Queen Of Darkness
Chapter One: Greetings
As she walked down the stairs, the vampire that had been Willow Rosenberg stared at the expansive lobby she found herself in. She hadn't expected to find herself in a hotel, much less one wholly owned by a vampire famous even in her world for his solitary, brooding nature. She choked back a sob at the thought of her world, and decided that she would focus on finding out everything she could about where she was now, and not think about where she had come from.
"Hey, guys," Angel said as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Simultaneously, six heads looked up from various books and focused on the two vampires coming down to them.
Wesley pulled himself out of his chair, moving towards Angel. "Did we do it? Did it work?" He asked, glancing cautiously at Willow's leather-clad form.
"I remember you," Willow said, sliding her way down the stairs to come up beside Angel. She frowned at the ex-watcher in confusion. "You stopped me from eating Cordelia," she noticed how several of the others in the room reacted to her statement. She saw anger from Wesley one, confusion from the mousy brunette girl, and open hostility from the shaven-headed dark skinned one. She decided to file those reactions away in her memory, and continued speaking. "You threatened me with a cross and holy water," her eyes narrowed. "I don't like you," she hissed, but her scowl suddenly changed back to a look of confusion. "I think. I'm not sure anymore."
There was a moment of absolute silence before Angel spoke in a tone that completely ignored what was just said. "Yeah, it worked. She's got a soul, but there's a few complications. I'm going to have to talk to you about that later, right now she needs to get introduced to everyone and have something to eat."
"Yeah," Willow interjected. "Hungry now," she eyed the mousy brunette for a moment before turning to Angel. "Problem," she stated urgently.
"What?" He asked her.
"Can't eat. Instant guilt trip."
"It's okay," he said, leading her over to the small fridge that sat behind the lobby desk in what had once been the staff area. "It's not fresh, and it's not human, but it'll keep you going," he opened the fridge and pulled out a glass bottle. After pulling a cup out of a nearby cupboard he poured some of the cold red liquid out and handed it to Willow. "Your not going to like it, but it's all you're going to be able to drink."
Willow sniffed at the drink. Tentatively, she stuck out her tongue and dipped it in the liquid. Immediately she pulled her tongue back in and pulled the glass away from her lips. Making a disgusted face she looked incredulously at Angel. "You can't expect me to drink this! It's vile! It's . . . It's . . ."
"It's all you're going to get," Angel said.
Willow scowled at him. "I really hate you," she said before downing the entire glass.
"There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" Angel asked with a small smile, Willow couldn't respond because she was gagging badly. Angel took the glass from her hand before she smashed it on something and refilled it before resealing the bottle and putting it back in the fridge. "Now, why don't we just introduce you to everyone else, and we can let you get settled in," he said as he began to lead her back towards the group of people in the lobby, none of whom had ceased staring at the red-haired vampire.
"Hate you," Willow hissed again as she regained control of her gag reflex. She meekly allowed herself to be pulled along with the older vampire. The truth was that she wanted to meet the people who were now staring at her. She saw recognition on all of their faces, but could only remember having ever met the British one.
"Alright," Angel began. "Everyone, this is Willow, as a vampire."
"Hi," Willow said, casually waving at them. Angel began to introduce her to everyone gathered. There was Fred, the mousy brunette; Gunn, the black guy; Riley, who was looking at her with something approaching disbelief; Wesley, the Brit who she recognized; Faith, who for some reason made Willow nervous; and finally, Spike. At this last one, Willow spoke out. "Spike? As in William the Bloody?" The bleach-blonde vampire nodded. "They got you too, huh," she said glumly.
"You could say that Red," Spike answered, eyeing her carefully.
There was an uncomfortably long silence. Willow was beginning to get fidgety, and that was never a good sign. She decided to find something to occupy her mind, lest her thoughts drift to things that she really didn't want to dwell on right then. "Bored now," she said, and forced a smile on her face. "Hey! Watcha' all doin'?"
The tension in the room suddenly dropped a notch, several of the people letting out a relieved breath. Willow didn't really understand this reaction, but she decided to go along with it anyway, smiling more widely. "Wesley, I need to talk to you and Spike in private. Can the rest of you bring Vamp Willow up to speed on what's going on?"
