CHAPTER FIVE

Buffy felt guiltier than maybe she should be. She deserved a life, didn't she? She didn't think taking a few hours off of patrol was being that selfish. They had gotten their grades back from the history test and she had done far better than she thought she had so why not take a little time for herself? She had to kill Emily as she sat up in her coffin last night. Buffy deserved a break from having to think about that. Right now the police were searching for the child's 'stolen' body. What much Emily's poor parents be feeling, first their daughter slain then her body 'taken'? Buffy knew, of course, that Ilya and any number of other baddies could be out there at this very moment doing evil but if she let herself think about it she might go nuts.

Of course her mother thought she was studying at Willow's. On the other hand, Willow's mom wouldn't guess that her daughter was sneaking out on a school night to go clubbing. Buffy looked around the Bronze, almost stunned at how many kids there were inside the place on a Wednesday night. Didn't anyone care where their kids were? How was she supposed to keep any of them safe when no one paid any attention to curfews?

Buffy glanced at her watch. Maybe she should be going out on patrol. Willow was wrapped up in watching Dingos playing on stage. Buffy was always shocked that the Bronze could book a band any night of the week. Of course, the Dingos had some room for improvement and probably didn't rate a weekend slot yet. It didn't seem to bother Willow. Xander had cut out on them under the guise of heading for the men's room. Buffy would have wondered if he had fallen in or needed to eat a bran muffin or something as long as he had been gone. Then again, on the tightly packed dance floor, it was next to impossible to miss having girls brush up against him, so Buffy decided she didn't want to know about what Xander was doing in the bathroom.

"What's wrong, Buffy?" Willow looked at her with sad puppy eyes.

Buffy stabbed at the ice in her vanilla coke with her straw. "Nothing. Just thinking, I shouldn't be here having fun. I have work to do." Buffy was content that at least it wasn't a lie. She was worried about that. She worried more about the fact that she missed Angel. She had been avoiding him ever since she saw him in the park with Drusilla. She had gone out of her way to make sure their paths remained uncrossed. She lied to Giles about Angel being next to impossible to find when he asked about if she had hooked up with Angel to do the planning thing. She had even hidden in the tub - telling herself she needed that extra long soak - when she had sensed Angel outside her window. She knew she was being childish. She hated herself for it. She just couldn't help it.

"All work and no play makes for a cranky Buffy," Willow said. "Besides you should be celebrating that B you got in history."

Buffy lifted her coke, wiggling it. "See me celebrate." She thumped the glass down and sighed. "I can't get Chrissy's face out of my mind, seeing her in that alleyway. It could have been Dawn, Willow. They were all together in that coffee house. My sister came this close to dying and she can't even see it."

"I'm sure she knows that now, Buffy," Willow said.

"You haven't been in my house in the last two days. She and Mom are about ready to kill each other. She's all mad because she's going to miss the Fall Ball. She wants me to talk Mom into letting her go and I won't because what if I don't dust Ilya by then? It's only two days away. It took me a lot longer than that to defeat the Master. I still haven't finished off Spike but at least he's not out there raping and killing girls...that I know of."

"Angel would have told you if Spike was like that, Buffy," Willow said, not sounding convinced.

"I wish I could believe that, Willow. But they're vampires. They don't have souls, not like Angel. They probably wouldn't think twice about it. Spike was more than happy to use those kids turned into demons at Halloween." She shoved her drink toward the center of the table. "I should probably go. I'm bringing things down."

"Buffy."

Instead of Willow admonishing her that she wasn't being a downer, her name was uttered softly by a far more masculine voice. Buffy turned, looking over her shoulder, thinking back a few nights. She hadn't sensed Angel approaching this time. Giles was right. She needed work. She mustered up a smile, trying to pretend everything was all right. "Hey, Angel."

"We need to talk," he said, as business like as the first time she kicked him to the ground in that alleyway.

She gestured at Willow. "It would be rude if I just cut out on my friends."

His brow lowered but Xander's reappearance cut off anything the vampire might have to say. They gave each other a brief hostile look like pack members circling each other. Xander quickly proved to be the omega and covered by turning to Willow, "Hey Will, I love this song. Wanna dance?"

