Author: Dev Nine-Asher
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!
A/N: Thanks to all for the much-needed feedback and prompting. Apologies for the lack of updates – and the filler chapter. Annoying, but necessary. BTW, indicate 'flashback' moments.
~*~
Chapter Six~*~
For a long time Buffy stood in a corner of her drafty prison, ear's straining for the sound of the rats Spike had claimed inhabited the place. After a while she thought that maybe if she found the source of the breeze, she might find some avenue of escape. She began running her hands over the walls, which were made of cold, wet stone, shuffling her feet along the floor in an effort to scare off anything small, furry, and bite-y in her path.
It didn't take long for her to realize that there really was no escape. The breeze came from small fissures in the stone, but when she'd tried to dig the rocks loose, she'd discovered it to be hopeless. The walls may have been damp, but they were solid.
Sinking down onto the floor, she covered her face with her hands, willing away her fear of the dark. Looking for a way out had kept her mind off it, but now that there was obviously no way out, it was closing in on her.
God, she hated Spike.
Buffy drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins, wishing her mom was with her again. She'd always been the only one able to chase the monsters away…
…but she was gone, now, and Buffy was slowly coming to understand that no matter how much she might want her mother, there were reasons why people shouldn't come back from the dead.
Merrick had told her why, tried to warn her…but it had taken a master vampire called Spike to show her.
~*~
Spike stood above the hatch for a time, waiting to hear the Slayer's hysteria erupt. He frowned when no sounds were forthcoming, and then mulishly kicked the runner back over the door and threw himself into his chair, legs sprawling.
He supposed he ought to be relaxing now, knowing that there was no escape from the room below, and the Slayer would actually be staying put at last; but there was no relaxation to be found when it came to that one. He was on edge and had been ever since she'd arrived, and it was unlikely he was going to know any peace at all until she was good and dead.
Spike found himself glaring with murderous intensity at the spot on the floor before his chair, and abruptly stood up, suddenly ready to end it. What had he been thinking? He was a vampire, she was a Slayer – he killed her kind. And he liked it. He thrived on the challenge, the diversion of it. Why should he go to the trouble to keep her alive when he got such a thrill out of hunting those like her?
On the verge of violently ripping open the hatch and making a hasty meal of the girl, Spike cursed when a heavy knock came on the door. He stalked forward and unlocked it, swinging it open wide. Lucius stood outside, and Spike immediately felt his mood darken even more.
"What the hell do you want?" Spike raked his gaze over the larger vampire, taking immense satisfaction in the sight of the still healing wounds both he and the Slayer had inflicted on the big, ugly wanker.
"Forgive me…Master," Lucius said grudgingly. "I've heard that the Slayer has escaped…again."
Spike opened his mouth, but a very muffled, panicked yell from the cell below caught his ear, and he tilted his head, listening.
"Let me out! Let me out, let me out, let – me – out!"
Spike caught the other vampire's eye, and quickly read the expression of dismay and disbelief that flashed across his face. Lucius almost looked disappointed.
Gleefully, Spike went over and flipped the carpet away again. He knelt down on one knee and rapped his knuckles on the steel of the hatch, making a show of listening intently. "What's the matter, Slayer? Did you say something? You're too quiet. Don't get out as much as you used to, eh?" He looked up at Lucius and arched a questioning brow. "Sound like she escaped to you?"
Instead of answering, Lucius gave a tight nod, his eyes hooded and face set in sour, ugly lines. "Clearly I heard wrong."
Spike straightened up slowly. "Yeah…clearly you did."
Spike looked at him with a steely, condescending glint in his eyes that clearly made Lucius regret his challenging tone of voice. The vampire shifted uncomfortably on his damaged leg, and then lowered his eyes, managing a slight bow at the waist. "Master. There is something else I wished to speak with you about."
"Yeah?" Spike bent over and retrieved his dagger from the mess of the Slayer's hair on the floor, his thumb testing its sharpness. The silver blade glinted in the candlelight as he turned it this way and that. "And what would that be?"
Lucius cleared his throat with a low rumble. "There have been reports that the Slayer's absence is being investigated by her people. I have reason to believe she is being searched for."
Spike lifted his eyes from the blade and snorted. "That lot of fat old coffin dodgers? Please. I've dealt with 'em before. They couldn't find their collective ass to scratch it." His voice turned mocking. "Don't worry your pretty lit'l head about it."
A slight snarl appeared on the larger vampire's meaty face. "I have heard rumors from the street demons that many of their number have been bribed for information by several humans…and then slaughtered when their usefulness has ended."
