Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Broken Origin I

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Author: Dev Nine-Asher

*Standard disclaimer applies – I own Nothing!*

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Chapter Two

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His curiosity was perked, he had to admit, although it was laughable to think what two duffers like Killoran and Tobias could possibly have scrounged up as an 'offering'…

After a minute Spike's interest waned, as it so easily did these days, and he shrugged off Lucius's announcement as his anger abruptly drained. He carelessly dropped the cowering vampire in his hands on it's ass, and watched blankly as it scurried away along the floor to disappear into the suddenly subdued crowds.

"Master?" Lucius prompted at his side.

"Bugger it. Just – hell, I don't know, stake those two and be done with it. If I get my hands on 'em I'll take too long killin' 'em and I've got Slayer problems. I'm goin' out."

Lucius grunted meaningfully as Spike turned away toward the exit, and he spun around.

"What the hell else do you want from me? I told you what to do, just go do it – "

"Master, I must tell you that this is a very unusual offering. It is imperative that you …receive it yourself. "

Spike stiffened his back and stared at him stonily. "Oh well, I'd best get right on it, then, 'cause if you say it's important then it's gotta' be the bloody end of the world, don't it?"

~*~

 Spike's 'audience' room was actually just a big concrete storage block with black-washed, haphazardly painted walls, a single piece of furniture, and a pair of wax encrusted black iron candelabras. A bank of high-end, flat-screen TV's covered one entire wall, and came complete with illegal satellite hook-up. It smelled of fresh blood and old power, and it was one of his favorite places to hide out from his followers.

Tonight it seemed to be the only space available for the entertainment sure to follow the arrival of Tobias and Killoran – not really because of whatever 'treasure' they'd brought him, but because he was going to take so much pleasure in eviscerating the two once he laid hands on them…

Grinning at the thought, Spike strode down the runner of red oriental carpet bisecting the room and threw himself into his red damask-covered, high-backed chair – appropriated from Lothos's quarters down in the monastery - dangling one leg over the armrest. His pose was lazy and relaxed, his expression showing nothing more than boredom, but anyone looking at him could tell he was dangerously on edge.

There they are, Spike thought petulantly as Lucius opened the door and two familiar vampires approached. His jaw tensed, and his eyes turned arctic as he recalled their blundering idiocy. Those are the two pillocks what nearly killed my baby…

 He was already entertaining visions of yanking their fangs out with rusty pliers.

The vampires in question were dragging/pushing along a small figure, a little blonde chit with her hands bound in heavy chains behind her back.

Spike frowned and straightened up slightly. Well, now, wasn't that chary… the girl was just a little bit, obviously. What was so dangerous about this one that they would bind her up in chains? He tilted his head a bit, trying to get a closer look as they approached, but the girl had very long, thick, honey-colored hair, and it was tangled in her face.

"Our offering, Master," the dark-haired Killoran gushed around his fangs.

Spike lifted his head and  eyed the vampire disdainfully from the corner of his eyes – he would kill this one, first, just for being such a brown-nosing git.

The red-headed one, Tobias, elbowed his partner, and then pushed his captive forward. He barely used any force at all, and the girl still fell hard, to her knees. A gag tied around her head muffled her whimper of pain.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Spike placed his hands on the chair arms and swung his leg back over. He took his time looking his prize over, fingers tapping the top of his thigh. The little blonde girl withdrew further into herself, and her fear only fed the demon inside him. He could feel his blood heat with each whimper, each shiver and shudder, and he smiled perversely. Sliding out of his seat, he crouched down before the girl, leaning an elbow across one knee, and letting his hand dangle. The other hand he used to reach out and rub a strand of glossy dark blonde hair between his fingers. He kept his voice low and charming as he asked, "And who is this lost little lamb?"

At first she stared at him without comprehension. Then the girl stiffened, looked up at him with large hazel green eyes so striking in color and radiance and shape that they actually gave him pause. Spike stared back at her, feeling not a little stunned, and caught something fast and fierce running beneath the all-consuming fear in her eyes. He heard her strong pulse pick up speed, skip a beat, heard her breathing, soft and jerky, hitch in her throat - and then she jerked her head away from his now fisted hand, losing a long strand of hair in the process.

