Summary: When an unforeseen evil once again threatens to destroy the world,
Buffy and the gang, along with some unexpected help, join together to
release a reluctant champion from the clutches of hell. But will he be the
prophesized savior or will he destroy them all?
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter One
She stood there, with her back to him, unable to move. Her breath seemed too quick and shallow in her own ears, her eyes wide and wild as cold sweat trickled down her face.
His cool hands rested lightly on her forearms, restraining her without using the least bit of force.
"Do you love me?" He whispered in her ear, his cool breath sending shivers up and down her spine.
"Y-yes," she stuttered. She felt her knees begin to buckle as his gentle touch on her arms became a death grip, sharp nails digging bloody half moons in her soft skin.
"Do you trust me?" He demanded, his voice hissing in the tell tale sign that his face had changed.
Her mind screamed out like the trapped animal that she was. Her heart beat a panicked rhythm in her ears as the stench of blood on his breath hit her face. She could feel the rush of blood running through her body, well aware that he could too.
"Yes," she said even as her mind screamed out denial, every fiber of her being shrieking with terror.
She closed her eyes at the sound of his soft chuckle, unwilling to meet her death head on. She shuddered once as with the slowest of motions his fangs buried into her skin.
*
Buffy awoke with a start. For a painfully long, disorienting moment she had no idea where she was.
"Damn!" She muttered as she realized she was in her own bed in her very own room. "Why can't I have nice dreams about Freddy Kruger slashing my throat out like a nice, normal person?" She demanded of no one in particular. No one in particular, after a great deal of thought, decided not to answer that.
"Damn!" She cursed again, putting a great deal more emphasis to it this time, as she glanced over at her clock radio. Four more hours of night left for her to toss and turn in. She shuddered at the thought.
"Might as well get some work done," she muttered as she climbed out of bed. She dressed quickly, hiding stakes, holy water and other vampire nasties in various places along her clothes. As an after thought she reached for the long sword her Watcher had given her, securing it firmly against her back. Giles would be so proud, she told herself, making a small unhappy face at the thought. She shrugged, the night was already shot for her, might as well give someone a happy. She contemplated that unselfish thought as she silently climbed out her window.
Buffy glanced up at the steel gray skies. Her Slayer instincts told her dawn would come in a little more than an hour, the gray cloaked sky was just a sneak preview of the light show the rising sun had to offer.
She sighed with regret, shifting the heavy sword digging at her back. Three hours worth of patrolling and not a vamp in sight. It's true what they say, she thought, no good deed goes unpunished. All she wanted to do was release a little pent up hostility. Couldn't the vamps just give her that?
Reaching one of her favorite graveyards, pausing only to contemplate her own mental health at actually HAVING a favorite graveyard, she heard the familiar sounds of a scuffle.
"Well finally," she murmured, edging cautiously forward. She rounded several inconveniently placed tombstones, and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what they revealed.
Well what do you know, she thought, they started without me. She moved with feline grace closer, to gawk at what the Slayer handbook would easily consider a miracle. Someone was fighting her battles for her.
A black cloaked and hooded figure was systematically hacking away at four very unhappy vampires. The Slayer in her silently admired the lightning speed in which the stranger turned the vamps into something a vacuum cleaner could handle. The human part shuddered.
The stranger twirled with cat-like grace, his cloak whipping at his attackers' faces, momentarily blinding them. A stake appeared from nowhere to plunge itself efficiently into a cold vampire heart. The vamp stared at his chest with disbelief. To Buffy that moment always seemed to last forever. The vamp exploded into a cloud of ash, as Buffy sighed ruefully. Nothing lasted forever.
The Slayer tore her attention from the ash floating away in the wind, back to the stranger who had easily decapitated a bloodsucker's head with a single, swift motion. The body crumbled to dust before it even hit the ground
Buffy eyed the evil looking blade in the stranger's hands enviously. Now why couldn't Giles let her play with something like that?
The Slayer leaned on a headstone, watching what proved to be great entertainment, and wondered absently how in the world anyone could see anything with that hood over their face. She twisted a blond lock of hair between her fingers, grimacing as the two remaining vamps decided to work together against their attacker.
You should have tried that when there were four of you, the petite blonde mused. Nevertheless a stake slipped into her grip with a flick of the wrist, just in case. An enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine, she remembered reading somewhere. She advanced with a stake in hand as the two vamps attacked the stranger from opposite sides, rushing at him with intent to kill. She was still too far to help but close enough to truly be awed as the dark figure leaped through the air over a stunned vamp's head. He twisted, decapitating it from behind even as another hand flew to stake his unfortunate blood brother. The two vamps crumbled to dust before the acrobat's feet ever touched the ground.
Buffy's heels skidded to a stop with shock. No one could do that. God knows she couldn't do that. Hell, she thought, not even Xena could do that.
"Where have you been all my life?" She wondered softly. The cloaked figure whirled in her direction. With a sudden pang of fear Buffy realized that no one could have possibly heard her from so far away.
The cloaked figure charged at her, his evil looking sword brandishing wildly as the distance between them grew impossibly shorter.
Buffy tensed into a fighter's crouch, her mind spinning franticly. Why would anyone so intent on killing vampires want to attack her?