There were nods all around, and Willow slid herself into the seat that Spike vacated as he made his way to Wesley's office. She smiled at everyone, but kept glancing at Faith. Something about the dark haired girl bothered her, something undeniably familiar, and yet horribly alien. She felt both attracted and repelled by her, and that was frustrating the vampire. She could sense the anger in the girl, boiling just below the surface, could feel the darkness that swirled in her soul, causing a disconcertingly sympathetic echo within Willow's own dark heart. She forced herself to focus on everyone but Faith, and in her very best happy-Willow voice she said: "So, what's been happening?"
* * *
"Wes, we might have a problem," Angel said as soon as the door to the office was closed.
"Bloody right we've got a problem," Spike said. "The new Red's off her bloody rocker!"
Wesley looked shocked. "What are you talking about? She seemed lucid enough."
"Yeah, she seems sane now, but just wait 'till she starts talking about burning fishes swimming 'round your head. I bet you'll get the picture bloody fast then!" Spike said restlessly moving about the room.
"Angel?" Wesley said, asking for his opinion.
"Spike's right," Angel said. "She has her soul back, but her mind's unstable. She still thinks like she doesn't have a soul to worry about, and she's trying to repress the guilt it's sending her. She's not showing it, but Spike and I can tell what's going on under the surface, and I wouldn't be surprised if Faith was catching a bit of it as well."
"It goes a lot deeper than just guilt repression, peaches," Spike said. "I've seen that look in her eyes before. It's the same look Dru would get before she went off into one of her fantasies. This girl is seriously disturbed, people! Trust me, I only lived with someone like her for a hundred sodding years!"
Wesley contemplated for a few moments. "Exactly what are you sensing about her that makes you think she's not stable?"
"It's really hard to put into terms a human would understand, Wes," Angel said. "It's like we're seeing more than one Willow when we look at her. I can sense the guilt that her soul is sending, but somewhere along the way it's getting distorted. Almost like it has to pass through a barrier before it gets to her conscious mind."
"Could it be her Demon that's causing the interference, the version of the soul-restoration spell we used was not too clear on which would be dominant in the end."
"No," Angel said. "Her soul's in control like mine is, but there's something hanging on to her, and I'm not talking about her Demon. It might be something that was in her mind, but I can't tell what's really happening, so I have to go on my gut feeling."
"If what you are saying is true, then we could indeed have a problem. If you are right, is there any way we could help her? Make her more stable?"
"Humoring her's about the best I ever came up with for Dru," Spike said. "But I don't think that's gonna work in this case."
"Look, I have an idea of how to handle this, but it's not going to be easy," Angel said.
"Alright," Wesley began. "I'm prepared to accept that the vampire Willow is unstable, more than prepared actually. But Cordelia's vision was quite explicit. The Willow she saw there was lucid and in control of her mental faculties. That means that we have to find a way to counsel her, to give her grounding before we begin our assault. Spike, I don't think humoring her would be a good idea, in fact I believe that doing so would just encourage her to lose touch with reality. Angel you said you have a plan, explain it please."
Angel waited for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "We don't really know how deep this goes yet, so we're going to have to watch her for a while before we do anything. From what I've seen and heard from her, which isn't a lot, I think she might be going through some sort of post-traumatic stress period. Something happened to her before she was turned, something really bad. It affected how she acted as a vampire, and it's continuing to affect her now that she's got a soul. Up in my room, she told me that she begged the Master to turn her. Now I don't know everything, but I've only heard of people begging to be turned a few times, ever. And each time the person doing the begging was in a really bad place, emotionally."
"Okay, if we could get to the part of this where you actually tell us what you think we should do, than we could maybe start to do something about little miss time bomb out there!" Spike snapped.
"Calm down, Spike," Wesley chided. "Angel, please continue."
"As I've said, I don't really know exactly what's wrong with her," Angel continued. "But if it gets serious, then we may be looking at a worst-case scenario. For now she's working on the premise that her soul prevents her from feeding on people entirely. I don't know how long it might take her to simply stop caring, but we should assume that we don't have a lot of time. We have to know what's going on with her, and we have to know as soon as possible. You know what that means," he said, and Wesley nodded thoughtfully.