Spike's eyes swept over her, and a frown pulled his dark brows together. He couldn't begin to explain it, but he'd just had himself a nasty shock; felt it like a well-aimed kick to the danglies in fact.

There was something off about this one, something that made him uneasy…He didn't know why, the girl wasn't even really seeing him. She was looking right through him, but there was something about her that made him feel - vulnerable. Threatened.

Unworthy.

Mouth tightening, Spike swept back the battered folds of his duster, bolted up from his half-kneeling position and backed up a few steps until he felt he could shake the disturbing emotions clinging to him.

Spike looked down at her bent, mussed head for a minute, and then shook himself again.

He wasn't sure if he was too keen on keeping this one around for very long. She seemed – hazardous. He turned to the two demons standing behind him. "You call 'this' an offering? She'll barely make a decent meal – looks like a sneeze would knock her over." Spike curled his lip threateningly. "Not nearly enough to make up for what you did to my ride. Do you have any idea what kind of damage bottle rockets do to vinyl interior?"

Tobias looked at his companion, who looked back doubtfully, and then took a step forward, a gloating expression on his demon face.

Spike didn't understand how the idiot had managed to live past his first decade. He was too stupid to realize just how close he was to being dust.

 "B-but Mast – er. Er, Spike," he corrected quickly, "this is the Slayer!"

'But' you set my fucking car on fire! Spike opened his mouth to snarl back, but the other vampire's words finally registered, and his head jerked up, the cruel curve fading from his lips. "Slayer?" He drew himself up to his full height as understanding hit, his tone promising violence.

"Are you telling me you brought a Slayer here? To – my – lair?!"

The vampire's young face showed his panic. Clearly he hadn't expected his master to be displeased. "I, uh, we – " he blinked a few times, before hastily pointing a finger at his equally gobsmacked companion. "I-It was his idea!"            

Killoran's mouth fell open, exposing his fangs. "Hey!"

Furious, Spike shook his head at their unbelievable stupidity, and gave an impatient, extremely annoyed sigh. He focused a hooded stare on the girl and then shook his head, his expression dark. "So. This is the monster that has every demon in L.A. wetting their knickers and crowding my doorstep?" he asked disdainfully, unimpressed with what he saw in her this time.

"Her name is Buffy Summers," Tobias supplied quickly. "Her – " he snorted with muffled laughter – " mom asked us if we knew 'Buffy' when she answered the door."

"Buffy?" Spike's voice mirrored his disbelief. "The Slayer's name is Buffy? Oh, now, this is just too much. Vampires of the world - beware the Chosen One who shares a common  name with French poodles everywhere!"

Killoran coughed. "Careful, Mas – Spike. She's wild."

Spike lifted a brow. "She doesn't look dangerous."

"He's telling the truth – she nearly ripped off my head before we knocked her out. The pain was…excruciating."

Spike thought about his car and sent him a steady glare through slitted eyes. "You don't what pain is, mate," he clipped out promisingly. "You really aren't getting it, are you? Bringing her to me, like this – it's a bloody insult."

Tobias swallowed hard, fidgeting until his master slowly turned his attention back to the Slayer. "She won't speak, " he pointed out as Spike snapped his fingers in her unresponsive face.

"Might have somethin' to do with seein' me bite her dear ol' Dad's throat out," Killoran bragged with a nudge at his friend.

Feeling deeply cranky, Spike rolled his eyes. "S'alright. Don't think I'm up to being chatty with the dinner tonight, anyway." He looked her over again and sighed. "Look at this," he said, reaching out to finger a honey-gold ringlet of hair. "All that fire and strength gone to waste. Killin' her isn't gonna' be any fun. Barely any fight left in the girl at all. Hardly worth the effort of bitin' her. But then, Slayer blood is Slayer blood. Dru would have – " he cut himself off, jaw tightening as his temper rose. Before he realized what he was doing, his hand fisted and he drove it into the girl's jaw. Her head snapped to the right, and stayed there.