"Very impressive fighting you did back there." She complimented with a slightly exaggerated drawl to her tone. Going on a Cordelia attack tactic seemed ridiculous, but with the way this guy fought she was willing to try it. Throwing her most radiant smile into the mix, she stood there awaiting a response.
The stranger skidded to a stop. "Human?" He demanded, with a heavily accented voice.
"Huh? Oh, you mean me. Yeah, I'm human," she said proudly. It was sure good to be human.
The figure stopped as if considering something, then pressed forward. "Good. Cirta be proud when I kill human."
Buffy's green eyes bulged with surprise as the vicious blade she had been eyeing before came rushing at her. She narrowly ducked the blow, wincing at the shrieking rush as the sharp blade sliced cleanly through the air.
"Wait," she panted, stepping back. "This doesn't have to get ugly," she muttered. "Human - good. Vampire - bad." She tried, then ducked again as the blade came much too close for comfort to her neck. "Oh, hell!" she cursed, "I knew you were too good to be true."
With a quick twist she pulled out the long sword that had been digging at her back the entire night. It was considerably slimmer than her attacker's blade, but she felt confident it would hold its own. "I really didn't want to have to do this," she told him as she wiggled her sword threateningly.
The stranger swung his sword at her in response. She pounced cleanly to the side and deflected his blow with her own blade. The shock was incredible, she felt the tremor reaching all the way to her shoulder blades.
As she peered down she discovered her magnificent sword had been reduced to something the size of a butter knife.
"You broke my sword!" she accused. "Giles is gonna kill me." She moved fast at that point, reminding herself that she actually wanted Giles to get to her first. She ducked and rolled behind a headstone, pulling out a small dagger from her calf-high boots. She lunged to the side of the headstone just as the ferocious sword clashed against the pale rock, emitting an impressive display of sparks. A chunk of marble dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
Beautiful, the Slayer thought sarcastically, it can cut through rock. She lunged again, this time with intent to hurt. She slid to the ground, wincing as small rocks and pebbles dug into her stomach and breasts, driving her dagger home she smiled as it embedded itself in the stranger's calf with a satisfying clang.
Clang? That wasn't the right sound. She rolled quickly to her feet, taking her crumpled dagger with her for the ride. This was beginning to become disturbing. She moved to a fighter's crouch unsure as to what to do next. On impulse she grabbed a vile of holy water and smashed it against her attacker's body. There was no effect.
"I didn't really think you were a vampire, but it was worth a try," Buffy muttered as she backed up slowly. Running was not an option, she had known that as soon as she'd seen this guy move.
Her mind reeled as it offered and dismissed tactics with lightning speed, all the while edging away from the slowly advancing threat.
She absently noted that the sun had finally risen, her attention fully on her attacker. She frowned, the stranger had stopped moving, and suddenly he twisted to face the rising sun. With a gut-wrenching scream, he burst into flames.
Buffy froze, too stunned to think about moving. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that the flames had even consumed the sword she had coveted a half-hour earlier.
"Nice exit," she finally said as she began to make her way home.
*
"There she is!" Willow cried out from out of her boyfriend's embrace, motioning towards Buffy. The entire group was standing together, chattering on the neatly trimmed lawn of the Sunnydale high school. Willow was in Oz's arms, and Cordelia in Xander's.
"More like there she isn't," Xander replied, noting the dark circles under her eyes. "What happened to you?"
Buffy looked at them with a pang of jealousy, they all seemed so happy. Willow and her budding relationship with Oz, and Xander... Well his and Cordelia's disturbing fixation with utility closets seemed to make him a happy man these days. She was happy for her friends, it's just that seeing them with their significant others made her loss so much more pronounced.
"Was it that dream again?" Willow asked sympathetically.
"No, well yeah that too, but..."
"Dream? What dream?" Scott asked as he snaked his arm around Buffy's slender waist from behind. "It wasn't about me, was it?" His eyebrows wiggled suggestively.
Buffy's body tensed in response. A touch as intimate as a hug from someone who wasn't HIM felt alien. Scott's face dropped, obviously feeling the rejection. As he started to lift his arm away Buffy stopped him with a forced smile. "Only the good parts," she lied. This relationship wasn't working and she should have realized that from the beginning. Scott was nice, sweet and funny, but he just wasn't HIM. She would make it work, though. She was the Slayer, she reminded herself, which meant she could do that sort of thing.
Buffy raised her eyes with new resolve to meet Willow's. The observant redhead hadn't missed the dark shadow passing over her best friend's face and experience had taught her exactly what that meant.
"Giles wanted me to tell you to meet him at the library. Something about overdue books," Xander added, noting the question in Scott's face.
Buffy rolled her eyes at the clumsy attempt, but played along. "Sure. Will, you want to come with?"
Torn for a moment between her boyfriend and her best friend, the redhead nodded without much enthusiasm. Making a small, over-dramatic face, Buffy conceded, "Why don't you come with us, Oz?"
Buffy had to laugh as the happy glow returned to Willow's face. That girl was so easy to please.
"Come on, Cordy. We're going with them," Xander told her.
Cordelia ripped her attention from the early morning rays that were warming her face. "What? Why?"
"Because I asked you nicely," he answered blithely, completely ignoring the fact that he hadn't asked her at all, "and that doesn't happen very often."
She wordlessly conceded, allowing him to manually drag her into the school building.