"What's all this about, then?" Spike scowled, growing impatient. "The notion of a couple of tweed-clad grandpa's toting crosses and holy water got you all nervous? Listen, I know I come across as being all open and sensitive, but sorry, really not the hand-holding type. I'm contrary like that."
"The Slayer is becoming too much of a danger to us. I think we should finish her. The others are of the same opinion. The Council of Watchers is getting too close, and to keep our hold on the city, we cannot afford the further depletion of our numbers."
Spike's eyes flickered up again. His tone was deceptively good-natured. "You questioning me, Luc?"
Lucius's stony silence more than answered for him.
"That's what I thought." Spike flipped the heavy dagger in his hand, holding it now by it's blade. "You do good work, Luc. You've always been loyal – as loyal as one of us can be, anyways. You're a decent minion…but I don't keep you around to do the thinking. You take your orders from me, you do the dirty work, that's what I keep you around for. Aside from that, mate, you're just another dust-bunny waiting to happen."
Something glinted in the candlelight, a slight breeze stirring the air near his ear. Lucius turned his head to look at the blade suddenly deeply embedded in the wall next to his head.
"Now, then. Any more questions?" Spike crossed his arms, and jerked his head toward the hatch in the floor. "I've got a Slayer to torture, here."
Lucius slowly looked back, a mutinous gleam in his yellow eyes. "No…Master," he fairly spat. "No more 'questions'. I'll leave you to it."
Still staring him down, Spike gave a slight nod. "Yeah. Why don't you do that then?"
"Forgive me for interrupting, Master."
Spike watched after the other vampire as he left, and shook his head. He'd always known Lucius would eventually cause trouble, and it seemed as if the arrival of the Slayer was going to be a perfect excuse. The surly vamp had originally served under Lothos, after all. It had only been a matter of time before the bloody behemoth decided to try rubbing his two remaining brain cells together and take over.
Spike glared at the square of metal set in the floor. The girl was quiet now, too quiet for his liking, though he didn't doubt that with her fear of the dark she was suffering – he'd just loved to have heard her begging to be let out some more. Now that was entertainment.
Sighing, Spike turned to leave the room. The night had held such promise only an hour before. He'd finally gotten his car back from the garage he'd sent it to, and the lady had never looked so good. The only thing was, the fresh interior still held the faint, but unmistakable odor of having been burned, like blackened toast.
Lips twisting sourly, Spike ignored the curious looks of the minions he passed outside, and headed back the way he'd come in earlier. He was still in the mood for a fight. If Luc was right, and the Wanker's council was snooping around L.A., intent on sniffing out the Slayer, he was going to have to do some hunting of his own. No matter how much of a pain the girl was, or how many times he came within a hair of killing her, she was proving to be the most interesting thing to come his way in a long while. Perversely, he wasn't quite ready to give her up.
~*~
Several hours later, Spike exited the demon bar in a very, very bad mood. It hadn't been the first place he'd visited tonight and run into nothing but more of the same. Whatever Luc was planning, he'd at least been telling him the truth about the Slayer's keepers sniffing around for her. From what he'd heard from most of the street demons, they were getting close to pinpointing Spike's very own little spot of Hell – too close, in fact. It wasn't going to be long before something finally broke down and spouted off the Slayer's exact location. He hadn't exactly been keeping it a closely guarded secret, after all. He'd been enjoying the notoriety too much to keep everything hushed up. His constant need for attention had become his curse once again.
Standing in a stinking, rotting trash littered alley, Spike paused to light up a cigarette, and stood contemplating the graffiti littered walls…and the fucked up mess his existence had become.
~*~
She couldn't have any idea of how many hours or even days, had passed, but apparently her Slayer instincts still knew when the sun rose and set. During the late hours of the morning after Spike had thrown her into the cell, Buffy tried vainly to remember what she had once read, about how long a person could live without food and water. Was it three days without water, and seven without food? Or was it the other way around? And did it really even apply to her since she had Slayer strength? Oh, God – what if Spike forgot about her, and just left her down here? Would she, like, waste away extra slow because she was stronger then most girls? It was a terrifying prospect.
Even more terrifying, what was she going to do when she finally broke down and had to, like, 'do her business', or whatever?
Buffy paused in pacing the confines of her cell. She'd been making herself constantly move across the space, to prove to her rattled brain that there was nothing sharing it with her, to ensure that she wouldn't fall asleep and have an almighty freak-out when she woke up to nothing but the blackness. She now directed her horrified, unseeing stare towards one of the cold, dank corners, and shuddered.