"She's not resisting," Killoran pointed out stupidly.

As if I needed an excuse to pummel a Slayer. "Good," Spike answered with a cold fury, "I won't give her the chance to change her mind, then." Reaching down he knotted a fist in her shirt and yanked her upward until her face was even with his. "C'mon," he whispered tauntingly, "last chance for revenge an' all that." His eyes flickered over the fine bones of her face, the reddening spot on her jaw where he'd struck her. He smirked and leaned closer to her ear. "Liven up a bit, pet, and I'll let you stake these two gits before I kill you. Like that, wouldn't you? Get one back for the 'rents? Die knowin' they've been avenged an' all that noble rot?"

He knew a moment of triumph when the Slayer raised her downcast eyes and looked at him. It faded quickly, though, when she gritted her teeth, brought her knee up into his unprotected groin, and landed an elbow in his face.

Spike dropped her and staggered back, hissing in pain.

Immediately Tobias lurched forward and raised his fist to strike her.

Spike growled, his demon face rising to the fore, one hand holding his chin and jaw, the other clenching the top of his thigh. "Touch her and I butcher you."

The other vampire blanched and stepped back, dropping his fist.

Wiping blood from his lip, Spike pushed up after a moment, and returned to his place before the girl. He drew in a breath and his nostrils flared at the scent of fear coming off her in waves. Tilting his head, he looked at her with glittering yellow-gold eyes. "Looks like Fluffy's got a backbone after all," he drawled a little breathlessly. His tone hardened. "I think I'll rip it out."

Not completely unexpectedly a fist shot out again, punched him in the face, and put him on his ass. Spots danced before his eyes. This time she'd almost knocked him out.

Spike looked up dazedly, hanging onto his consciousness by a thread. So, they had been telling the truth.

She was the Slayer.

He stirred, feeling as if he'd just come off a three day drunken spree.

The Slayer was staring down at him in confusion, as if she couldn't understand how he'd gotten down there. The calm, grim detachment that had been her expression a moment before had slipped away completely, leaving the face of a scared little girl who knew she'd just done something very, very bad, and was going to be punished for it. She actually put her trembling hands up in front of her, started backing away.

The scent of her fear returned, stronger than before, making his mouth water. Shaking his head to clear it, Spike wondered if she wasn't a bit crazy, but then he realized that she'd just been reacting on instinct. He passed a scrutinizing gaze over her face. A slow recognition dawned.

The girl barely even knew what she was, what she was capable of. She hadn't been trained up proper.

 With an icy grin he shot up and seized her wrists. He slid a boot behind her knee, bringing her down to the floor, and rolled on top of her, chuckling. He pinned her arms over her head. She immediately started struggling, wild-eyed, making delicious little whimpering noises in her throat, and he shook his head.

"Don't worry, love," he grunted, panting from the effort of holding her down. "M'not into deflowering unwilling virgins – always left that to my bastard sire. Well, almost always," he amended with a faintly reminiscing smirk. "Too many willing ones about to bother, anyway."

The Slayer struggled violently beneath him, but she wasn't getting anywhere.

"Y'know…if this is your best, it's not good enough," he jeered nastily. "But I'd wager you already realized that."

She went still for a second before she gave a mighty yank and freed one of her hands. She flailed around, and while he tried to get control of her again, she somehow got hold of a sizeable hank of his short hair and gave it a painfully sharp pull.

Spike let out a startled yelp and tried to shake her off, but she only pulled harder. He finally cursed and turned his head, lashing out with his fangs at the soft flesh of her inner wrist. She cried out and released his hair, and he grabbed her hand in his, crushing her fingers together. Terror filled her eyes, but he didn't care.

Gold eyes smoldering with orange fires glared at her from beneath a heavy, scowling demon's brow. "Try that again and I'll beat you into the next the millennium and back, see if I don't."

Her wrist was cut jaggedly open from his bite, and leaking blood. It smelled incredibly sweet. He bent his head to steal a few deep, hungry swallows before drawing his tongue across the gash and letting his face shift back to it's human state.

The girl stared at him in mute shock as he raised his head, her face pale, paper white.