Scott watched as the diverse group of teens disappeared into the shadows of the school. "Strange people," he muttered to himself, somewhat hurt that no one thought to invite him along. He watched the open front doors for a moment, musing, like many before him, how much like a gaping, hungry mouth they looked. Shuddering slightly he walked to class.
*
Giles shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "What exactly did he say, Buffy?" he asked for the third time.
"Was this before or after he tried to kill me?" She asked sarcastically.
"He said something after?" The librarian asked, intrigued. Catching her dirty look he coughed, failing miserably to cover up his embarrassment.
She sighed dramatically, but yielded just the same, "After I told him he threw nice punches he asked if I was human."
"In those words?" Giles demanded.
"Well, no. It was more like 'human?'" She attempted to imitate the stranger's accent, much to Xander's amusement.
"So this guy was German?" Xander asked cheerfully. They all ignored him, but he was used to that.
"Then he said something about Cirta being happy about him killing me. Conversation was sort of moot from there on."
"Interesting..." The librarian mused.
"Giles, the guy nearly killed me! He wastes four vamps in the blink of an eye, goes on to attack me, breaks my sword. Then bursts to flame when the sun comes up, and all you can say is 'interesting'?"
The librarian stared at her, the Slayer's outburst catching him by surprise. "Yes, of course you're right I apo..." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "You broke my sword?" he demanded, "Buffy, that was an antique!"
"Well she was trying to stay alive at the time," Willow said, jumping to her friend's defense.
Giles eyed his charge sourly, but let the matter drop. "I'll look up this Cirta character and see what I can find."
"I've got some free time during fifth period, so I'll scope the net," Willow told him. She glanced sideways at her boyfriend's eggplant colored hair, "You'll help?"
The multi colored head bobbed up and down in agreement. Willow beamed.
"Good, it's settled then. We meet here after school." They all nodded their agreements as they made their way to class.
"What are we going to do?" Cordelia asked Xander.
"What we always do, Pinky, get the donuts."
She eyed him coolly. "Great, not only are you people going to get me killed, I'm gonna get fat in the process."
Buffy smiled at them fondly as she watched them leave, then turned to Giles. "I had that dream again," she told him when the room had emptied out.
He looked at her with sympathy in his eyes, "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. She'd told him only the sketchiest of details, but nothing of the way the dream made her feel. "I wanted to know if you found something, some prophecy?"
He shook his head sadly, "sometimes your dreams are just that- dreams."
The Slayer's shoulders drooped with disappointment, "I'd better get to class, then. You know, before Snyder decides to put me on detention just because, or something like that."
Giles nodded his agreement and watched with haunted eyes as his crestfallen Slayer left the room.
*
Buffy pushed open the library's swinging doors. Her mood had brightened up considerably during the last several hours. Her history teacher had called on her in class and she'd blurted out a semi-correct response, not to mention she'd managed to turn in a math assignment on time. Things were definitely looking up. One look at the group of people sitting by the great mahogany table made things flop back down again.
"What's wrong?" She demanded, her body tensing involuntarily. She lovingly fondled the stake buried in her sleeve. Not much of a chance for vamps in broad daylight, she mused, but then again not many things could survive a nice, sharpened stake.
"Buffy, sit down." Giles said motioning to a pulled up chair.
She obeyed, peering at her friends' faces. Under closer observation it seemed that Xander and Cordy were as clueless as she was. The pretty redhead who called herself Buffy's best friend stubbornly avoided her eyes. Oh god, she thought, if Willow can't look at me it has to be bad.
"Am I gonna die again?" she asked bluntly. The effect was like sticking a pin in a highly inflated balloon. Suddenly the quiet room burst into sound as Willow and Oz almost fell over each other to assure her that she was firmly among the living, while Xander was loudly proclaiming his objections at being left in the dark just because he wasn't a computer geek. Cordy, however, decided that the best course of action was to nibble quietly on a jelly donut. At this point Buffy fervently agreed with her as she grabbed one for herself before the May Queen could munch them all up.
"That's enough!" The quiet librarian snapped, the seriousness of his voice pushing them back into the awaiting arms of a dark, gloomy mood. "Buffy, Willow and I ran across something when we looked up Cirta's name." He rushed on ignoring the question in her eyes, "We couldn't find any mention of her in any of the Watchers' diaries."
"So that would mean that either she's very old or very new," Cordelia interrupted, obviously very pleased at her newfound logic.
"Or that she's got a very different name she's hiding under," Xander argued, unable to resist proving his girlfriend wrong.
"Actually she doesn't," Giles began, ignoring the beaming Cordelia on general principal.
"But you have found her eventually," Buffy murmured. "This morning you didn't even know that she was a 'she'." Buffy knotted her fist into a hard white ball. What did it matter how they got their information? There was something that Giles was deliberately not telling her. Something big.
"Yes, we have. Apparently Cirta existed before the Watchers, before the slayer." The Watcher looked deep into his Slayer's eyes, wanting her to be very much aware of the gravity of the situation. "She was created in a time when there was no man, only chaos. A time when demons walked the earth." Buffy stared at him, his words hypnotizing her into a trance where no one existed, but her and her watcher. "She ruled them all, Buffy. She was in many respects the Devil incarnate."
"What happened?"
