Chapter 7

"OK, Red, ready?" Spike asked, picking up his weapons bag and securing his crossbow on his back.

Willow nodded, though her face looked wary and uncertain. She carefully arranged the lighted candles around the vampire in a circle and sat back on her heels and looked up at him. "We're all set."

"You know, you don't have to do this," he said. "Tara could try."

"She's not strong enough. I'm the only one who can do this."

"You'll be OK?"

Willow nodded. She sat down on the floor before the circle, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes. After a few deep breaths she began to chant in an archaic language unknown to Spike.

He stood rigidly in the center on the circle, watching as the air around him began to shimmer. It crackled and pooped with electricity and glowed with light. Willow's chanting became louder and faster, and the light grew brighter and brighter until it was so bright that Spike couldn't see.

He had the sensation of falling and felt the house around him disappear. There was a roaring in his ears and the light enveloped him like a cocoon. But then it all suddenly stopped and Spike found himself on his back on a hard floor.

He looked around at the charred remains of a house- a very familiar house. A few blackened boards were all that remained of the walls and the ceiling and roof were gone, giving Spike an unhindered view of the starry night sky.

In front of him sat a charred stove and the blackened remains of a table and chairs. As he rose to his feet, Spike noticed a doll head lying in the corner of the room, its hair and body burned away and its face smudged by ashes and soot.

The whole place wreaked of fear and hate and for once the vampire didn't revel in the scent. The fear was his daughter's and Katerina's. Instead of igniting his hunger, it ignited his anger.

This was the house that he'd first been with Katerina in. It was where they'd spent many a happy night, wrapped in each other's arms. The door- now only a thin ashy frame- was the last thing he saw of her as he left her that last morning.

This was the house that she'd lived in during her pregnancy- unknown to him. She'd probably gone into labor here. Then she would have returned with the new baby- his baby- to this house. This empty house. And here they had lived a quiet existence until those…bastards, to put it nicely, destroyed it all. They destroyed the only home his daughter had ever known.

His jaw clenched and he reached down to grab his weapons bag and begin his hunt. Those bastards were going to pay. Oh, were they ever going to pay.

*****

Enuji entered the hut, a devious smile on his face. The woman huddled on the floor looked up at him with unconcealed fear in her eyes and shuddered. Her clothes were tattered into unrecognisable shreds through which he could see the gaping, bleeding wounds he'd inflicted over the past few days.

She was very pale, despite her olive skin and her hair was stringy and tangled. There were clumps of dried blood running through the dark strands. One of her eyes was completely black and swollen shut. Her lip was split and a stream of dried blood trailed down her chin. More dried blood was caked around her nostrils and in a shallow cut around her throat.

The hands bound above her head were covered in scratches as were her bound feet. Patterns were carved across her chest. Checkerboards, crosses, dots, waves- anything that had come to his mind. He'd even carved his name into her back between her shoulderblades.

Enuji smiled at the memory of her screams and turned his attention to the second woman in the hut. To his surprise she looked as frightened as Katerina did. "Hanna?"

She held her hand out. It shook violently and dropped the empty vial to the cold concrete floor. It clattered but didn't break and rolled over to his feet. He picked it up, staring at it- through the glass which should've been black with the powerful liquid inside.

"All of it?"

Hanna nodded. "I didn't mean to-"

Enuji crushed the vial in his fist and took two menacing steps towards the shaking witch. "Didn't mean to?" he raged. "Well that makes it all right then, doesn't it?"

"I-I'm s-s-sorry. I d-didn't-" Her words were cut off by the sickening snap of her neck.

Enuji turned to face Katerina, who had a small satisfied smile on her face, despite the painful crack in her lip. A raspy chuckle escaped her throat, followed by a fit of coughing in which she spit up blood onto the floor. But that didn't detract from the effect her laugh had on him.

He thundered over to her. "This doesn't change anything," he growled as he placed a hand on each side of her head. "I will find the creature." He squeezed and a dark, smoky light flowed from his fingers into her temples. Her screams echoed off the walls of the hut and he smiled.

*****

Angel shifted uncomfortably beneath the unwavering blue gaze of the girl in front of him. It was unsettling how she could stand so motionless, just staring at him over the top of his desk for nearly five minutes now. He didn't have much experience with children, but he thought that they were generally hyper and unable to be still for any amount of time if conscious. Leave it to the spawn of Spike to be different.

"So…do you want something to eat…?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you want something to drink?"

"No."

"Do you want to watch TV?"

Rebecca seemed to consider this but then shook her head. "No."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

Angel growled and mentally cursed Cordelia, Fred, Buffy, and Dawn for going out to shop and leaving the little girl with him.

"She doesn't like to shop," Dawn'd explained. "She'd be much happier here. She'll be no trouble at all. You won't even know she's here. Just let her play in the rooms or something."

But Rebecca hadn't wanted to play in the many rooms of the Hyperion. Instead she watched the women leave and then proceeded to follow Angel around like a very small, blonde shadow.

"Daddy said I can call you great-grandpa," she said.

"Yeah, I bet he did."

"You're a vampire like daddy."

Angel hesitated. The child seemed perfectly comfortable with the fact that he was a vampire. She accepted it as readily as she did her father's vampiric state. "Yeah…I'm a vampire."

"I'm a vampire too."

"No you're not."

Rebecca's face turned down in a half-scowl, half-pout. "Am too!" she cried.

Seconds later as Lorne and Gunn were welcoming the girls back from their day of shopping, there came a shocked cry from the vampire's office. All six of them rushed in, finding Angel clutching his finger and Rebecca on the ground, rolling with laughter.

"What the-" Gunn began to ask.

"She bit me!"

Dawn groaned and Buffy rolled her eyes, bending to pick the little girl up off the floor.

"Sorry about that," the slayer said. "Forgot to warn you about that."

"She does that a lot?" Angel exclaimed.

"Well, her father doesn't exactly correct her behavior."

"He kinda thinks it's funny," Dawn chimed.

Rebecca giggled and Buffy looked at her harshly. "But it's not funny. It's bad. Very, very bad," she scolded. "and little girls who're bad go to time-out."

The slayer carried the squirming little girl up the stairs to the room she was staying in. She sat her down on the bed firmly. "Now stay there and think about what you did. Don't move until I come to get you and when I do, I want an apology ready for Angel."

Rebecca watched Buffy walked out of the room and close the door before she climbed down off the bed. She wandered around the room for a bit before making her way into the bathroom. By climbing onto the toilet and then over into the sink, she was able to reach the medicine cabinet and was just getting aquainted with a large tube of squishy, strong-smelling gel when there was a sound outside the door.

Thinking it was Buffy, she climbed down immediately and scrambled for the door. But before she could even reach the knob, it swung open. With big eyes she gazed up at the thing that stood there. She didn't even have time to scream before she was snatched up and whisked out of the window.

TBC….

***Thanx to everyone who reviewed so far! I hope you're enjoying it!

Oh, and thanks to Kaarin for the "gripe" about Ch. 5. I know nothing about that kind of thing so I just assumed that the way of holding your fist that I wrote made sense cause that way your nails wouldn't dig into your palm (or specifically, my nails as they are very long). But thanx for correcting me. It was really helpful.

Keep reviewing, guys!***