 "Sorry, Slayer," Spike said mock-ruefully, raising a thumb to swipe at the blood running down his chin. "Guess some women just bring out the demon in a man."

As her adrenaline-laced blood continued to spill, he felt his nostrils flare. The urge to kill her was so great he could barely stand it. He heard her pulse stutter and then quicken, and knew she was about to pass out.

"Get me a bandage," he said over his shoulder. He watched the Slayer's eyes widen slightly at the order before they abruptly rolled back into her head. Her head dropped to loll against his forearm, and he could feel the heat of her exertions warm his skin through the sleeve of his duster.

"A-a bandage?" One of the vampires suddenly asked in confusion.

"Yes, a bandage," he snapped, and realized he was still as well as cradling the Slayer in his arms. Disturbed, he immediately drew back, letting the girl's head thud loudly against the concrete floor. He frowned, and impatiently snapped his fingers over his shoulder. "Come on, give me a cloth or somethin'. I need to bind up this wound before she bleeds out, you dolt."

A strip of fabric touched his fingers, and Spike accepted it without looking. He wound it tightly around the girl's small wrist and roughly knotted it.

"You're not gonna' kill her?"

Spike smiled unkindly at the unconscious girl. "Not yet. I've just had a better idea." Straightening, he slowly turned around and looked the two vampires up and down, an expression of chilling malice lighting in his blue eyes. "Now…as for you two…"

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Dream/Flashback

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She was late, late, late! So late she felt like the white rabbit, in fact – "Eek!"

Scrambling to cover herself, even though she didn't need covering, Buffy glared at the man who'd crept up beside her in the empty girl's locker room. "Merrick?! What are you doing here? This is a naked place!"

The older man glared right back, his mustache twitching. "If I have to remind you once again that you are the Slayer – "

"Ugh! Not that again!" Buffy rolled her eyes at the ceiling. "Well, what if I told you I don't 'want' to be the Slayer?"

"I tell you, you have no choice in the matter! You either agree to be trained, or the vampires will eventually find out who you are and you will die."

Buffy stared at him and then started throwing her cheer gear back into her bag from where she'd laid it out in readiness on the bench, her long ponytail swinging violently. "Ugh! Fine! I'll be the stupid Slayer, already! Just don't expect me to give up my social life because of it. I'll skip practice tonight, but just this once, got it? I've got a full schedule, buster."

"Don't be so blind, Buffy. It is dangerous out there. There are vampires, and a million other evil things I won't tell you about at the moment because I know you're already frightened. You don't yet understand the evil they stem from, don't yet know the monster, the nature of the beasts. You haven't yet seen a victim. You don't know the horror of it, the…the violation of being leeched by a demon."

"So you're saying it isn't like the movies," Buffy commented sarcastically.

"No, it is not. This is serious, girl! When most vampires' kill, they don't just drain their victims and leave. They aren't anything so simple as murderers. It is in their nature to hunt, to torture and kill – and sometimes, to add to their number. When they exchange blood with a victim, they leave much more than just a corpse behind."

Buffy held up a carefully manicured hand. "Listen, I don't have to know all the gory stuff to be able to slay a vampire. Wooden stake, holy water, sunlight – it's like falling off a log."

Merrick's voice was bursting with frustration and indignation. "Buffy, you aren't listening to me! You're hiding, being flip because you do not want to face your reality. You are afraid, and it's to be expected – but if you want to live longer than a few nights, you must learn how to kill your fear, to eradicate every trace of it. Vampires can smell it, are attracted to it – they thrive on it. To kill a vampire you must understand how it moves, how it thinks. You must know that you cannot just walk into a cemetery toting a bag of wooden stakes and expect to slay every vampire you come across!"

Feeling pissed off, Buffy through a shoe into her bag with unnecessary violence. "Watch me."

"Buffy, you must understand, there are varying degrees of skill, of strength among the undead. The older they are, the stronger they are. They are fast, and they are cunning. They are not the weaker, confused newly dead that you encountered at the cemetery last evening. Sometimes it doesn't even matter how old the vampire is for it to be more treacherous than another. For instance, there is a master vampire in this city right now who is little more than a century old."