"What?" Spike asked, confused. "What does that mean? What are you two talking about?"
"I'll call 'Lorne," Wesley said, moving behind his desk.
"'Lorne!" Spike nearly shouted. "Oh, please don't say I have to sing again!"
* * *
"So this is what year again?" Willow asked, still coming to grips with what she had been told.
"2003," Fred answered, she had been the first to begin speaking with Willow. She spoke far too fast for the vampire, confusing the issue with long dissertations explaining the most insignificant of things. "The spell we used to bring you back to our world grabbed you from the closest time period to this one that you existed in. That is, it tried to just move you between universes without having to bring you through time, but if you didn't exist in your universe at the time the spell was cast, it would search backwards through time until it did find you, and then transport you here. So, um, if we hadn't of brought you here, you'd probably be a pile of ashes for the last four years."
"Uh, thanks," Willow said slowly, wondering whether she was better off or not. "Hey, what happened to Xander?" She asked.
"Oh, he got engaged," Riley said.
"To who?" Willow asked, frowning as she tried to think of whom the human Xander she had encountered before would be most suited to.
"A girl named Anya, if I remember the story right you met her last time you were in our world."
Willow did indeed remember. "Anya!" She cried in disbelief, face shifting into demon mode. "The vengeance demon? The girl who first brought me to this hell-dimension? That Anya?"
Everyone shrank back, that is, everyone except Faith. Willow was finding herself more and more intrigued by the dark girl, and couldn't help sneaking another long look at her. "Yes?" Fred said finally, her answer as much a question as it was a statement. Willow could feel the fear coming off of her, this was a person who was used to terror, but had never gotten over it.
Willow sank back into her chair, allowing her face to slip back into its human mask. "Figures," she said calmly. "He always did have the worst taste in women."
"But, in the alternate universe, didn't he end up with you?" Riley asked, Willow smirked at him. "Oh," he said as he caught on to what she was trying to tell him.
"Are we sure she has a soul?" Gunn cut in. "'Cause, I mean, she's not acting all broody or anything. Isn't that how vamps with souls are supposed to act?"
"Oh, I've got a soul," Willow assured him. "But that doesn't mean I have to brood my way through eternity. I was nowhere near as nasty as Angelus was, and I haven't lived anywhere near as long as him, so I have a lot less guilt to deal with. Plus, why should I be guilty at all? I mean, hello, vampire here. I'm supposed to be evil. I was just doing what came naturally, and so was he. If puppy wants to act all ashamed of who he is, he can go ahead, but I for one am not going to beat myself up about what's passed," she looked at everyone's faces, gauging their reaction to her words. There was concern stamped on their features, she had them worried. Again though, Faith kept completely neutral, Willow wondered how long it would take for the girl to explode at her. "That doesn't mean I'm gonna bite you or anything," she said, letting off the pressure. "It just means that I'm not going to go the way of tall, dark and broody."
"I don't know whether to be relieved, or very, very worried," Riley quipped.
"I second that," Gunn agreed.
"Anyway, continue with what we were talking about. What happened to the Slayer? I was good friends with her, wasn't I?" Willow caught a pained look from both Faith and Riley. Something had happened to both of them, something involving the Slayer.
"Well," Fred began. "I don't know too much about this, but I do know that you, er, the other you went to college with Buffy, after blowing up your high school, that is. Then, about two years ago, Buffy died saving the world, uh, again."
"Oh?" Willow said, cocking one eyebrow. "So she's finally bit the big one? I don't really know how to feel about that. I guess I'm just overwhelmed by the blowing up of the high school which you conveniently skimmed over."
"Well, actually, Buffy isn't dead anymore," Fred continued, Willow's other eyebrow went up to join it's companion. "From what Spike told us, you kinda brought her back."
"I brought her back. Now that is interesting," Willow said softly. "So, in this world I become some sort of witch?"
