Disclaimer: I don't own the characters except for the ones that I created like Katy, Michelle, and Morgan.
CHAPTER 34-THE START OF SOMETHING VERY BAD
She stepped out onto the streets of London on her first official night as a vampire, hungry for blood. She wasn't sure exactly where to go as her sire had been inadvertently staked only a few moments after she had awoken to her new life. She watched several old men walk by and into a pub and for a moment thought about following, but then decided that their blood would not be to her liking. Even though she was not cold she zipped up her coat and made her way through the crowded streets towards a club that she had heard about shortly after arriving in London with the other new slayers. It wasn't a very large club, or seemingly very well visited, however it was just the type that she liked. She slipped into the club easily enough, mostly because it did not have a bouncer or anything of the sort. The club was unlike the Shahid Imzadi in that it only had one level but there were more lights and a dance floor that was surrounded by tables and chairs with the band up front and the bar near the door. She walked up to the bar and tried to order a drink, but the bartender behind the bar flatly refused to give her anything, that was until she reached over the bar and caught her by the throat, starting to squeeze her throat, aiming to pop her head off. In the bartenders surprise she was able to shove a bottle of something in front of Kennedy's face, hoping that she would let go, and it worked.
She let go casually and sat back down on the stool, spinning the cap off of the bottle cleanly and taking a full swig of the strong liquor, loving the feeling of it going down her throat. Her gaze filtered out onto the dance floor, watching the sweaty crowd bump and grind against each other, with the only difference being that the entire crowd was entirely female. Some of them were several years older than she was before she was turned but there were a few that seemed to have snuck in because they seemed to be a tad younger than her. Her eyes scanned the crowd for one that looked good to her, finally settling on a twenty something in the corner. She looked like she was desperately seeking a good time, as she seemed to be ready to talk to anyone that passed her by. Her dress seemingly painted on, showing off more than would likely be legal on the street outside, she kept scanning the crowd. Her raven black hair allowed to billow around her face Kennedy did not at first think of her as a meal. Kennedy slowly made her way up to the woman and was soon lost in a conversation, that would end the night with Kennedy devouring the young woman in the midst of the throes of passion.
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At about the same time that night, nearly two hours before dawn and a day after the fight, Spike regained consciousness. He found himself lying in the bed in his room with the heavy curtains closed and himself alone. He wondered how he had gotten home but when he tried to move, something that caused every square inch of his body to scream in pain, he guessed that he had been found after the blast and brought back to the mansion to recuperate. His thoughts briefly washed over wandering if Angel was okay but he could feel the faint presence of his grandsire nearby and guessed that he was up in his room with Nina taking care of him. By the scents that wafted through the room he knew that no less than ten people had been into his room that day, with Buffy's scent being the strongest followed by Dawn's and then on down the list it went. His left shoulder felt like shit, and his right one wasn't much better. He could almost feel the bruises covering his back.
"Bloody…," Spike grunted in pain as he slowly willed himself up to a seated position before the door opened and a nervous looking Katy walked in, holding a mug of steaming blood in her hands.
"Good you're up, you're a bitch to wake up you know that," Katy stated with a bored sigh as she stepped into the room and then shut the door behind her, but not before Spike saw the scared and confused gazes of a few of the new slayers that Buffy had brought with her staring back at him.
"They look like they've never seen a vamp before," Spike said with a tired smirk on his face as he glanced down and was glad that he still had his jeans on.
"Well after having the idea that all vampires are evil soulless monsters and should be dusted the second you see one drilled into their heads for weeks if not months they're still trying to come to grips with the thought of two soul having vampires that used to sleep with Buffy," Katy replied with a grin and a shrug of her shoulders as she seemed to be amused at the plight of the new slayers.
"So you know about that," Spike said with a suddenly nervous look on his face as he took the blood from Katy and looked away, inhaling deeply its scent.