"So?" Buffy continued angrily stuffing her cheer gear back into her gym bag. "I thought you told me in the cemetery the other night that there are a lot of master vampires. Big whoop."

"This one is master of all Los Angeles, Buffy. The only way he could have become master is to have killed the previous one – and that vampire was nearly a thousand years old by our records, one of the oldest existing vampires on earth."

"Only 'one of'? Not 'the'?" Buffy shuddered. "I'd hate to see what the oldest one ever looks like. Hope he uses a good moisturizer."

Merrick ignored her interruption. "Lothos was famous for hunting Slayers, and over a thousand years, he killed many. The current master defeated Lothos in combat. Am I impressing upon you the seriousness of your situation?"

"Okay, this guy is like, the Ubervamp. What, does that mean he has his own parking space at Neiman Marcus? So what if he's like, Mayor of the L.A. undead. He's just another blood-sucking vampire, Merrick."

 "This blood-sucking vampire could snap your foolish neck in a second, Buffy."

Buffy stilled and slowly brought her eyes up to meet his.

Merrick's tone became low and very intense. "This master has killed two Slayers over the past century, Buffy – that we know of. There is another which has never truly been confirmed."

"He – this guy, he's killed…Slayers? Current Slayers? The one's that you trained?"

"No, none of the girls I have trained have died by his hand – but by others like him." Merrick looked strained. "This is why you must train. You must convince yourself that you are not going to be as easy to kill as the other girls."

"Well, I'm not. I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm probably not anything like the other girls."

"No, I believe I can safely say that you are like nothing I have ever encountered before."

"See?" she grinned widely. "Anyway," Buffy pulled her bag onto her shoulder, and closed her locker door, "I have something those other girls didn't."

"And what might that be?"

"My keen fashion sense?"

The Watcher rolled his eyes. "Oh, vampires of the world, beware," he muttered behind his walrus-like mustache.

"Merrick, did you just make a joke?"

He sent her a warning look. "I'm going to ready things - just meet me at the address I gave you – the one you were supposed to meet me at two evenings ago?"

Buffy sighed as the man left, her shoulders slumping as she heard the practice music start up from outside in the gym. She was the captain, she was supposed to be out there – but instead that total bitch Kimberly was probably strutting around with her new fake nose in the air, talking about her behind her back to the others…

Buffy stared at her locker, and then looked at her watch. If she were fast, she could get out into the gym, show the girls the new stuff, and get over to Merrick's without being too late – but even if she was, she could always claim she got lost, anyway.

Decision made, Buffy looked over her shoulder to make sure Merrick had gone before shrugging off her bag and quickly pulling out her gear.

What was another hour, after all? The world wasn't going to end if the Slayer put off her training for just a few minutes longer…

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End Dream/Flashback

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Buffy woke up from the dream with a start, all of her memories hitting her with the force of a cyclone.

The world hadn't ended - but her world had.

Her Watcher, Merrick, her parents…they were dead, slaughtered in their homes.

All because of her.

Buffy shuddered, closing her eyes, moaning softly in denial, but the sight of mother's dead eyes staring accusatorily at her from the blood-drenched kitchen floor had her opening them again, and quickly.

God, she wanted them alive again. If only she hadn't stayed late for her practice, if only she'd just gone to Merrick's and then straight home…she might have been there to protect them, to save them. If only she'd decided to tell them about the vampires, and her calling. At least then they'd have had fair warning, even if they'd probably have called her crazy, and locked her away in a mental institution. If only she hadn't been so stupid and selfish…

Bogged down by guilt and horror and sorrow, the lump on the back of her head making it pound unbearably, Buffy nonetheless stared dry-eyed at her surroundings. It had been her experience that tears only made things feel worse.

She was in a what felt like a cavernous, drafty darkened room. The air was cold and damp, and smelled faintly of coppery blood and cigarette smoke. It was nearly pitch-black, which made her skin crawl, but enough light shone through beneath a crack under a door nearby for her not to be frozen in utter terror.