Giles shook his head, "The book I found wasn't that clear. It only says that eventually, when mankind came along, they somehow joined together with demons to defeat her."
"I take it she wasn't a very nice ruler," Xander murmured.
Buffy's eyes narrowed with suspicion, "If this she-devil existed before the Watchers, how come they have a book on her?"
Giles exchanged a guilty look with Willow. "This isn't Watcher lore," the redhead said as gently as she could. "It's demon lore."
The Slayer's green eyes widened, "HE gave it to you."
Willow nodded briefly and went back to staring at Giles. There was more to this, Buffy could feel it. "So she's back and she wants to have it all again, yadda, yadda, yadda. Cut to the chase."
"It's not that simple," Giles told her softly. "She wants it all this time, and that means no humans."
Buffy almost choked on that one. "She's out to kill the entire human race?"
"She's already begun doing just that. I've been getting reports from European and Asian watchers. Apparently that black cloaked man you met last night has several hundred twin-brothers all over the world and they've been busy wiping out whole sections of the continent. They're the ones who are preparing for the day of Cirta's return."
Xander's eyes widened, "For once Sunnydale is the last to hear about a coming evil."
Buffy paled visibly, the thought of something she couldn't beat multiplied by several hundred had shaken her to the core. "So how do I stop this thing?"
Giles and Willow exchanged another look. Here comes the clincher, Buffy thought.
"You can't." Willow said flatly. "You're not the one who's supposed to fight her."
"How long has this killing humans spree been going on?" Xander asked suddenly.
"A little over four months," Willow replied, looking him straight in the eyes.
A horrible suspicion flooded Buffy's mind even as Giles began explaining, peering over at Xander she knew he was thinking the same. Oh god, she thought, I can't ever win. "There's a prophecy in these books, Buffy. As clear as I've ever seen one. It tells all about this situation, all about how to beat it."
"All about HIM!" Buffy suddenly lashed out. "This started when I sent HIM to hell. Tell me that's just a coincidence, Giles! Tell me!"
The Watcher shook his head, "I can't do that Buffy. It is related to him, but so is the way to stop this." He rushed on, afraid his Slayer would fall apart before his eyes. Wishing more than anything that he could spare her this. "The prophecy, it speaks of the return of the Angelic One."
"Read it to me." She said flatly.
Giles raised his eyes to meet hers in an attempt to read what she really wanted, but they were unfathomable. "What?"
"I said read it to me!"
"It's in ancient Latin."
"Then translate it. Read it now!"
Another look passed between the Watcher and the Hacker, and then he was Buffy's. "In the age of innocence no longer found, the age where two fight evil- no longer one. She shall rise. It will be the fallen angel who shall set her free," Giles paused to look at her, and swallowed hard. "On the day he shall be sent to hell by his love's own hand, that day shall mark her rising. Her success or fall depends on the fallen one, for as long as he remains in hell humanity has no champion." He stopped reading, his eyes searching his Slayer's for any sign of emotion. "It goes on babbling about humanity, mentioning Angel a few times as the savior, others as the spawn of hell."
"That's our Angel," Xander murmured, "you gotta love him."
"Shut up, Xander!" Cordelia snapped. Surprisingly he did as he was told.
"It clearly says Angel will have to be let out of hell for humanity to survive this." Giles said directly to Buffy. He sighed ruefully as he noted her glazed eyes, the girl was a million miles away.
"So you're gonna trust a book written by a demon, given to you by a demon to spring a demon out of hell?" Xander demanded, jumping to his feet with fury.
"No, I'm not, Xander. That's why I contacted the council, they confirmed this prophecy. This is real."
"Angel gave you this book?" Cordelia asked softly, a horrible thought flashing through her mind. "Wouldn't that have meant that he'd have read it first? That he'd known that he was going to be sent to hell by Buffy?"
That question managed to cut through even Buffy's trance. She stared at Giles, dreading his answer. "No, he wouldn't," he said firmly, speaking directly to his young charge rather than to the girl who had asked the question. "I researched with him many times, before..." he left that hanging. "He couldn't read Latin."
"That doesn't mean you can give him a 'get out of hell' free card." Xander snarled quietly, his hate for the dark vampire shining through every word. "He deserved what he got."
"You foolish boy!" Xander gasped as the quiet, tweed clad librarian suddenly became a stranger to him, suddenly realizing he had gone too far. "Do you think for one moment I would let him out if I thought there was another way? Do you think I wouldn't like to run him through myself the moment he steps out of hell?" The teen's dark eyes met the Watcher's gray, and tried to flinch away. "After what he did to all of us, after what he did to Jenny, I'd love nothing more than to kill him myself. To make him suffer like I've suffered, to watch him die a thousand times over." They all stared at him with shock, watching him transform from Rupert to Ripper, and back again. "But humanity is worth more than my own desires." He said quietly, with near perfect control.
Buffy stood, suddenly unable to breathe right in the stale library. She needed fresh air, she needed space, and she needed to get out of the library and into the sun right now. "Buffy?" Willow called after her softly.
She turned to face them, her friends. The ones who had kept her sane throughout those long shattering weeks since her lover had gone. "It was supposed to have lasted forever," she told them quietly, unsure herself as to what 'it' meant exactly.
