I'm raising the rating of this story a bit. Ideally, I'd like to rate it at PG15, but ff.net doesn't have that rating, so I'm going to put it up to R. I'm hoping that won't cause any problems. After all, the first part of this saga was rated R. There's nothing too graphic, I prefer to leave the details to your imagination, but there's some not too fluffy action in the forthcoming chapter, and I'd like to be safe.

Chapter 18 - Almost Déjà Vu

It was almost dark when they reached their destination for the night. Unlike the castle which was the current headquarters for the advance party, this was a small affair, three or four underground rooms which had previously been used as some sort of storage area for a local manor house. If you didn't know it was there, it was unlikely you would spot it. There were only a few vampires posted there, and they had been chosen for speed rather than any other attribute. Their task was simply to alert the main contingent of troops of any attempt to attack.

Such an attack was not considered likely. The humans of this world had fled the advancing vampires quickly after the battle which resulted in Buffy being taken. They were now relying on the defences around the capital city, and that was where the army, what was left of it, was based. The only reason the invaders had not already launched their attack on the city was to allow Spike time to achieve his task.

They were only a few hundred yards from the outpost when they were spotted. They were challenged, but Spike was able to identify himself to the satisfaction of those on guard, and they were led inside. The room they entered was small and smoky. A fire burned brightly at the centre of the room, and several vampires lounged around it. They all eyed Buffy appreciatively as Spike brought her in, and she noticed he was careful to display the leash. She saw a flash of disappointment from one or two of the vampires, but after a short discussion between Spike and one of the others, she was led through the room into a short corridor. From there, they entered another small room. It wasn't as clean as the accommodations at the castle had been, but it was dry, and although cold, it was a lot warmer than outside. There was a single bed which was piled with covers, and two chairs.

Spike sat in one of the two chairs gratefully, pulling Buffy towards the second. He was smiling at some private joke, and looked at his companion.

"What?" she asked.

"You didn't hear, did you?"

"Hear what?"

"The offer. The senior man up there offered me a great deal of money to borrow you for the night."

Buffy bristled at the idea of being bought, but it only brought back to her the truth of her situation.

"And I suppose you don't like to share?" she asked.

A flash of something passed across his face, but Buffy wasn't sure whether it was hurt or irritation.

"Actually, I don't like to share, but that has nothing to do with it. People like him would use you like at the castle, and I don't want you injured again. Now, if it's ok with you, I'm going to lock you in here while I go and get something to eat."

"You mean while you go and kill someone," Buffy answered from between her teeth.

Spike looked up in surprise. "Actually, there's rarely a need to kill to feed, it's only the fact that some humans fight the inevitable that makes killing more likely."

"That's not my experience," she huffed.

"Not on this world, maybe. Here, you've kept vampires down to the point where they get hungry, where they can't feed at need, and you're surprised they take advantage of things when they get the chance. Once this world is subdued, and the people realise how things are, most people will be fed from regularly, but still live otherwise normal lives."

"And you think we should just stand there and take it, do you?"

"If there's nothing else you can do, then why not?"

"So, why don't you feed from me instead?"

The words stopped him short. She was actually willing to have him feed from her in order to save someone else. He sighed heavily. "Two reasons. The first is purely practical. I need to take enough that you won't be feeling well enough to travel in the morning. And secondly, let me ask you, when those others fed on you back at the castle, do you remember what happened right after?"

It took a second for the penny to drop, but Buffy realised what he was getting at. When he saw that she understood, he nodded, adding, "Slayer blood's a powerful aphrodisiac. Now, I'm not averse to having some, but I don't think you'd like the result, and believe it or not, I want to get you to the capital without hurting you more than I have to."

"So you can kill me," Buffy reminded him.

"Well, yes, but there's nothing I can do about it."

"Of course you can do something about it," she pointed out. "Just take me across the line tomorrow, and let me go."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I don't know, but if you don't want to hurt me, then, that would be a way out."