Buffy sat up, hands touching and feeling the cold hard cement floor beneath her. She hissed as she banged her wounded wrist against something as she shakily pulled herself up. She wrapped one hand over the bulkiness of a cloth bandage, and wondered why she couldn't remember what had happened between the time the vampires had knocked her out and now.

Not knowing what else to do, she cast a look around the silent room before she started inching towards the door.

"Don't bother," a deep voice said, laced with quiet threat. It echoed slightly off the walls. "I'll make it to the door before you can."

Buffy jumped as if she'd been bitten. She paused, sickly aware of the danger she was in. She looked stiltedly over her shoulder, and her ears caught a metallic click. A second later a flame lit the room enough for her to see that she was standing back against the wall. For an instant, she could also see the owner of the voice. She had a glimpse of a pale-skinned face, made up of raw, sharp angles and hollows, and a head of smooth platinum hair, highlighted by the fire, before the click sounded, and the room plunged into near darkness again. He was a vampire. She inhaled sharply in alarm, and the acrid odor of cigarette smoke curling thickly around her head nearly choked her.

"S'about time you woke up," the voice said testily. "Bloody great disappointment you are, Slayer. Vampire can't nip off with even a pint of your blood without you passin' out for two days straight. What the hell were they thinkin' when they called you? Got all the resiliency of a wet tissue, you do. "

Her heart beat kicked into overdrive. Buffy's hand automatically dropped to the waistband of her designer jeans, only to discover that the stake she'd carried there every night since the night Merrick had given it to her, was gone. Her hand shook as it clutched hopelessly at empty air. Her breath came in thin gasps as she waited for inevitable, listened for the rush of the vampire who would bring pain and death.

A noise sounded nearby, and she heard footsteps coming near. Buffy realized the vampire was moving, and he wasn't making any attempt to be quiet. As the footsteps stopped, she couldn't help straining to see how near he was. She saw the glowing end of a cigarette first, and had to blink through a cloud of smoke before she could make out anything in the dark. As it cleared, she gasped aloud and jumped, and pressed herself back into the wall. He was almost on top of her, and a spasm of fear knifed through her chest. As he bent his head towards her, his eyes caught the barest glint of light from somewhere, making them somewhat visible to her. He noticed her looking up at him, and he gave her a wide smile, baring his teeth in a thoroughly un-friendly way. He blew another cloud of smoke into her face, and she coughed despite herself.

The vampire lifted the glowing cigarette up, face level, between his thumb and forefinger. The burning end was pointed right at her. "This botherin' you?" he asked considerately.

Buffy frantically shook her head as she tried to hold her breath. She was experienced just enough with soulless vampires to know that if she voiced an objection, he'd probably be more than happy to put the cigarette out, alright.

In. Her. Eye.

His hand moved and she gulped, head banging back into the wall, her heart beating triple-time in her throat.

"Relax," the vampire told her, a ghost of laughter in his tone. "Better concentrate on controlling your breathing, love – pulse is goin' a mile a minute, and it's not at all steady. Wouldn't want you sufferin' some kind of heart-failure before the fun starts – 'specially at your tender young age. That would be tragic."

Buffy swallowed, fighting her need to strike out and run. He sounded entirely too reasonable. That in itself was enough to make want to run, but she didn't know where she was, or what the demon had planned. The door could lead to freedom, or a hundred more just like him. "Who are you? What do you want?" she asked in a strained whisper, trying to buy time while her mind raced with possibilities of escape...but then, in a harsh blast of reality, she remembered her parents.

What did she have left to escape to? Home wasn't home anymore. If she did get away, somehow managed to survive, what did she have to look forward to? No parents, being labeled the school pariah, sent to live with her extremely annoying aunt who already had like, ten bazillion bratty kids, or, even more likely, getting shoved off by the state to some dysfunctional foster family until she was eighteen.

As Buffy reeled from the depressing thoughts,  the vampire bent his head closer to hers, cold eyes that she could now tell were a shade of blue flickering over her anxious face with something close to glee. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise now, would we?"