"Oh sure." She gave Buffy a nervous look, obviously sensing the tension. "Buffy was about to go out on patrol anyhow."

Buffy scowled at Willow's lack of solidarity. She could have at least pretended Buffy wasn't actually a free agent. "Unfortunately true. You kids have fun."

Buffy didn't wait for Angel as she stomped out of the Bronze. She knew he was following and that he'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to sense her mood.

"Why have you been avoiding me, Buffy?" His strong fingers caught hold of her shoulder.

She squirmed away. "I'm not."

"Buffy, I'm not a fool. You've been avoiding me ever since I told you about Ilya." He dragged her to a halt as they left the back alley behind the Bronze and stepped out into the light of the street. "I had nothing to do with him coming here."

"No, but you could have told me you were trying to work with Spike and Dru."

His face fell. "I thought you might be in the park. I've been trying ever since to tell you about my plan but you have been...unavailable."

She dug her fingers into her hips, tossing her head back. "Did you think to tell me before hand?"

"Because I knew it was a long shot. Spike is never going to let me use Drusilla as bait but if I could get her so worried that Ilya might hurt her again that she might take the fight to him with Spike protecting her. Spike would do just about anything for her, even work with us."

"You still should have told me," Buffy huffed.

"You know now. You would have known three days ago if you'd been speaking to me." His gaze knifed her. "I don't get why you're so angry about this."

"You had the perfect opportunity to kill Drusilla that night and you didn't take it."

"Neither did you," he countered as their path took them into a near by cemetery. "And you aren't mad at me because I didn't kill Drusilla."

"How would you know?" Buffy lifted her chin defiantly. It wasn't why she was mad but she could hardly admit she had been jealous.

"Because I've been around long enough to know jealousy when I see it," he replied.

Buffy held his gaze for a few long movement then sighed, looking away. "We're both sad, you know that? You get jealous over Xander because he gets to be with me when the sun's out, even though I keep telling you that is not the best light to view me in. And I'm jealous of someone from your past. I know Dru's the past. I know there's plenty more in your past, too. I mean you're how old?"

"Dru is most definitely my past, Buffy but we still have a connection." He caught hold of her, to insure he had her full attention. "She is my childe and I am responsible for her. It would be far easier to stake her or let you do it but..."

"She's family?" Buffy's eyebrows raised.

"Yes, actually she is. It's not an easy thing to turn on your vampiric family. Some vampires don't care about that sort of thing. They don't even bother to stick around long enough to see their children rise. Ilya is like that. Others bond. My family bonded. Darla, Spike, Dru, we were close like you are with Willow and Xander."

"Sort of a blood sucking Brady Bunch," Buffy said and his lips puckered at the pop culture reference. She wondered if he got the second reference to "The Lost Boys."

"I suppose." He leaned down and kissed her. "And I'm sorry Drusilla makes you so uncomfortable, Buffy. I don't love her. I never really did, not in any romantic sense. She was a tool, a doll to play with. What I did to her...it was far worse than the crime I'm being punished for. But she isn't a threat to you...well, she is in the usual vampire is a threat to the Slayer sense of things."

"That I can handle," Buffy assured him, catching hold of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. She stopped, cocking her head to the side. "Do you hear voices?"

"Sounds like a group of kids."

"In a graveyard?" Buffy rolled her eyes. "This is so not a make-out place."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Angel said, heading off toward the voices.

Buffy groaned when they came across a pack of Goth wannabe's drinking and making out in the cemetery. She counted eight of them. She knew most of them from school including Amy, who wasn't really Goth and Ham, who was an okay kid from Buffy's science class who just didn't seem to get if he didn't dress like this, maybe people wouldn't pick on him so much. She was about to go talk to Amy, to shoo them out of the graveyard when a voice sounded behind her.

"Look tasty, don't they?"

Buffy whirled. Spike was leaning on a half-sunken headstone, poking at the cross on top just to hear his skin sizzle. He wore his finest as far as she could tell; the deep red shirt, the only splash of color relieving the black. His black nails and eyeshadow made him fit right in with Amy's crowd. "Oh, you are so the last thing I need."

"Don't worry, Slayer. I didn't come to fight with you and Peaches." Spike lit up so casually Buffy thought maybe he considered her no threat at all.