They watched the library doors swing silently after her. "I guess even forever has to end sometime," Cordelia mused philosophically. They all stared at her. "What? I can be deep!"
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter One
She stood there, with her back to him, unable to move. Her breath seemed too quick and shallow in her own ears, her eyes wide and wild as cold sweat trickled down her face.
His cool hands rested lightly on her forearms, restraining her without using the least bit of force.
"Do you love me?" He whispered in her ear, his cool breath sending shivers up and down her spine.
"Y-yes," she stuttered. She felt her knees begin to buckle as his gentle touch on her arms became a death grip, sharp nails digging bloody half moons in her soft skin.
"Do you trust me?" He demanded, his voice hissing in the tell tale sign that his face had changed.
Her mind screamed out like the trapped animal that she was. Her heart beat a panicked rhythm in her ears as the stench of blood on his breath hit her face. She could feel the rush of blood running through her body, well aware that he could too.
"Yes," she said even as her mind screamed out denial, every fiber of her being shrieking with terror.
She closed her eyes at the sound of his soft chuckle, unwilling to meet her death head on. She shuddered once as with the slowest of motions his fangs buried into her skin.
*
Buffy awoke with a start. For a painfully long, disorienting moment she had no idea where she was.
"Damn!" She muttered as she realized she was in her own bed in her very own room. "Why can't I have nice dreams about Freddy Kruger slashing my throat out like a nice, normal person?" She demanded of no one in particular. No one in particular, after a great deal of thought, decided not to answer that.
"Damn!" She cursed again, putting a great deal more emphasis to it this time, as she glanced over at her clock radio. Four more hours of night left for her to toss and turn in. She shuddered at the thought.
"Might as well get some work done," she muttered as she climbed out of bed. She dressed quickly, hiding stakes, holy water and other vampire nasties in various places along her clothes. As an after thought she reached for the long sword her Watcher had given her, securing it firmly against her back. Giles would be so proud, she told herself, making a small unhappy face at the thought. She shrugged, the night was already shot for her, might as well give someone a happy. She contemplated that unselfish thought as she silently climbed out her window.
Buffy glanced up at the steel gray skies. Her Slayer instincts told her dawn would come in a little more than an hour, the gray cloaked sky was just a sneak preview of the light show the rising sun had to offer.
She sighed with regret, shifting the heavy sword digging at her back. Three hours worth of patrolling and not a vamp in sight. It's true what they say, she thought, no good deed goes unpunished. All she wanted to do was release a little pent up hostility. Couldn't the vamps just give her that?
Reaching one of her favorite graveyards, pausing only to contemplate her own mental health at actually HAVING a favorite graveyard, she heard the familiar sounds of a scuffle.
"Well finally," she murmured, edging cautiously forward. She rounded several inconveniently placed tombstones, and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what they revealed.
Well what do you know, she thought, they started without me. She moved with feline grace closer, to gawk at what the Slayer handbook would easily consider a miracle. Someone was fighting her battles for her.
A black cloaked and hooded figure was systematically hacking away at four very unhappy vampires. The Slayer in her silently admired the lightning speed in which the stranger turned the vamps into something a vacuum cleaner could handle. The human part shuddered.
The stranger twirled with cat-like grace, his cloak whipping at his attackers' faces, momentarily blinding them. A stake appeared from nowhere to plunge itself efficiently into a cold vampire heart. The vamp stared at his chest with disbelief. To Buffy that moment always seemed to last forever. The vamp exploded into a cloud of ash, as Buffy sighed ruefully. Nothing lasted forever.
The Slayer tore her attention from the ash floating away in the wind, back to the stranger who had easily decapitated a bloodsucker's head with a single, swift motion. The body crumbled to dust before it even hit the ground
Buffy eyed the evil looking blade in the stranger's hands enviously. Now why couldn't Giles let her play with something like that?
The Slayer leaned on a headstone, watching what proved to be great entertainment, and wondered absently how in the world anyone could see anything with that hood over their face. She twisted a blond lock of hair between her fingers, grimacing as the two remaining vamps decided to work together against their attacker.
You should have tried that when there were four of you, the petite blonde mused. Nevertheless a stake slipped into her grip with a flick of the wrist, just in case. An enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine, she remembered reading somewhere. She advanced with a stake in hand as the two vamps attacked the stranger from opposite sides, rushing at him with intent to kill. She was still too far to help but close enough to truly be awed as the dark figure leaped through the air over a stunned vamp's head. He twisted, decapitating it from behind even as another hand flew to stake his unfortunate blood brother. The two vamps crumbled to dust before the acrobat's feet ever touched the ground.
Buffy's heels skidded to a stop with shock. No one could do that. God knows she couldn't do that. Hell, she thought, not even Xena could do that.
"Where have you been all my life?" She wondered softly. The cloaked figure whirled in her direction. With a sudden pang of fear Buffy realized that no one could have possibly heard her from so far away.
The cloaked figure charged at her, his evil looking sword brandishing wildly as the distance between them grew impossibly shorter.
Buffy tensed into a fighter's crouch, her mind spinning franticly. Why would anyone so intent on killing vampires want to attack her?
"Very impressive fighting you did back there." She complimented with a slightly exaggerated drawl to her tone. Going on a Cordelia attack tactic seemed ridiculous, but with the way this guy fought she was willing to try it. Throwing her most radiant smile into the mix, she stood there awaiting a response.