"Yeah, Dawn told us while we were trying to find you and Angel after the blast, she didn't spell it out to much but if you read between the lines you got the gist of it, besides with Willow going on and on about wanting to look for her girlfriend," Katy said with a slightly embarrassed smile on her face as she half nodded her head and sat down in the chair beside the bed.
"If not for Red being a friend of mine I'd let that Kennedy stay lost," Spike grumbled with an unhappy scowl on his face before he lifted the mug to his lips and took a drink.
"The only thing is…I'm not to sure that she's really…lost, more like dead," Katy said softly with a nervous smile on her face as she picked a hair off of her leg and let it float to the floor.
"Come again," Spike asked with a confused look on his face as he looked up from the mug of blood as his lips were still at the rim of the mug.
"When she left the club I saw one of the vampires knock her out and then carry her away, if we're lucky she's dead, if not…I," Katy answered with a scared pout on her face as she folded her hands onto her lap and stared up at the painting of flowers on the wall across from Spike's bed.
"If they turned her then we're all in trouble, what am I saying, unless they got a lobotomy before the fight they definitely turned her, not sure how bad a turned slayer is, besides the obvious of course," Spike said with a very grim and serious scowl on his face as he shook his head and then took another, and longer, drink from the mug.
"You're the only one that I've told about Kennedy, Willow was so stressed out about the spell and Kennedy being missing that I didn't have the heart to tell her about this, guess I got a lot to learn," Katy said with an unhappy and depressed frown on her face as she stood up a little to quickly and she squeaked slightly in pain and a hand shot down to the area of where she had been stabbed back at the club.
"You okay pet," Spike asked with a concerned edge to his voice as he pulled the mug away from his mouth and looked over at her.
"Never better…okay it's just a little sore, damn slayer healing isn't all it's cracked up to be," Katy said with a pained smile on her face as Spike could tell that she was doing her best to put a brave face forward but guessed that the spear had gone deeper than she was admitting and that each step was painful.
"You're a terrible liar you know that, look thanks for the blood but you really should let Red take a look at your leg, she could probably cast a little spell and you'd be good as new before dinner," Spike said back with a serious but not angry look on his face before Katy looked like she was going to say something back but just nodded her head in defeat and left the room.
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She had cried almost nonstop for what felt like the last few hours. At first Lorne had done his best to try and get her to calm down, but she had taken one look at him and nearly had a heart attack. It had taken him almost an hour to convince her that he wouldn't hurt her, a task that was helped a great deal when he was unintentionally spooked by a rather pesky moth. The only word that she could get out was a name; one that Lorne guessed had been more than just a friend to her. Mostly due to the fact that when she spoke the name the wave of emotion nearly knocked him out of his chair.
"Heh…uh, here drink this," Lorne said in a very soft tone of voice as he slowly approached the woman and held a small glass of water out to her. She stopped crying long enough to see what he was offering her before she feebly reached a hand out and took the glass.
"Th…," Jamie said very softly with an overwhelmed look in her eyes before she drank the water and swallowed hard.
"Don't mention it…really, now on to business, do you know who you are, where you are, how you got here," Lorne said kindly with a warm and comforting smile on his face before he started to ask his questions, pouting as she nodded her head in answer to his first question and then shook her head twice to reply to his second and third question. "Hm…I was afraid of that, well my dear you are in England, London to be more precise, I'm not exactly sure how you got here but I have a feeling that the life you knew is over," Lorne added with a tense frown on his face as he sat down on the ground near her.
"What…it can't be, it…," Jamie groaned with a panicked look on her face as she sat up in bed, pulling the blanket tightly around her as she tried in vain to keep herself fully covered.
"I'm sorry sugarpie but you have a calling, and when you're strong enough I'll find you some decent clothes and then we'll go and figure out just what that destiny of yours is," Lorne said back with a comforting and confidant smile on his face as he turned to Jamie and did his best to calm her nerves.