"I don't want to hurt you unnecessarily, but that's not the same thing. I'll do what I've got to do, because this world is just too good to let it go. There'll be a period of readjustment, then the humans of this world will come to realise that it's not the end of everything to have vampires in charge. It's just the natural order of things. Sure there're vampires who kill and hurt because they can, but most don't. Most are willing to simply feed and leave you alone the rest of the time. It's not so bad once you understand how things work."

Buffy shook her head. It sounded so simple the way he described it, people were no more than cattle to him anyway, so, to him, it was simple.

"Go on, then," she challenged him, gesturing towards the door. He stood, disengaging her leash from the connection on his body, and looped it through the bed frame. When he left, Buffy reached into her own food supply for some bread and cheese. The cheese was good, but a steady diet of just that was beginning to pall already. She was starting to crave some fresh fruit, and hoped she'd be able to get some soon. As she chewed, she turned her mind to coming up with a way to turn the tables on her captor. Surely it shouldn't be too difficult to get away once they were among humans again. She just had to work out how to do it.

It was probably because she was deep in thought that she didn't hear the scrabbling at the door. Spike had made a point of locking the door as he left, and she didn't hear the sound of the door being unlocked. When the door flew open, she recognised the vampire who stood in the doorway from the guard room. He was much bigger than Spike, and he had a nasty grin on his face which made Buffy cringe.

He stepped into the room and closed and locked the door behind him.

"I'm afraid your master's going to be delayed, so I'm going to have to take care of you in the meantime," he growled, approaching Buffy menacingly.

"I've always heard how wonderful Slayer blood is, but I never thought I'd get the chance to sample some. And, it's not really fair of Spike to keep you to himself. I offered him a lot of money for a taste, but he turned me down. So, now he doesn't get paid, but I still get to try you out."

His face started to change, distorting to the demon mask. It occurred to Buffy that she had still to see Spike's demon mask, and then she wondered why such a thing would occur to her at that moment.

It only took two paces before he had crossed the room to her, and his huge arms reached out to her, pulling her to the ideal angle to allow him to feed. Buffy struggled, but there was nothing she could do. Even with Slayer strength, a vampire of this build would be difficult to overpower.

As he sank his fangs into her neck, she realised she was in more trouble than she had even realised. When the others had drunk from her at the castle, they were always careful to make sure someone else was there to pull them off before they killed her. There was something about her blood that caused the vampires to forget about the need to keep her alive.

He started to drink, champing with his fangs, so that the wounds in her neck were larger and more torn than they needed to be. Within seconds he started to moan, and she knew the aphrodisiac nature of her blood was having its usual effect. Without withdrawing his fangs at all, he started to pull at her clothing, gradually removing it, the fact that her trousers were leather the only thing that kept them largely intact. Her shirt didn't fare so well, as the buttons were sent skittering over the floor. She knew what was going to happen, and she was steeling herself to endure again, when the door flew open.

She couldn't see what was happening, her vision obscured by the vampire who was attacking her. The next thing she knew was that her attacker was wrenched from her, the wounds in her neck tearing as it happened. Instinctively, she lifted one of the blankets off the bed, and used it to apply pressure to the wound, hoping that Slayer healing would kick in soon enough to stop her bleeding to death.

Her enraged attacker's trousers were around his ankles, effectively hobbling him, and he snarled at the person responsible for pulling him away from her. Spike stood in front of him, his posture defensive, his face showing the demon mask Buffy hadn't seen before.

The larger vampire kicked off his trousers and pounced, but Spike side-stepped the attack easily, countering with a resounding kick to the other's back. He roared in pain and rage, pulled himself up, and lunged again. Spike avoided the attack, and managed to get in a resounding hit of his own. This sequence of events repeated several times, the larger vampire getting more and more angry, and, as a result, more and more careless with every hit he took. At last, Spike had him in a neck lock, and he effortlessly pulled back his head, breaking his neck. He allowed the by then dead weight of the paralysed vampire to fall to the floor before he picked up one of the chairs, and broke off one of the wooden legs. It was the work of seconds to plunge the improvised stake into the other vampire's heart, and watch him disappear in a cloud of dust.

