BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

ODIUM

Authors Note: To Diana, Marie and James, sorry if I kept you waiting but I've been really busy lately and all the while suffering from a severe case of writers block. Here's the latest part and I'll try to get the rest out as quickly as possible without compromising the story quality. Hope you like it.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE BLADE

Giles gave a long defeated sigh as he turned yet another dusty page in the enormous leather bound tome. Beneath it, the wooden table groaned under its weight. Shortly after Buffy had left in search of Spike, Willow, Xander and Anya had arrived and immediately begun aiding Giles with his research. It was beginning to seem to Giles however that even an army let loose upon the massive occult collection at the Watchers Council in England wouldn't be enough to find anything on King. Their research hadn't been completely without merit. They had managed to glean a little more information on events they already knew about but otherwise very little had been forthcoming. Even Anya's knowledge from a thousand years as a demon had yielded little of use. The librarian gave another sigh as he slammed his book shut causing the table to groan again.

"This is hopeless." He muttered to himself as he removed his glasses and began to clean them with a hanky.

"Something up G man?" asked Xander, glancing up from the book he was reading.

"It's just that recently, whenever we need to research something it seems to have been conveniently left out of the all the books I have." He gestured at the tomes that littered the table. "I mean, first Glory and now King. How can a creature who's been around since the dawn of civilisation keep himself such a secret? It just seems so… so…"

"Inconsiderate." Willow offered.

"Precisely." Said Giles as he began to pace agitatedly around the room. Anya glanced from him to the book she was reading and back again.

"If this is so hopeless does it mean Xander and I can leave now." She ventured.

"No it does not, so be quiet and carry on read…" Giles nearly jumped out of his skin as the door to the magic shop slammed violently open. He whipped round to see Buffy dragging the body of a smouldering Spike in from the sunlight. Giles hated the smell of vampires burning. It always seemed to smell like sulphur.

"Buffy!" he said, surprised at her abrupt entrance, "what's going on?"

"Oh nothing." She replied in an eerily cheery voice. "Just a run in with our friendly neighbourhood King of vampires who is not only free, but very much alive and kicking when I thought he was meant to have a terminal disease, and also seems to know that I've been dreaming about him."

"And for a minute there I thought we were in trouble." Said Xander, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"He knew you've been dreaming about him." Said Giles, ignoring Xander's remark. "How?"

"I don't have a clue, but my creepout metre is way through the roof on this one." She glanced at the table that was strewn with books. "Any luck?" she asked. Giles shook his head in surrender.

"I'm sorry Buffy." He said simply. He glanced over at where Spike was beginning to come around. "How about you?" Buffy shrugged.

"Just what we already knew really. King Arthur of vampires, had his own version of Camelot which he burned down, a big black sword he called Odium."

"Oooh, ooh!" Willow said perhaps a tad louder than was necessary. "I've got something!"

"Really!" said Giles, his eyebrows rising in interest. "From which book?"

"Not from a book!" she said, sounding increasingly excited. Giles watched in confusion as she clambered out of her chair and hurried over to the waste bin.

"Willow," he said calmly as the diminutive red head up ended the basket, tipping a large pile of rubbish onto the floor. "We do have bins for several reasons and one of those includes not dumping the rubbish on my freshly cleaned floor." Willow didn't seem to be listening. Instead she plunged her hands into the pile and began rummaging through the unused receipts, empty boxes and other various garbage until her hands emerged, triumphantly clutching a copy of the previous days local paper.

"It's right here!" she said waving the crumpled bundle of pages as if it were a cheque for a million dollars. Quickly she hurried back across the room to one of the books they had been using. Giles watched with interest as she flicked through the pages of the dusty old book until she found a picture of an enormous black bladed broadsword. Carefully she laid the front page of the paper out next to it.

"Just look at this you guys!" she said. Giles made his way over followed shortly by the others to stare down at the open book. The photo that adorned the front page of the newspaper had been taken at an archaeological dig on the small island of Crete. It displayed a number of perfectly preserved artefacts including a small statuette and several clay pots, but it was what was in the back ground that interested Giles most. Lying somewhat inconspicuously toward the top of the photo was a large black bladed sword. The Headline read 'Sunnydale Museum First To Host Recently Discovered Antiquities.'

"Looks a lot like Odium to me." Said Xander tracing the out line of the photographed sword with his finger.

"Do you think it's just a coincidence?" asked Willow. "I mean with Buffy's dream and all…" Giles glanced up at her before turning back to the twin pictures.

"I'd like to think so, but it would seem unlikely."

"You think this is some kind of preordained whatsit?" said Buffy staring at the picture.

"Either that or someone has purposefully steered it here. Someone who knows about what happened to King." Giles turned to stare purposefully at her.