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"How could you not know," Wesley demanded with an irritated scowl on his face as he took the glass of whiskey that Faith handed to him and leaned back, throwing one arm over the back of the couch.
"I never actually met him and even I knew that he was no good," Faith added with a restrained hint of mockery in her voice as she sat down against Wesley and pulled his arm down around her waist. In one hand she held her own glass of whiskey while in the other hand she had the decanter of whiskey.
"It's not that simple Faith, people don't just have a big sign on their chest saying good or bad," Buffy argued with a nervous and awkward frown on her face as she sat up in her chair and leaned forward, hoping that Faith and Wesley would let the topic drop. Unfortunately for her they were like two dogs on a fresh bone.
"True B, but were you that naïve to buy every single one of his excuses as to what he did when you weren't around, you honestly thought that he was a fine upstanding citizen," Faith shot back with a sarcastic grin of disbelief on her face before she raised the glass to her mouth and took a large sip.
"Yes Faith I did, call it naïve if you want to but I just wanted to believe in someone again, believe that they were who they said they were," Buffy defended herself with an angry frown on her face as she didn't like being called naïve, a little to trusting perhaps but not naïve.
"But you knew that he was immortal, or that at least he claimed to be," Wesley shot back with a mocking chuckle as he shook his head and stared back at Buffy before he took a long drink from his glass and then had Faith refill it.
"Yes we knew, everything that he did was above the board, I made sure of it," Giles interjected with a very stern scowl on his face as he forcefully cleaned his glasses, almost to the point of breaking one of the lenses.
"You sound so sure of yourself Rupert, it's a pity really, the only reason that Wolfram and Hart would have left him alone is if they were either scared of him, something that I highly doubt, or if they had a deal with him of some kind," Wesley said back with a serious look on his face before Faith shifted in her place and unintentionally elbowed him in the ribs. Almost immediately she glanced back and up at him with a worried and apologetic look in her eyes but Wesley warded off her concerns with a confidant smile.
"He didn't have any dealings with Wolfram and Hart Wesley, he wasn't evil," Buffy snapped back with a very powerful glare on her face as she had to fight to stay seated rather than leap up and smack the smirk off of Wesley's face.
"When Angel and Spike were in Rome a few months back the head of the Wolfram and Hart branch there made absolutely no effort to give them aid against The Immortal, they're only that nice to their clients, their old rich and powerful clients," Faith interjected with an almost accusing look in her eyes and tone to her voice as she swished the whiskey around in her glass.
"And you would know this how exactly Faith," Giles asked pointedly with an accusing look of his own. Faith looked for a second like a scared child before answering.
"I did a job for them a few years back, they gave me everything that I needed to get the job done," Faith finally replied with a forced voice of calm as she intentionally avoided looking anyone in the eye. Wesley noticed this and pulled her a bit closer, hoping to dissolve her trepidation over the memory of what had happened as a result of her working for Wolfram and Hart.
"And just what did this job entail," Xander asked with a very pointed expression on his face as he sat on the back of the couch next to Buffy and crossed his arms.
"Not anything that I'm proud of, the worst time in my entire life, but that's all in the past now, I've changed," Faith said back with a somber and downcast frown on her face as she intensely studied the way that the lamp light reflected on her glass.
"So you say, I've heard the stories about you," Maria interjected with an unbelieving look on her face as she stepped out of the small crowd of new slayers to glare at Faith.
"Stories aren't always to be believed, for every person that they pass through they change just a bit to reflect that person, so by the time that you heard the stories about Faith more than likely very little of it was true," Wesley defended Faith with a very stern expression on his face as he felt Faith tense up and get ready to snap back at the young slayer.
"We all have dark periods in our pasts, crimes that we've committed that we'd rather remain forgotten in the past, as the saying goes, let he, or she in this case, that is without sin cast the first stone," Katy stated with a calm but yet very clearly defensive tone to her voice as she appeared in the doorway, leaning up against the doorframe with her arms crossed and an emotionless mask on her face. She wore a two sizes to small dark blue shirt with the name of her old strip club emblazoned across the front of it along with a pair of light blue faded blue jeans that seemed to have been molded for her body but at the same time looked very comfortable.