She didn't even want to know what he was talking about. Buffy attempted to turn her eyes away, but something about the vampire made her hesitate, made her lashes flicker up again, made her somehow dare to take a second look.

Her close regard of him was quickly noted, and clearly unexpected, as his brows drew together in a frown. He stared back at her for a long minute before a corner of his lips twisted up. "Scared of me, Slayer?"

She tensed at his use of her title, but didn't answer. He took a step forward, crowding her, and suddenly vamped full out. Unprepared for the change, the baring of fangs, and the low growl that came from his throat, Buffy flinched and drew back.

The vampire was evidently disappointed for some reason. His face changed back to human, and he eased back a bit with a sigh. "Not much of a screamer, are you? Pity. Can't say I'm not disappointed."

Buffy shook her head, confused. Was he trying to say she wasn't easily frightened? If only he knew…

 "But maybe you'll be worth the fight, then, after all."

"I don't want to fight you." Buffy dropped her eyes and stared over his shoulder at the darkness.

"Presumptuous, aren't we? Never said you'd be fighting me. You'd last about all of three seconds, pet, and that's being generous. Truth told, you're just…beneath me."

"Don't want to fight," Buffy whispered again. "Just…get it over with."

"What?"

"Kill me," she said shakily, wrapping her arms around herself. She looked up again. "Drink me, torture me, snap my neck – I don't care how. Just do it."

"Uh-huh." The vampire reached up and thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "And this sudden…death wish of yours wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the tosser twins slaughtered your parents, would it?"

Buffy stood silent. While he didn't sound as shocked by her request as she'd have thought, he did sound extremely disappointed.

"Yeah, thought as much. Well, much as I can, uh…appreciate your guilt, pet, apathy ain't exactly a turn-on to vampires. Killing something that actually wants to die sort of sucks the fun right out of it for us."

Before she even realized what she was going to do, her arm reared back and she punched him – or tried to. He caught her fist in his hand, and grinned at her.

"What do you know - quite the little fighter after all." The vampire crushed her small hand inside his until she gasped from the pain, and then shoved it back at her.

Buffy cradled it against her chest, eyes stinging. Fear grabbed her again, and she started stumbling away from him, against the wall. The vampire walked slowly after her, unconcerned by her instinctive attempts to escape.

"Y'know," he began thoughtfully, his accented words echoing in the room, "I wasn't there m'self, but I heard tell your mum was a fighter, too…before she got all drained o'course."

A surge of anger brought some of Buffy's courage back. She paused along the wall, and straightened up, focusing on the pain in her fist as she clenched it, instead of her fear. "This is pointless you know," Buffy told him flatly as he stalked her. Her skin was crawling as she strained her eyes to catch brief glimpses of him in the black room, unnerved by the rippling edge of something long and leathery, not unlike a bat's wing, the brief outline of a shoulder, the pale flash of a sharp cheekbone. "You killed my family, my Watcher – anyone who ever really loved me or cared about me is dead. There's nothing worse you can do to me. You might as well just kill me and get it over with."

~*~

Spike found himself shaking his head in wonder at the girls ignorance. "Nothing worse, eh? You really are a young one, aren't you?"

He slowly trailed after her as she began an unsteady, backwards trek around the room. "I've been around a good bit longer than you, and I can tell you…there are worse things," he said ominously, gaining a huge amount of satisfaction in the entire exchange. Sure this Slayer couldn't fight worth a damn, but she was so much fun to play with. He hadn't had this much fun in ages

~*~

To Be Continued in Chapter Three

Next: "You think I'm impressed by you? That you bein' the Slayer means anything at all to me? I kill Slayers the same as I kill everyone and everything else – you're just another meal to me, baby."

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A/N: First, many thanks for the reviews. They're always helpful, more than you know. Second, due to several requests that I shorten my chapters, I've done exactly that. The second half of this chapter will be posted as chapter three, probably within the next week. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Kevin, without whom this story probably wouldn't exist.(K - I did NOT use a walk-through on Chaos Bleeds, you sad bastard…er, sorry I asked Mom to send you back. ^_~ Love you!)

Thanks for reading!

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