The stranger skidded to a stop. "Human?" He demanded, with a heavily accented voice.
"Huh? Oh, you mean me. Yeah, I'm human," she said proudly. It was sure good to be human.
The figure stopped as if considering something, then pressed forward. "Good. Cirta be proud when I kill human."
Buffy's green eyes bulged with surprise as the vicious blade she had been eyeing before came rushing at her. She narrowly ducked the blow, wincing at the shrieking rush as the sharp blade sliced cleanly through the air.
"Wait," she panted, stepping back. "This doesn't have to get ugly," she muttered. "Human - good. Vampire - bad." She tried, then ducked again as the blade came much too close for comfort to her neck. "Oh, hell!" she cursed, "I knew you were too good to be true."
With a quick twist she pulled out the long sword that had been digging at her back the entire night. It was considerably slimmer than her attacker's blade, but she felt confident it would hold its own. "I really didn't want to have to do this," she told him as she wiggled her sword threateningly.
The stranger swung his sword at her in response. She pounced cleanly to the side and deflected his blow with her own blade. The shock was incredible, she felt the tremor reaching all the way to her shoulder blades.
As she peered down she discovered her magnificent sword had been reduced to something the size of a butter knife.
"You broke my sword!" she accused. "Giles is gonna kill me." She moved fast at that point, reminding herself that she actually wanted Giles to get to her first. She ducked and rolled behind a headstone, pulling out a small dagger from her calf-high boots. She lunged to the side of the headstone just as the ferocious sword clashed against the pale rock, emitting an impressive display of sparks. A chunk of marble dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
Beautiful, the Slayer thought sarcastically, it can cut through rock. She lunged again, this time with intent to hurt. She slid to the ground, wincing as small rocks and pebbles dug into her stomach and breasts, driving her dagger home she smiled as it embedded itself in the stranger's calf with a satisfying clang.
Clang? That wasn't the right sound. She rolled quickly to her feet, taking her crumpled dagger with her for the ride. This was beginning to become disturbing. She moved to a fighter's crouch unsure as to what to do next. On impulse she grabbed a vile of holy water and smashed it against her attacker's body. There was no effect.
"I didn't really think you were a vampire, but it was worth a try," Buffy muttered as she backed up slowly. Running was not an option, she had known that as soon as she'd seen this guy move.
Her mind reeled as it offered and dismissed tactics with lightning speed, all the while edging away from the slowly advancing threat.
She absently noted that the sun had finally risen, her attention fully on her attacker. She frowned, the stranger had stopped moving, and suddenly he twisted to face the rising sun. With a gut-wrenching scream, he burst into flames.
Buffy froze, too stunned to think about moving. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that the flames had even consumed the sword she had coveted a half-hour earlier.
"Nice exit," she finally said as she began to make her way home.
*
"There she is!" Willow cried out from out of her boyfriend's embrace, motioning towards Buffy. The entire group was standing together, chattering on the neatly trimmed lawn of the Sunnydale high school. Willow was in Oz's arms, and Cordelia in Xander's.
"More like there she isn't," Xander replied, noting the dark circles under her eyes. "What happened to you?"
Buffy looked at them with a pang of jealousy, they all seemed so happy. Willow and her budding relationship with Oz, and Xander... Well his and Cordelia's disturbing fixation with utility closets seemed to make him a happy man these days. She was happy for her friends, it's just that seeing them with their significant others made her loss so much more pronounced.
"Was it that dream again?" Willow asked sympathetically.
"No, well yeah that too, but..."
"Dream? What dream?" Scott asked as he snaked his arm around Buffy's slender waist from behind. "It wasn't about me, was it?" His eyebrows wiggled suggestively.
Buffy's body tensed in response. A touch as intimate as a hug from someone who wasn't HIM felt alien. Scott's face dropped, obviously feeling the rejection. As he started to lift his arm away Buffy stopped him with a forced smile. "Only the good parts," she lied. This relationship wasn't working and she should have realized that from the beginning. Scott was nice, sweet and funny, but he just wasn't HIM. She would make it work, though. She was the Slayer, she reminded herself, which meant she could do that sort of thing.
Buffy raised her eyes with new resolve to meet Willow's. The observant redhead hadn't missed the dark shadow passing over her best friend's face and experience had taught her exactly what that meant.
"Giles wanted me to tell you to meet him at the library. Something about overdue books," Xander added, noting the question in Scott's face.
Buffy rolled her eyes at the clumsy attempt, but played along. "Sure. Will, you want to come with?"
Torn for a moment between her boyfriend and her best friend, the redhead nodded without much enthusiasm. Making a small, over-dramatic face, Buffy conceded, "Why don't you come with us, Oz?"
Buffy had to laugh as the happy glow returned to Willow's face. That girl was so easy to please.
"Come on, Cordy. We're going with them," Xander told her.
Cordelia ripped her attention from the early morning rays that were warming her face. "What? Why?"
"Because I asked you nicely," he answered blithely, completely ignoring the fact that he hadn't asked her at all, "and that doesn't happen very often."
She wordlessly conceded, allowing him to manually drag her into the school building.
