Night Falls

Previously:

"I smell blood," Spike stated, surveying the ground intently. "Over there." He began walking, Willow trailing behind him, to a bench in the park. A pool of blood stained the grass in front of it.

"That could be anyone's," Willow argued.

"But it's not," Spike said grimly. "That's Hailey's blood."

Chapter Thirty-Four:

Two, large wooden crates were sitting in the hallway. From her seat by the door of the living room, Dawn could see them waiting, untouched. She wondered what was inside of them. When they had arrived earlier that morning, the deliveryman had been insistent that Hailey Travers sign for them. However, as Hailey was missing in action and presumably kidnapped by the Bringers, Dawn had pulled Colleen out of the kitchen to pretend that she was the new Slayer. The deliveryman had been doubtful of Colleen's true identity, but left the crates anyway. Before Dawn had gotten a chance to open them, Buffy had called a meeting in the living room, during which she had explained that Hailey's blood had been found in the park.

Faith was sitting next to Dawn, propped up in a chair with a pained look on her face. "You okay?" Dawn whispered. Faith smiled with an effort and nodded.

"Five by five, kiddo," she replied.

"That means no, right?" Dawn answered.

"Just a headache," Faith elaborated. "Wes says that I'll be getting lots of them for a while."

Dawn nodded and turned her attention back to Buffy, who was standing in the center of the room, commanding the attention of everyone surrounding her, as usual. Spike lingered in the shadows by the basement door with Willow standing beside him. They seemed to have forged an unlikely alliance since Hailey's disappearance – an alliance about which Buffy did not seem particularly pleased. Giles, Wesley, and Anya were sitting on the couch, with Xander perched on the armrest. The rest of the Potentials were scattered throughout the room, with Andrew sitting in the middle of them.

Kennedy lingered by the door, appearing both indifferent to the news and anxious about it at the same time. Dawn supposed that Kennedy realized that Hailey's disappearance was mostly her fault. Though Dawn knew that Willow would not have intentionally hurt Hailey, she still also blamed the red haired witch for Hailey's kidnapping. Willow should have known that Kennedy still harbored a secret crush on her. Furthermore, Willow should have known that Kennedy desperately wanted to act on it.

"So when are we heading out?" Colleen asked, in between whispering a Spanish translation to Maria of what Buffy had been saying.

"Not until nightfall," Buffy replied.

"What?" Willow blurt out angrily.

Buffy sighed. "It would be pointless to search for her right now. We have no idea where she is. The only clue was have is the blood in the park and the only person we have that can follow a blood trail is Spike."

"And I'm not so good in the daylight," Spike reminded Willow softly. Willow's features noticeably fell, but she nodded.

"Okay," she mumbled in defeat.

"Until then, nobody leaves the house," Buffy instructed. "I think we underestimated how dangerous it is out there."

"We'll get her back," Spike whispered over to Willow. "She's a strong one."

"Caleb's stronger," Willow replied.

"We don't know that he has her," Spike answered.

"I do," Willow said steadily. Spike narrowed his eyes, watching the Wiccan closely.

"Don't even bloody well think of it," Spike growled lowly.

"What?" Willow squeaked, looking at him in surprise. She had forgotten how intimidating he could be when he tried.

"I know what you're thinking," Spike said, watching Buffy out of the corner of his eye to ensure that their conversation was not reaching the Slayer's ears. "You're not going out there after her by yourself. No way in Hell. And you're not using magic on this either."

"Why not?" Willow demanded. "It may be the only thing that can save her."

"It's not," Spike concluded. "Buffy and I are both strong. We can take Caleb, or who ever else has her. I'm not going to risk you flaying everyone and everything in your path again to get to her."

"I'm not going to do that again," Willow replied in frustration.

"Can you promise me that? Without a doubt, can you promise me that you won't lose control again?" Spike questioned her.

Willow lowered her head and sighed. "No, I can't," she replied sullenly.

"It's okay," Spike said, smiling crookedly and gently laying his hand on her shoulder. "I know something better that you can do."

"What?" Willow asked, desperately wanting to feel useful in a situation that she felt that she had caused.

"If we're trapped in this house all day, I want to make damn sure that nothing can get in," Spike said.

"You want me to do a protection spell on the house?" Willow asked.

"I know that Hailey had been talking about it at one point, but the idea seemed to get lost in the shuffle," Spike replied. "I think it's a good one, given that the Bringers and Caleb has already broken in on two separate occasions."