"Peaches?" Buffy asked, seeing the irritation pinching Angel's face.

"What do you want then, Spike?" Angel stepped just in front of her, enough to both protect and annoy her.

"Not nice, Angel, putting my Dru out there as bait." Spike blew smoke rings. "She told me what this wanker did to her last time. What? You wanted to give him another bite at the apple?"

"I want him gone. Dru is the fastest way of drawing him out. She probably told you what she did to Ilya," Angel said.

Spike snorted, smoke curling out of his nostrils. "Makes your nadgers want to crawl back up inside you, just thinking about it."

"So what did you come here for then, Spike, if you don't want to fight?" Buffy didn't trust the idea of a truce with Spike but for Angel's sake she'd play along.

"Feisty, this one is, better than that first Slayer I met...course, couldn't understand a word that bint was saying." Spike took a long drag. "Don't worry, love. I'm not here for your precious Nancy boy. Dru and I have plans for him, we do and it don't involve him getting dusted."

Buffy hated the slipperiness of Spike's tone. She didn't want to think of him and Dru planning anything for Angel. Before she could say anything though, Spike's expression turned to one of bemusement.

"Of course, things sometimes don't go as planned, like that." He pointed at the same time as someone screamed.

Buffy whipped back around and saw a vampire in the midst of Amy's friends. He looked very much like the portrait in Giles' book, only he was clean shaven now. Buffy didn't wait for Ilya to get his hands on one of the girls. They might be slightly older than the ones he had been raping and turning but from the looks of things, this perv didn't mind them just old enough to drive.

"Buffy, be careful," Angel hissed, as he broke off from her to come at Ilya from a slightly different angle.

Buffy hurtled a headstone and tossed a spin kick into the vampire. He was like hitting stone. She was shocked at how small he was, not much bigger than her. She was expecting some hulking giant, a fairy tale monster that loamed over the little girls before ripping them apart. He was short, built like a wrestler, and she found out fast he hit like a sledgehammer.

She hit ground as Angel and Spike simultaneously took on Ilya. Her breath slammed out of her. She heard Spike blustering about how no one goes after his Drusilla. She was shocked to see Spike go flying. He hit a crypt hard enough to crack the stone. He slid down the granite and puddled on the ground. Angel shoved Ilya back, bearing him to the ground. As he was trying to get the stake out of his coat pocket, Ilya tore up the bronze flower vase from the ground and clocked Angel with it.

Buffy forced herself up, wondering if she had broken ribs. It didn't matter. She had to get to Angel before Ilya could finish him, but the vampire was far more interested in snaring one of Amy's friends and running. Buffy didn't know the girl who had been paralyzed by fear and hadn't run when the rest of the kids scattered. Now, in the vampire's hands, she was very much animated, kicking and shrieking.

"Let her go," Buffy said, taking out two stakes, one for either hand.

Ilya grinned at her. "You must be the Slayer. How nice of you to come. I guess my little party will have to wait."

Buffy couldn't dodge the girl as Ilya threw her like a sack of flour. Both girls toppled to the ground and Buffy's head smashed into stone. Through the stars in her eyes, she saw Ilya dart off. He slipped into one of the crypts. "Angel, the tunnels, he can get there from that crypt."

Angel was back on his feet. "You get the kids home. I'll go after him."

Buffy didn't have a chance to argue as much as she wanted to. Her head felt like someone was trying to crack it and make scrambled eggs. She noticed Spike had gone, too. She had no idea if he had just beat feet or if he was down in the tunnels with Angel and Ilya. She wanted desperately to go after Angel.

"You're bleeding," the girl who had narrowly escaped being Ilya's next victim said, touching Buffy's head.

Buffy put a hand to her scalp, feeling the gash and the warm blood. "So I am."

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"Nah. Do you?" Buffy helped the girl up. She saw Amy and two others still in the fringes of the graveyard, unwilling to just abandon their friend and yet too afraid to help.

"I don't think so."

"Come on, I'll get you home," she said, knowing she had a duty to the innocent. Angel could handle himself. She'd get her classmates home then she'd try to find Angel. Giles' scolding rang in her head the whole while as she walked them home. She hadn't sensed any of the vampires. She had to be the worst Slayer ever.