary he found that the previous Watcher had described the death of his Slayer, in much detail, and included a date: 1419, putting the time between her death and the rise of the next Slayer at roughly more than a year.
At this point, while Giles had been explaining this before, Xander and Willow and the rest began to catch on. A new Slayer is called immediately after the death of the previous one, not more than a year later. Where had the extra time gone? What happened to the Slayer legacy? Had it paused? Had there been another Slayer in-between?
It had been some time since Giles had made any effort to work with the Watcher's Counsel on anything but he had to know what had happened. Late that night Giles called the Counsel and went "bloody crazy" on them, demanding to know what had happened in that years time, demanding to know why they had hidden the information all this time.
The answer exactly what the scoobies needed, and exactly what they had feared they might hear.
There had indeed been another Slayer in-between that year's span that there were no diaries for. Actually, there had been a diary, there was a diary, and it was hidden in the Counsel's archives for a very, very good reason. That Slayer, named Jeanette, was a French woman of humble descent and had very little training before she was called as the Slayer. She fought bravely but stumbled one night into the trap of a vampire and was bitten. Not even her Watcher knew why or how, but somewhere along the line, Jeanette drank of the vampires blood, and she too became a vampire.
The story, as amazing as it already was, did not end there. Jeanette, becoming quite powerful after resurrection, went after the next Slayer, Anna, and intended to use her for a ritual that the Watchers Counsel kept as an even closer secret. It was a ritual that used the blood of the Slayer, shed at midnight on a Blue Moon to open a Hell-Mouth wide open and bring all the death, the demons and chaos up onto the earth forever and ever.
"Tonight is a Blue Moon," Xander muttered to himself, coming out of his memories yet again. "Tonight, the Queen is going to use Faith's blood to open the Hell-Mouth and bring hell right here to Sunnydale."
Xander walked back over the couch and lay down, thinking the phrase over and over again. "Tonight is a Blue Moon. Tonight, the Queen is going to use Faith's blood to open the Hell-Mouth. Tonight is a Blue Moon…"
Xander drifted off to sleep thinking the same thought over and over again. Soon it would be time to rush into battle again, to either die or to stop the Queen once and for all. Tonight, Xander would face his old friend, and his fears, and the fate of the world was in his tiny, human, near-helpless hands.
***
Riley was starting to get fed up of being knocked out every time he was going to be moved. His head was aching again as the blackness started to fade and he remembered getting shot in the chest with some kind of tranquilizer darts.
"Ouch," he said softly to himself as he sat up and rubbed his chest where the darts had left sores.
"It won't hurt soon," Riley heard a soft voice say.
As his eyes opened and began to focus he found himself sitting in yet another stone room, faced by the Queen and numerous vampires attending to her and running about. This room, however had a large stone table, covered with strange markings and to it was strapped a naked woman. She was lying on her back limp, but breathing.
"Don't worry about her," the Queen said reassuringly. "You won't share her fate. I have plans for you."
"What do you want?" Riley said trying to sound strong, despite his soreness and the throbbing in his head.
"The question dear," the Queen said with a laugh, "is what do you want?"
She stood and walked over towards Riley, still sitting on the floor. She walked a slow circle around him and ran her fingers along his shoulder, around the back of his neck and down the other shoulder.
"Do you," she said pausing dramatically, "Do you want to be immortal?"
"W-what?" Riley said, unable to hide his anxiousness now.
"Do you want to be immortal?" the Queen repeated a tad bit annoyed. "Do you want to be strong? To fear nothing? To live forever? Because, that is what I am offering to you, Riley Finn, what every man desires, to be immortal."
"I don't want anything from you," Riley mustered. "Stop."
"No," the Queen said with a smile. "I will not stop, ever. No one can stop me. I am a goddess." She began to walk away from him again and then turned back. "I am offering you godhood."
"W-what do you mean?" Riley asked as the Queen starred him in the eyes again.
"I mean, you can be like me. You can be powerful and happy and eternal," the Queen replied with hypnotic eyes. "What do you say Riley?"
"No!" Riley shouted with as much force as his tired body could muster, almost scaring the Queen with the blast. "You mean you're going to make me a vampire. I'd rather die you whore!"
For an instant the pale blue eyes of the Queen seemed to burn red with anger but just as quickly as they had changed, they shifted back to calm. She smiled and walked up very close to Riley and got right down in his face, so close that he could smell the decaying flesh on her vampire mouth. She grabbed him by the chin and made him look her in the eye.
"Then you're going to have to die," she said with a perverted grin.
Never had fear set so deep within the heart of Special Agent Riley Finn, never in his training, or his time fighting demons, never. He watched as the Queen stood again and walked over to a small table nearby. She picked up a long knife with an ornate handle and then nodded at two of the nearby vampires. They quickly rushed over and forced Riley up and then immediately back down, so he knelt before the undead Queen.
With tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes Riley looked up at the Queen who still smiled her perverted smile. She took the knife and waved it around in the air a few times, letting the candle light glisten off of it. Finally she looked back down at Riley, this time with a hint of pity in her eyes.
"Just in case you change your mind…" she said trailing off. Then the Queen took the knife and cut a line across one of her collarbones and let the crimson blood run out onto her skin. She knelt down next Riley, who was being held still now by the vampires around him. He felt his body start to tremble as she came near, like she was about to make love to him, but she wasn't. She was going to kill him and he knew it.
Her face grazed his own as she made her slow descent down to his neck and the combination of her soft, yet cold skin made him shiver. While she had no breathe, it seemed as though he could feel her essence billowing down around his neck and down his chest. Her soft body pressed gently against his own in an unholy embrace as she started pulling him in close. He wanted to scream but it wouldn't come. He wanted to run but his body seemed to be paralyzed. So he knelt there and felt the vampire Queen move down to bite him and take his life away forever.
The feeling of her teeth sinking into his flesh was nothing like he expected it to be. It was a brief pain as the teeth penetrated the surface but then there was a fire, a good fire, a pleasurable fire, that burned in the small wounds as the teeth sank further in and found their target, his jugular. The experience of feeling the blood rush from his extremities and concentrate on his neck was amazing as pain filled the bloodless parts of his body and his neck seemed to explode with pleasure in the swirl of flesh and bone and teeth and blood as he started to die.
Riley Finn, dazed and burning with a desire to live, as he became weak let his head slump down and when it did, he saw it, the crimson red blood resting on the shoulder of Queen who was draining him as he looked. It was life. The red reminded him of the fire in his neck and the passion that he felt for this demonic woman that was taking his life. The blood was his only chance. It was life, or death but whatever it was, it was there, beckoning him with the same hypnosis that danced in the eyes of the Queen.
Just as he started to feel his world turn black, and his life slip away Riley Finn made a choice and with that hastily made choice buried his head into the shoulder of the Queen and drank. He drank with all the strength he had left, feeling her life wash into him with the salty-sweet red liquid and then he collapsed into darkness. Riley Finn, the Special Agent, the man, was dead.
***
Faith woke up even angrier than before but felt the anger slip away for a brief second when she realized that for the first time in eight months, she was not hanging from her wrists. She was colder now though, as she was stretched across a stone table and shackled tightly to the floor. Her head was held in place with a metal ring so that she couldn't even turn her head left or right. All she could do was look ahead and wonder what was going on. She could hear faint voices and the scraping of feet that were actually quite close.
"Take him to the adjacent room and call me when he wakes," Faith heard a woman say. It was Buffy, she realized and then the anger washed back over her.
"Buffy! You whore!" Faith screamed, hearing some feet scrambling at the sound of her voice and others walking away, dragging something heavy with them. "Where are you?"
"Oh I'm right here sister," she heard Buffy say playfully. Suddenly her face came into view. It was a little more pale than in the past, and her teeth seemed a little stained with blood, but it was Buffy's face.
Faith tried to lash out at her but simply managed to once again cut her wrists on the shackles and hurt her neck as she strained against the metal ring holding her in place.
"Sister, sister," Buffy said, "calm down and save your strength for tonight."
Faith decided not to give her the pleasure of not asking what was going to happen tonight.
"Just let me up and I'll kill you and this can all be over ok you undead b*?" Faith snapped.
Buffy laughed a cold laugh in Faith's face and then disappeared from her view. Faith could hear her walking around the table, just far enough away to stay out of her view.
"Just save your strength sister," Buffy said, still out of sight. "Tonight you die and in turn you open the Hell-Mouth. Tonight the world dies and in turn paves the way for my eternal victory. I will rule the darkness of Earth forever and ever and I'll have your blood to thank."
Faith sat silently for the first time since she had discovered that Buffy was the Queen, in shock. She could hear her move around to another end of the room and give quiet instructions to the other vampires.
"Prepare her," Buffy said to another out of sight vampire. "We begin in two hours."
***
The scoobies were assembled and ready to go, armed with protection spells, crossbows, holy water, steaks and everything else they could manage to carry and still move somewhat freely. The time had come. Xander stood and strapped the last crossbow to his back. Willow and Tara were already by the door, humming out a musical sounding spell to prepare the way. Giles, standing nervous but in his very British cold way, took a steak from Anya, put it into his long black jacket and nodded at Xander.
"Two and a half hours till the end of the world," Giles said devoid of humor. "Ready?"
"Let's go." Xander said and turned towards the door, ready to face the ghost of Buffy.
***
Ok, ok… you guys all like the twists and turns so far? I'm loving writing this, I hope you're loving reading! Ok, Chapter four is coming very soon, I promise it won't be six months this time…
~Saint