Scott watched as the diverse group of teens disappeared into the shadows of the school. "Strange people," he muttered to himself, somewhat hurt that no one thought to invite him along. He watched the open front doors for a moment, musing, like many before him, how much like a gaping, hungry mouth they looked. Shuddering slightly he walked to class.
*
Giles shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "What exactly did he say, Buffy?" he asked for the third time.
"Was this before or after he tried to kill me?" She asked sarcastically.
"He said something after?" The librarian asked, intrigued. Catching her dirty look he coughed, failing miserably to cover up his embarrassment.
She sighed dramatically, but yielded just the same, "After I told him he threw nice punches he asked if I was human."
"In those words?" Giles demanded.
"Well, no. It was more like 'human?'" She attempted to imitate the stranger's accent, much to Xander's amusement.
"So this guy was German?" Xander asked cheerfully. They all ignored him, but he was used to that.
"Then he said something about Cirta being happy about him killing me. Conversation was sort of moot from there on."
"Interesting..." The librarian mused.
"Giles, the guy nearly killed me! He wastes four vamps in the blink of an eye, goes on to attack me, breaks my sword. Then bursts to flame when the sun comes up, and all you can say is 'interesting'?"
The librarian stared at her, the Slayer's outburst catching him by surprise. "Yes, of course you're right I apo..." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "You broke my sword?" he demanded, "Buffy, that was an antique!"
"Well she was trying to stay alive at the time," Willow said, jumping to her friend's defense.
Giles eyed his charge sourly, but let the matter drop. "I'll look up this Cirta character and see what I can find."
"I've got some free time during fifth period, so I'll scope the net," Willow told him. She glanced sideways at her boyfriend's eggplant colored hair, "You'll help?"
The multi colored head bobbed up and down in agreement. Willow beamed.
"Good, it's settled then. We meet here after school." They all nodded their agreements as they made their way to class.
"What are we going to do?" Cordelia asked Xander.
"What we always do, Pinky, get the donuts."
She eyed him coolly. "Great, not only are you people going to get me killed, I'm gonna get fat in the process."
Buffy smiled at them fondly as she watched them leave, then turned to Giles. "I had that dream again," she told him when the room had emptied out.
He looked at her with sympathy in his eyes, "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. She'd told him only the sketchiest of details, but nothing of the way the dream made her feel. "I wanted to know if you found something, some prophecy?"
He shook his head sadly, "sometimes your dreams are just that- dreams."
The Slayer's shoulders drooped with disappointment, "I'd better get to class, then. You know, before Snyder decides to put me on detention just because, or something like that."
Giles nodded his agreement and watched with haunted eyes as his crestfallen Slayer left the room.
*
Buffy pushed open the library's swinging doors. Her mood had brightened up considerably during the last several hours. Her history teacher had called on her in class and she'd blurted out a semi-correct response, not to mention she'd managed to turn in a math assignment on time. Things were definitely looking up. One look at the group of people sitting by the great mahogany table made things flop back down again.
"What's wrong?" She demanded, her body tensing involuntarily. She lovingly fondled the stake buried in her sleeve. Not much of a chance for vamps in broad daylight, she mused, but then again not many things could survive a nice, sharpened stake.
"Buffy, sit down." Giles said motioning to a pulled up chair.
She obeyed, peering at her friends' faces. Under closer observation it seemed that Xander and Cordy were as clueless as she was. The pretty redhead who called herself Buffy's best friend stubbornly avoided her eyes. Oh god, she thought, if Willow can't look at me it has to be bad.
"Am I gonna die again?" she asked bluntly. The effect was like sticking a pin in a highly inflated balloon. Suddenly the quiet room burst into sound as Willow and Oz almost fell over each other to assure her that she was firmly among the living, while Xander was loudly proclaiming his objections at being left in the dark just because he wasn't a computer geek. Cordy, however, decided that the best course of action was to nibble quietly on a jelly donut. At this point Buffy fervently agreed with her as she grabbed one for herself before the May Queen could munch them all up.
"That's enough!" The quiet librarian snapped, the seriousness of his voice pushing them back into the awaiting arms of a dark, gloomy mood. "Buffy, Willow and I ran across something when we looked up Cirta's name." He rushed on ignoring the question in her eyes, "We couldn't find any mention of her in any of the Watchers' diaries."
"So that would mean that either she's very old or very new," Cordelia interrupted, obviously very pleased at her newfound logic.
"Or that she's got a very different name she's hiding under," Xander argued, unable to resist proving his girlfriend wrong.
"Actually she doesn't," Giles began, ignoring the beaming Cordelia on general principal.
"But you have found her eventually," Buffy murmured. "This morning you didn't even know that she was a 'she'." Buffy knotted her fist into a hard white ball. What did it matter how they got their information? There was something that Giles was deliberately not telling her. Something big.
"Yes, we have. Apparently Cirta existed before the Watchers, before the slayer." The Watcher looked deep into his Slayer's eyes, wanting her to be very much aware of the gravity of the situation. "She was created in a time when there was no man, only chaos. A time when demons walked the earth." Buffy stared at him, his words hypnotizing her into a trance where no one existed, but her and her watcher. "She ruled them all, Buffy. She was in many respects the Devil incarnate."
"What happened?"
Giles shook his head, "The book I found wasn't that clear. It only says that eventually, when mankind came along, they somehow joined together with demons to defeat her."
