"""
"You're a sweet kitten." she whispered, caressing the soft curly brown hair while her pet suckled at her wrist for a few moments before falling asleep. She let her fingers twist through the dark honey strands, humming to herself while she waited.
The clouds were angry that she'd gone skipping off with the wind. "Dru? Where'd you run off to now?"
"Coming, Daddy." she called, and gave the kitten one final pet before standing up and adjusting the lace on her sleeve to conceal the wound. She left the alley without a glance backward, sure that her kitten would find its way back to her someday. Cats had the ability to do that.
"""
Spike opened his eyes, frowning. He hadn't dreamed about the night of his turning for decades, but suddenly the memories were back, sparkling crystal clear in the back of his mind. An alley, misery wrapped around him like fog. A woman, dark and mysterious, offering pain and promises. Waking up as the first rays of dawn scorched his skin, tearing the bales of hay apart and huddling beneath the pile until night fell again and he could make his way home. Mother had taken one look at his bloody clothes and mangled face, and had fainted. He'd wanted to help her, tried to reach her, but an invisible force barred him entry into the house.
It took him a month of wandering and scavenging to realize and accept what he had become. He ran into a pack of vampires, and when they found out that he did not know his sire, nor had been given any information as to the ways of Vampires, they took it upon themselves to beat him soundly and leave him for dead. He managed to survive that night, and knew he had to become strong and dangerous if he wanted a chance of surviving all the nights in his future.
Spike rolled over in bed, frowning at the rush of blood and the thump-thump of the heart in his chest. This... being human again... it was wrong. He hated the pulse that pounded in his wrists, the need for air that forced his lung to inflate and deflate, over and over again. the darkness wasn't as familiar as it had been the night before, his eyes taking longer to adjust to the shadows and shades of gray, and he felt weak and half-blind.
Damn boy-warlock. He'd been following the kid, hoping for an easy meal before he went looking for entertainment to last through the human holiday when his kind stayed inside. But after what happened, he decided to retire early rather than risk being targeted as a meal by some fresh-out-of-the-ground fledgling.
He wasn't sure what kind of spell the child had cast to make him alive again, but he was going to find a way to make him reverse it. He'd been through too much, been a vampire for too long to go back to being a human now. He had a mission, and the sooner he was back to normal, the closer he would be to his goal.
"""
Xander woke to coughing. He instinctively reached out and grabbed a few tissues from the night stand, and quickly covered his mouth as his body shook with the force of the coughs. After a few impossibly long minutes his body began to relax, and he dropped the blood-stained tissues into the small waste can nearby, and sipped on the glass of luke-warm water that he'd put on his night stand the night before. Already feeling drained of energy for the day, he crawled slowly out of bed and got dressed.
When he got to class, he found out that the entire school body was all abuzz about Cordelia's murder. He took his seat, which just happened to be behind Harmony Kendall, and idly eavesdropped on the gossip queen.
"They say she was stabbed with a barbecue fork by some psycho freak who thinks they're a vampire!" she exclaimed in a hushed whisper, Aura and Aphrodisia leaning in their seats to listen. "And then they like sucked her blood and everything! Isn't that like the grossest thing you've ever heard?"
"Maybe Cor was secretly into that sort of thing." Aphrodisia offered , and the other two turned to stare at her. She shrank a little in her seat. "She was acting majorly weird yesterday."
"Totally!" Aura exclaimed. "She like froze when she saw Amy and Willow making out in the locker room! As if she didn't know that they're always getting it on right after P.E. like clockwork. She was the one who got them together, and then yesterday she was staring like she'd never seen 'em sucking face before."
"Weird," Harmony said, "Halloween always brings out the freaks."
Xander shivered, remembering the guy he ran into last night who'd claimed to be a vampire. Was he the one who killed Cordelia?
Xander wasn't able to concentrate on classes very well that day.
"""
TBC...