Only then did Spike turn his attention to Buffy. One glance showed him she was still alive, and with it enough to have attempted to stop her neck bleeding. He closed the door behind him, and locked it before heading back to his pack. He pulled out what appeared to be a first aid kit. Pulling away the blanket she was still holding to her neck, he started to clean the wound with a soft cloth soaked in some fluid from the kit.

Buffy tried to stop him, determined to do it for herself, but he just batted her hands out of the way.

"Let me do it properly. You can't see what you're doing anyway. Last thing I want is you getting sick on me."

He said the words impatiently and rather gruffly, but there was a hint of something else in his voice that Buffy was having problems understanding. Had he been human, she would have said he cared. But he was a vampire, so she knew better than that.

She allowed him to clean and dress her wound, tutting at the mess as he worked. She found it amusing the way he commented on the rips in her neck, almost like one craftsman commenting disparagingly on the work of another. When he had finished, he allowed her to lie flat on the bed, which she did gratefully. The blood loss had left her feeling a bit woozy, and she was rather tired of seeing the room spinning.

It was only once she had regained her equilibrium that she realised that he was injured too. His clothes were torn, and his face and arms were covered in gashes. When he tried to stand again, it became apparent that his leg was injured too, a huge gash down the back of his calf which was bleeding heavily.

Wincing, he cut his trousers open to above the knee, and pulled some further supplies from his pack. Buffy sat up on the bed, and pushed his hands away as he tried to clean the wound himself.

"Let me," she said.

"Why?"

"You bandaged me up, seems only fair I get to do the same thing."

He nodded warily, and it was obvious that he was ready to act at the first sign of an escape attempt.

"Remember we're still in vampire territory," he warned.

Buffy nodded. She knew he was right. If she was going to escape, now wasn't the time.

He lay out on the bed, face down, and she sat at the foot of it where she could see clearly to work. She cleaned the wound, and he winced as she did so. Then, she began to bandage his leg as gently as she could.

"You've done this before," he commented.

"Of course, although normally only for myself. You too?"

"Yeah, well, it pays to be able to do a bit of first aid in my line of work."

When he was bandaged, he heaved a sigh of relief, stood up and flopped on one of the chairs.

"So, what happened?" Buffy asked.

"Was half way through feeding, when I got jumped. Seems the big guy didn't want to take no for an answer, and he got the rest of them to delay me on a promise of them having a share of you later. It took me a while, but I managed to get rid of them. Came back here, and you know the rest."

"I take it the others put up more of a fight than he did."

"Well, yeah. Slayer's blood. Told you it was an aphrodisiac. Caused him to think with exactly one part of his body, and let's say, it wasn't his best part."

She giggled at that, then wondered why. Relief, she told herself. She was a long way from being safe, but at least the current threat was over.

"Any more of them left?" she asked.

"No, all gone. But, don't get any ideas. I can still stop you if I have to."

Buffy wasn't sure whether or not that was true, but found herself reluctant to find out.

Wordlessly, Spike returned his first aid supplies to his pack, and it was obvious he was preparing to sleep. Despite binding Spike's wound, Buffy was still feeling the recent blood loss, and she flopped back onto the bed. Spike retrieved the leash and reattached it to his body. He picked up the blanket Buffy had used to staunch her blood flow and threw it into a corner of the room. He then took the rest of the blankets and pulled them up around her.

He seemed to be about to settle down for the night, when he got up from the one remaining chair, and opened the door. He threw out the blood-soaked blanket, re-locked the door, and went back to the chair.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.

"What? The blanket?"

"Yeah."

"Can't stand the smell."

He felt her bristling.

"Well, not so much can't stand it. It's making me hungry. And, even the smell's having an effect on me. Making it difficult to sleep."

"Oh."

Buffy's response was to turn to face the wall. She was surprised that she had been allowed to sleep on the bed. It was true that the chair was between her and the door, but she suspected Spike wasn't beyond a bit of furniture removal. And, neither of them was so big that it would have been impossible for them to share the bed.

She stopped that train of thought quickly. After everything that had happened to her recently, after what nearly happened to her minutes ago, that thought should fill her with fear, with dread. But it didn't. Now, if only she could understand why, she might feel a lot more comfortable with herself.