Starvation and Vampires, she could handle, she quickly decided, but the complete lack of indoor plumbing and sanitation was almost enough to send her shouting, banging on the walls in protest again.
With way too much time on her hands, and her hunger and thirst becoming a very real issue, Buffy found herself sitting on the floor against one of the walls, thinking back over the past weeks. She didn't want to think, it was the last thing on earth she wanted to do, because when she stopped long enough to do it, the monsters came back, and she wasn't just thinking about the imaginary ones in the darkness. The monsters were her memories, kept pushed to the back of her mind, contained in their own private little hell. Outside, in the pain and madness of her other prisons, she'd at least at the distraction of being able to see, and hear – in here, there was nothing but the quiet and the dark, like a sensory deprivation chamber. All she was left with was the pain inside, her thoughts that ate away at the wall closing them in. Unwilling, but hungry and thirsty and weak, Buffy sat against her wall and closed her eyes as the memories began to spill through, one by one…
~*~
Flashback
~*~
The day had started out normal, well, as normal as it could be for her after not having slept a wink all night. She'd stumbled through her shower and a couple of cherry pop-tarts, and her mom had driven her to school as usual. Her mother had been cheerful and chatty, but years of practice had Buffy seeing right through her. The extreme dismay the older woman had been feeling at her husband's unexpected 'business' trip showed clearly on her face. Lines of strain shadowed her forehead and mouth, and her hands clutched at the steering wheel in a way that told Buffy she was either very pissed or hurting so badly she felt the need to cling to something.
Buffy had always loved her father, but in that moment she'd found herself wishing, just for an angry, frightening instant, that he'd never come back, that his plane would crash and he'd get what he deserved for cheating on her mom…
School seemed weird after what she'd learned the night before. She met her friends at the entrance, listened to their chatter and gossip with half an ear, and walked with them dream-like through the common area. She was finding it hard to connect to the bright safety of the day when she knew what was coming when darkness fell.
If she'd barely been making it through her classes before, any tests she took that morning were doubtless guaranteed failures.
Worries weighing heavily on her, she collapsed at her table at lunch with a bottle of water and sighed with relief. Honestly, who used Algebra anyway?
Buffy's friends showed up shortly after, and she couldn't help but feel like they were staring at her like she was some kind of freak. She knew they couldn't possibly know what had happened to her, but there was no denying that they knew something was up. She looked up from her absent study of the table surface more than once to see them looking at her and talking behind their hands to each other – which made her all the more determined not to miss her practice later. Sure, there were evil things that needed killing, but she'd only been the Slayer for one day and already it was destroying her carefully cultivated social life!
~*~
It was weird in the extreme to be able to smell the night coming.
Buffy mulled over this later, as she rushed up the steps of the old, closed hotel where Merrick was apparently staying. Had she always had the ability, and just not known it?
At any rate, it had kind of freaked her out – but what about the last days hadn't? And now this…
Buffy huffed slightly as she found not a single one of the front doors in the once grand old hotel open. She frowned as she peered through dingy glass and askew blinds, and used one knuckle to knock. Geez, she was late, yeah, but better late than never, right? And was it really her fault that she hadn't been able to find the place? Was it her fault she couldn't find the address he'd given her?
Well, yeah, maybe, but she'd eventually remembered the name of the hotel printed across the top of the card Merrick had given her, hadn't she? A quick call to information had given her the address as well. At least now she had a legitimate excuse for being so late – kind of.
Buffy knocked again and then kicked the door in frustration. All that rushing to get out of practice, and the guy wasn't even here!
After a few minutes, she left the front of the building and crossed around to the back, where she found a heavy steel door proclaiming Laundry Delivery in faded, stenciled white letters. It was standing half open, and instead of being glad to find a way inside, something about the sight gave her major wiggins.
Easing through the space, careful not to touch the door in case it had squeaky hinges, Buffy dropped her gym bag on the tattered linoleum floor inside the entrance, and took out her stake. She took a few steps forward, her Nike's not making a sound on the dingy floor, her eyes darting around her poorly-lit surroundings, making out a staircase here, a huge pile of graying rags there…
…and then her foot slipped.
Catching herself, Buffy pulled her foot back, and automatically looked down. The sight on the floor within the pool of dim light coming from an upper stairwell gave her actual chills.
Her eyes were wide, fixed on the smeared, sticky pool of red at her feet, when a small movement at the edge of the light made her move. The stake clattered to the floor as she launched herself across the space, landing hard on her knees next to the man half-obscured by the pile of graying rags.
"Oh my God! Merrick!"
"When most vampires' kill, they don't just drain their victims and leave."