"Buffy." he said "We can't let King get his hands on this sword. God knows what it is or what it can do."

"You don't want to know what he can do with it." Spikes distinctive English brogue echoed through the store. Slowly the others turned to look at him.

"What do you mean." Said Giles, questioning the newly awakened vampire. Spike glanced past them at the picture before continuing.

"The legends say that when he holds Odium, King has all the power of a pure blooded demon. One even claims that it makes him invincible to all mortal weapons."

"Sounds like the Gem of Omara." Said Willow, being careful not to look at Spike as she spoke.

"Oh no precious." Spike smiled evilly, "The Gem of Omara's our Holy Grail. Odium's our Excalibur." It was at this Buffy gave and exasperated sigh.

"Look guys, all this talking is really interesting and all but now we're going in circles when we should be taking action." Giles looked at her questioningly.

"Which is what exactly?"

"Well we can't let King lay his hands on it, that's for certain, but we can guarantee that if we don't do something he's going to waltz right into that museum and right out again, sword in hand."

"So what can we do abo…" Xander trailed off as he spoke, a knowing look developing on his face. Buffy smiled and nodded.

"That's right Xand." She said. "We're going to steal it."

*****

The sunlight seared Kings dead flesh as he sprinted from the shadows of a nearby tree onto Buffy's front porch. It hadn't taken him long to discover where the diminutive Slayer lived and even less time to get here. God he hated these modern day human hovels. They were so small and painfully bright. They were the epitome of what was wrong with humanity in these times. King had long been of the opinion that the human race was a flagging species, living on borrowed time. This modern age proved it. King remembered a time when humans had had imagination. When they had looked at everything with an eye of how to make it grand. They had understood their place in the world better in those days and had constantly strived to improve their standing. King had never loathed humanity as many of his kind did. He had respected them, not for their strength, or purity of spirit, for they had neither. No, what he had respected was their boundless optimism and creativity.

Now all that was gone. With each passing century King had watched as that zest for life had drained out of them. The scale of their imagination had diminished and decadence had corrupted them. King despised decadence. He despised it in his own kind and he despised it in his prey. There was a click as the door to Buffy's house swung open and he slipped inside. There was a slight tingle as he moved through the invisible barrier that held others at bay. He could feel that the barrier had been renewed several times in recent years. How could a vampire Slayer be so careless as to allow so many of her prey into her home?

Slowly he let his eyes travel around the house. Once again, blandness stared back at him. Human homes were all the same. Not in terms of content or appearance, but in terms of feel. They were designed to be warm and greeting to those who would visit. Aesthetic value also seemed of great importance but nothing he saw in any of them showed true imagination or creativity. In an age when technology allowed humanity to reach out and touch the stars, surely they could realise almost anything they desired, and yet what did they come up with? Day time television and Jerry Springer. A silent shiver passed through King at the thought of such things.

Cautiously he moved through the house taking in the minutest details possible. Such detail could give a greater understanding of what it was that you studied. On an Aesthetic level, the house was pleasant enough but lacked any real splendour of any sort. Reams of photos stared back at him from the walls and surfaces, each one like a window into the Slayers life. A strange assortment of ornaments decorated the room, many of which were seemingly older than the house itself. Some of them were very interesting and given more time, King would have paused to examine them more closely. Instead he studied the photos.

Silently he slipped from shadow to shadow, carefully avoiding the many pools of direct sunlight that gathered across the floor as he made his way to the stairs. Just before he reached them, the sound of the door opening echoed through the house. Moving at speeds impossible for a human to see, he shot through the house and into the living room where he pressed himself flat against the wall and listened intently. Normally he would not have hidden like this, but to let the Slayer know he had paid her little abode a visit would do him absolutely no good at all.

"Mom, I'm home!" the voice was that of a girl, but it was certainly not the voice of the Slayer. "Mom! Buffy! Anyone home?!" The voice was shrill and grated on Kings nerves like sandpaper. Slowly he leaned from around the corner where he stood to see the source of the voice. The girl was young and quite small. She had long brown that shone brilliantly in the light and was surprisingly thin. King could smell petulance emanating from the girl as she stomped off up the stairs, muttering to herself as she went.

"No one's ever here to say hello," she grumbled as her feet slammed loudly against the stairs. "You'd think Buffy would be here. After all, its not like she does anything important during the day and all her friends have jobs and lives to get on with…" her muttering faded as she reached the top of the stairs and disappeared into what King assumed was her bedroom. Slowly he stepped out into the hallway, looking up the stairs toward the girl's room. Quickly he glanced over at one of the photos on the wall. He could have sworn she hadn't been on it before, but yet there she was, as clear as day, the Slayers arm wrapped around her shoulders as if… King smiled revealing his glistening white teeth.

"As if the Slayer had a sister." He hissed.