"I'll get right on it," Willow said, smiling.

"Is there anything that you need?" Spike asked.

"No, I should have everything upstairs," Willow said, looking around the room intently. "But I will need a helper." Her eyes settled on Dawn and she smiled.

"Okay, guys, that's it," Buffy finished. The room collectively rose and began to disperse.

"Dawn," Willow called out, capturing the mystical teenager's attention.

"Yeah?" Dawn asked, moving back towards the witch.

"I need your help with a little project."

Dawn nodded and followed Willow up the stairs. With each minute that passed, a sense of dread was increasing in the pit of her stomach. She knew that they did not have much time to find Hailey before something terrible would happen to her. She did not know why she knew that, but she imagined that with millions of years of mystical energy flowing through her blood, it was bound to have some effect. Hold on, she thought, hoping that wherever Hailey was, she would hear. We're coming for you.

…………………………….

Andrew settled down in front of the laptop computer on the dining room table. Buffy and the others seemed to have forgotten that he existed. They never gave him any responsibility. It was almost as if he were invisible to them. But he had not been invisible to Hailey. Instead, Hailey had given him responsibility. She had given him a rather important task. Though sifting through hours of video footage, where nothing useful usually happened, was rather boring, Andrew felt as though he was getting close to figuring something out. Bringers had been kidnapping vampires left and right every night that week. The vampire population of Sunnydale seemed noticeably wary as they walked down the streets. Something was striking fear in their hearts and it wasn't the Slayers.

Andrew turned his attention to the camera across the street from the tattered ruins of the high school. He had noticed, while editing footage from the high school, that the Bringers had started to take the vampires there. The vampires would disappear for a night or two and then would resurface, tamed, and dragged to the school by the Bringers. Andrew knew what lay in the basement of that school – the Seal. He also knew that the First had made him kill Jonathon overtop of the Seal in order to make it open. However, it had not worked because Jonathon was human. He didn't have enough blood. He died too quickly. Andrew shuddered at the memory of driving a knife into his friend's stomach.

When Spike had been taken by the First, it had used his blood to open the Seal and release one of the Turok-Han vampires. "The First needed vampire blood," Andrew said aloud, "because vampires can bleed for a long time. They don't die from it." He pondered the thought for a while before a light bulb went off in his mind. "The First is using the vampires to open the Seal and raise more Turok-Hans. It's trying to build an army." Andrew knew that his discovery would help the Scoobies, but he also knew that his discovery would dampen an already miserable day. However, he also knew that the Bringers had been taking the vampires somewhere before they brought them to the school. Therefore, the school was not their primary base of operations. They had to be operating out of somewhere else instead. If they could find that other location, they would probably find Hailey.

……………………………..

The lights were flickering on and off, shorting with sparks flying out from the bulb. The building she was being held in was having electrical problems. The bulb would fry and then someone would flip the power again and it would shoot to life, glaringly bright in her eyes. The water was dripping on her head again, although instead of being chained to the floor as she had been before, she was now hanging from the wall. Caleb was a master at torture, Hailey had discovered, and he knew just what a Slayer body could take before it broke down. He was being incredibly careful not to allow her to die during his ministrations. He wanted her alive; he had made that very clear.

Once he was done torturing her, he carried her into the room she had been kept before and drove her through a spike on the wall, chaining her arms around the water pipe attached to the ceiling to keep her erect. She had been hanging there ever since. She did not know how long it had been, only that every couple of seconds, the dirty, brown water dripped down on her face. Her clothes were soaked and shivers of cold rushed through her body. But every time she moved, searing pain shot through her stomach from the spike, so she suppressed the shivers and everything else. Blood dripped from her wounds, coating the floor in slippery red. She was beyond feeling pain, beyond feeling nausea, and beyond caring that Willow had cheated on her with Kennedy. The image of them kissing had almost faded from her mind, as had every other memory she once possessed. All she cared about now was surviving.

She could easily shift to the right or left on the pole and do irreparable damage that would kill her before Caleb discovered her dead body hanging from the wall, but she had to survive; if for nothing else, but to preserve the Slayer line. None of the other Potentials were ready to become yet. All of the sudden, she could hear a voice echoing through her mind. It sounded vaguely familiar, but it was not her own. Hold on, we're coming for you, the voice said. It was young and innocent. "Dawn," she murmured, blood spilling from her lips and down her chin as she spoke. All she could taste was blood. But she smiled. They were coming for her.