The man was on his back, blood spattering the front of his suit, a gory slash on the side of his neck sluggishly depositing a winding trail of blood to the floor, which collected in the widening pool she'd slipped in.
"They aren't anything so simple as murderers."
Buffy sobbed, putting her hands over her mouth to keep from being ill. She saw the twitch of his fingers out of the corner of her eye, and dropped her hands, leaning over him to see his eyes wide open and staring at her.
"Merrick, I'm sorry," she whispered, shaking her head. "All my fault…"
"You haven't yet seen a victim. You don't know the horror of it, the…the violation of being leeched by a demon."
He blinked.
Buffy gasped. "Merrick? Thank God! Let me call 911 – "
"Too...late," came the rasping breath. "Dead…already."
Buffy shook her head, until her eyes came to rest on his mouth, the bristle of his mustache, the blood on his suit. Her mind registered the darker color and consistency of it, and she sat back on her heels, horrified.
"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…"
"Oh, no. No…"
"Make sure…don't…back," Merrick's lips barely moved, but Buffy knew what he was telling her to do.
"Merrick? No," she shook her head. "No, I can't…you can't ask me to do that."
"Duty," he ground out, his eyes fierce. "Back…not same. Hear? Not…same. Wr-wrong."
"You don't yet understand the evil they stem from, don't yet know the monster, the nature of the beasts."
Buffy shook her head violently, tears leaking from her eyes, but Merrick's eyes held hers steadily.
"Head…heart," he breathed sternly. "Duty."
When they exchange blood with a victim, they leave much more than just a corpse behind…
She couldn't do it! She couldn't ever! "Oh, God, Merrick, please!"
The fierceness drained from the older man's eyes as he stared up at her. "Duty."
Buffy barely heard the harsh, gurgling whisper over the strong, strident voice reverberating in her head.
"…they leave much more than just a corpse…"
Wide-eyed and stricken, Buffy shakily hauled herself up. She moved, staring straight ahead, trembling as she slowly retrieved her stake.
"…much more than just a corpse…"
A glint caught her eye, and she moved her head to see the broken glass of an emergency case set into the wall. A heavy red firefighter's axe hung half out of the opening, and she reached out blindly, unblinking, to take it into her hands. Turning back to the older man on the floor, she fought not to fall to her knees again.
"…just a corpse…"
After the last rattling breath died in the man's throat, Buffy's nostrils flared as she swallowed, hard, swiped an arm over her nose and cheeks – and hefted the heavy axe.
~*~
"I don't get it. Why do I have to be the Slayer? I mean, why can't you just do it? You already know lots more about it than me anyway."
"Because you were born with the potential, and I was not. It is your birthright. I'm afraid the burden is on your shoulders now…"
~*~
Buffy slumped across the door she'd entered only a few minutes earlier, shaking in reaction to what she'd just done. She'd been sick, after, so sick…
Merrick was dead. It brought home a reality that she'd been ignoring ever since she'd learned of her calling. Vampires were real, they were evil, and they were out there, every night, killing people.
Brought home…Buffy straightened up, looking up into the blank night sky as a sudden thought struck her. If they'd known where Merrick had lived, what if…
Oh, God! Her parents!
Buffy launched herself off the door, and ran, but it was as if she couldn't move fast enough, as if everything was in slow motion. She ran, and ran, but she already knew somehow what she was going to find.
~*~
Her parents were dead.
It was Buffy's last thought as she went crashing down, her vision blackening at the pain searing into her skull from behind. Her fists unclosed themselves from the killing grip they had around the red-haired vampire's throat, and she fell, her cheek burning as it bounced on the hard kitchen floor. She blinked hazily as she saw her mother's eyes, open and staring at her, already going cold. In that moment, any youthful optimism of immortality was crushed underfoot.
Her parents were dead. She was going to die. Her life was over at sixteen.
What seemed obvious to her also seemed impossible. It had to be.
She went numb.
~*~
End Flashback
~*~
To Be Continued in Chapter Seven…
~*~
Next: Buffy stared down at the gray ashes on the floor before her, still stunned at what she'd just done. She'd only done what she had to, but part of her was suddenly mourning the loss of what could have been. For a few moments in time, before things had gone all hellishly wrong, she'd had a small piece of her old life back. She'd had a part of her beloved family back, and she'd unhesitatingly destroyed it.
A killer couldn't have a soft heart. The Chosen One had to understand the necessity of killing. Merrick had taught her that, in more ways than one. She'd never asked to become what she was. Being the Slayer was bad enough, but now she was wondering about Spike's earlier taunts, wondering if she really was that much different from the creatures she hunted…