"Yeah," Faith said, speaking for the first time since Willow had laid eyes on her. "You go real overboard with it too. Set yourself up with a nice lesbian lover who also happens to be a witch, gain a whole hell of a lot of power, you know, witchy stuff. You even took on a God, and nearly won. But you see, even that wasn't enough for you, so you do more and more with magic, trying to build up your power and stamina. Then you start systematically alienating all of your friends by your overuse of your power. Pretty soon all your left with is yourself. That's when you begin to get nasty."
Willow stood up suddenly, silencing Faith. Slowly the vampire walked over to the girl, her movements far too fluid for any human being. As she approached, Faith stood up, a challenging spark shining in her eyes. Willow stopped just inches from the other girl's face, she could feel Faith's breath, hot and full of energy. "I can smell your anger," Willow whispered. "I don't know what happened to you, or even what you are, but I understand the rage that is boiling inside you," she saw Faith's eyes widen, she was hitting a mark, though what would come of it was impossible to determine. "You don't hate me, though. You want to pound a stake through my heart so much that it makes your fingers itch, to kick my ass across the town and use my teeth to open your beer. But you don't hate me. No, you may want to do all these things to me, but in the end you are the one you want to hurt."
"Shut up," Faith breathed, the words barely audible to even Willow's vampiric hearing. Willow thought about doing what she asked, but whatever it was that had pulled Willow to her in the first place was now forcing her to go on.
"I haven't been alive all that long, especially not for a vampire, but in my time I have seen people like you, Faith. Psychology was an interest of mine long before I was turned, and as a vampire I was afforded a great opportunity to study different personalities, to see what made people like they were. Sure I did it through torture and terror, but I got results, and I learned a lot about how a person's mind works. I can tell a personality type from a few minutes of watching someone just sit there, but I only needed to look at you once to know what was going on in that pretty head of yours."
"Shut up," Faith said, louder this time. The others heard her, Willow knew, but not one of them made a move to interrupt the conversation.
"You broadcast it to everyone that comes near you, throwing it out at the world like you're expecting it to be taken away. Then you try to cover it up with a devil-may-care attitude, as if you can deny that the heart on your sleeve is yours. You don't even fool yourself, and it eats you up inside."
"Shut up!" Faith snapped. Willow spotted the three men beginning to rise from their seats about the lobby, and could tell that Fred was beginning to edge away.
"I met you ten minutes ago, Faith, and already I know you better than you know yourself. You're stubborn, willful, and you think that you're alone in the world. Well, guess what! You are! You are all alone, Faith, and not because people don't want to be with you, not because of some world conspiracy against you. No, you're alone because you won't let yourself get close to anyone, and the bitch of it is that you don't even know you're doing it," Faith was shaking with rage now, but she never blinked, her gaze locked with the vampire's. "You don't hate me, Faith. Do you want to know why?"
"Shut up!" Faith screamed. With speed that no human should have possessed, Faith reached into the jacket she was wearing and brought out a long wooden stake. Willow watched intently as Faith raised the stake above and behind her head, readying it to strike to Willow's heart. The vampire made no move to stop her, didn't even flinch though the rage danced in Faith's eyes.
"Faith!" A voice called out commandingly. The rogue Slayer whipped her head around to look at Angel, who was standing just outside the door to Wesley's office, and didn't look happy. "Put the stake down."
"Damn it, Angel!" Faith snarled. "You knew she was going to get to me like this, didn't you?" She looked back at Willow, whose gaze had not deviated, tossing the stake to the side as she once again locked eyes with the vampire. "You're lucky this time, bitch. Word to the wise, though, it isn't smart to piss off a Slayer, especially if you happen to be a vampire."
Willow stared deeply into Faith's eyes, and her darkly sensuous lips pulled into a smirk. "You don't hate me, Faith," she whispered, drawing herself even closer to the Slayer, so that they were almost touching. "Because you're too busy hating yourself."
Faith held the vampire's gaze for only a moment longer before shoving past Willow and storming out of the hotel without saying another word. Willow looked after her, the smirk still on her face, and wondered if it had just been the fact that Faith was a Slayer that had been having the odd effect on her. After remembering her encounters with the other Slayer, Buffy Summers, Willow decided that it was something unique to the girl herself, something that she might want to explore later. For now, though, Angel wanted her for something, and she had a feeling that it might be important.