"You're one to talk, I don't seem to remember a stripper being one of the more desirable jobs," Rhona shot back with an angry scowl on her face as she walked up and stood next to Xander, while Vi tried to blend in behind him.
"This is all taking far to long, the bottom line here Summers is that your boyfriend is a real jerk, and you were just to trusting to see that, as for the rest of you well…your just a bunch of saps," Gwen stated with an unhappy frown on her face as she shook her head and stood up, turning away from Wesley and Faith and looking towards Giles and Buffy as she did so.
"It wasn't like that…really, it was just that all of his explanations sounded good," Dawn shot back with an awkward pout on her face as she willed herself up to a seated position to stare back at Wesley.
"The best liars always make a bold faced lie sound like the truth," Wesley countered with a sly grin on his face before he calmly nodded his head and took a sip of whiskey.
"You were a stripper," Giles asked with a stunned and surprised expression on his face as he stopped cleaning his glasses and turned and switched his gaze from studying Wesley and Faith to instead study the slayer that he knew very little about.
"Was…I still am, if I live through all of this it's what I'm going to go back to…it's the only thing that I'm good at," Katy exclaimed back with an upset and nervous look on her face as she uncrossed her arms and took a step into the living room before anyone else spoke. As she spoke the last little bit though her initially proudly defiant pose changed to one in which she had seemingly resolved herself that stripping was the only thing that she would ever be good at and that she might as well accept that now.
"Amazing," Giles muttered under his breath with a very surprised and overwhelmed look on his face as he slowly slid his glasses back onto his face.
"Wait, you ignore the truth about The Immortal for months but the fact that Katy used to twirl around a brass pole in a g-string is what surprises you," Faith interjected with a confused look of astonishment on her face as she was more than surprised at what she was hearing and seeing.
"Faith please, don't change the subject, Katy's particular career path is not the point of this discussion, the inept actions of Buffy and Giles are," Wesley whispered loudly down into Faith's ear as she calmed down and then lazily took another sip of her drink.
"It wasn't that simple, The Immortal he…he made me feel good again, needed again, like I hadn't felt since that night before the last fight when it was just me and Spike alone in the basement," Buffy said back with a defeated pout on her face as she almost looked as if she were about to tear up but she redoubled her resolve and stayed firm.
"He used that against you Buffy, he knew just what you needed to hear and led you along like a pet, you weren't to important to him, he used you as a prize to show off to everyone else, he got the slayer," A very weak and beaten up Angel said softly from the doorway with Nina doing her best to hold him up.
"Angel," Buffy exclaimed with a worried look on her face as she instantly jumped up out of her seat and started to rush over to him but stopped halfway as she was unsure of whether or not she should.
"I'm fine, just gimme a few days and I'll be good as new," Angel replied with a weak smile on his face as he and Nina struggled over to the nearest chair before he sat down hard in it and wrapped the blanket tightly around him, with Nina sitting on the armrest, her hand never leaving his shoulder.
"You sure that you're okay Angel, you're looking pretty pale, and that's saying something for you," Faith asked with an almost amused smirk on her face as she mock saluted him with her glass of whiskey.
"I'll be fine Faith, David has enough blood in stock and Nina will take care of everything else so I'll be fine, I just need time," Angel replied with a generous glint in his eyes as he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
"What about Spike," Xander asked with an unconcerned look on his face as it seemed that he was interested in Spike's condition, but not for himself.
"I'll be fine once you shut the hell up," A very weak and injured looking Spike said as he slowly made his way into the living room, past Buffy without looking her way, and sat down on the couch next to Dawn, who looked completely ready to fuss over him.
END OF CHAPTER 34