"I take it she wasn't a very nice ruler," Xander murmured.
Buffy's eyes narrowed with suspicion, "If this she-devil existed before the Watchers, how come they have a book on her?"
Giles exchanged a guilty look with Willow. "This isn't Watcher lore," the redhead said as gently as she could. "It's demon lore."
The Slayer's green eyes widened, "HE gave it to you."
Willow nodded briefly and went back to staring at Giles. There was more to this, Buffy could feel it. "So she's back and she wants to have it all again, yadda, yadda, yadda. Cut to the chase."
"It's not that simple," Giles told her softly. "She wants it all this time, and that means no humans."
Buffy almost choked on that one. "She's out to kill the entire human race?"
"She's already begun doing just that. I've been getting reports from European and Asian watchers. Apparently that black cloaked man you met last night has several hundred twin-brothers all over the world and they've been busy wiping out whole sections of the continent. They're the ones who are preparing for the day of Cirta's return."
Xander's eyes widened, "For once Sunnydale is the last to hear about a coming evil."
Buffy paled visibly, the thought of something she couldn't beat multiplied by several hundred had shaken her to the core. "So how do I stop this thing?"
Giles and Willow exchanged another look. Here comes the clincher, Buffy thought.
"You can't." Willow said flatly. "You're not the one who's supposed to fight her."
"How long has this killing humans spree been going on?" Xander asked suddenly.
"A little over four months," Willow replied, looking him straight in the eyes.
A horrible suspicion flooded Buffy's mind even as Giles began explaining, peering over at Xander she knew he was thinking the same. Oh god, she thought, I can't ever win. "There's a prophecy in these books, Buffy. As clear as I've ever seen one. It tells all about this situation, all about how to beat it."
"All about HIM!" Buffy suddenly lashed out. "This started when I sent HIM to hell. Tell me that's just a coincidence, Giles! Tell me!"
The Watcher shook his head, "I can't do that Buffy. It is related to him, but so is the way to stop this." He rushed on, afraid his Slayer would fall apart before his eyes. Wishing more than anything that he could spare her this. "The prophecy, it speaks of the return of the Angelic One."
"Read it to me." She said flatly.
Giles raised his eyes to meet hers in an attempt to read what she really wanted, but they were unfathomable. "What?"
"I said read it to me!"
"It's in ancient Latin."
"Then translate it. Read it now!"
Another look passed between the Watcher and the Hacker, and then he was Buffy's. "In the age of innocence no longer found, the age where two fight evil- no longer one. She shall rise. It will be the fallen angel who shall set her free," Giles paused to look at her, and swallowed hard. "On the day he shall be sent to hell by his love's own hand, that day shall mark her rising. Her success or fall depends on the fallen one, for as long as he remains in hell humanity has no champion." He stopped reading, his eyes searching his Slayer's for any sign of emotion. "It goes on babbling about humanity, mentioning Angel a few times as the savior, others as the spawn of hell."
"That's our Angel," Xander murmured, "you gotta love him."
"Shut up, Xander!" Cordelia snapped. Surprisingly he did as he was told.
"It clearly says Angel will have to be let out of hell for humanity to survive this." Giles said directly to Buffy. He sighed ruefully as he noted her glazed eyes, the girl was a million miles away.
"So you're gonna trust a book written by a demon, given to you by a demon to spring a demon out of hell?" Xander demanded, jumping to his feet with fury.
"No, I'm not, Xander. That's why I contacted the council, they confirmed this prophecy. This is real."
"Angel gave you this book?" Cordelia asked softly, a horrible thought flashing through her mind. "Wouldn't that have meant that he'd have read it first? That he'd known that he was going to be sent to hell by Buffy?"
That question managed to cut through even Buffy's trance. She stared at Giles, dreading his answer. "No, he wouldn't," he said firmly, speaking directly to his young charge rather than to the girl who had asked the question. "I researched with him many times, before..." he left that hanging. "He couldn't read Latin."
"That doesn't mean you can give him a 'get out of hell' free card." Xander snarled quietly, his hate for the dark vampire shining through every word. "He deserved what he got."
"You foolish boy!" Xander gasped as the quiet, tweed clad librarian suddenly became a stranger to him, suddenly realizing he had gone too far. "Do you think for one moment I would let him out if I thought there was another way? Do you think I wouldn't like to run him through myself the moment he steps out of hell?" The teen's dark eyes met the Watcher's gray, and tried to flinch away. "After what he did to all of us, after what he did to Jenny, I'd love nothing more than to kill him myself. To make him suffer like I've suffered, to watch him die a thousand times over." They all stared at him with shock, watching him transform from Rupert to Ripper, and back again. "But humanity is worth more than my own desires." He said quietly, with near perfect control.
Buffy stood, suddenly unable to breathe right in the stale library. She needed fresh air, she needed space, and she needed to get out of the library and into the sun right now. "Buffy?" Willow called after her softly.
She turned to face them, her friends. The ones who had kept her sane throughout those long shattering weeks since her lover had gone. "It was supposed to have lasted forever," she told them quietly, unsure herself as to what 'it' meant exactly.
They watched the library doors swing silently after her. "I guess even forever has to end sometime," Cordelia mused philosophically. They all stared at her. "What? I can be deep!"