Buffy ran. She had been running for ages. Every night it was the same. For weeks, there had been no change. Darkness surrounded and obscured her vision. Her steps clattered on pavement, but her eyes could not see where her feet touched the ground. The fleeing teen could not see any of the environment in which she ran. Everything was shrouded in darkness. Sounds were muted as if hidden behind a fog of wadded cotton. Fear gripped her mind and her heart raced. Although she could not sense anything in her hidden surroundings, the teen knew that she had to keep moving or something would get her. She had no idea what the something was but she knew in the basest element of her psyche that she was in grave peril. Buffy felt panic edging into her mind and tears began to trail down her cheeks as she continued to run from whatever loomed in the darkness. Her breath came in deep gasps as the unease grew. Her muscles burned, and the steady pounding of her feet on the ground echoed the racing of her pulse.
Suddenly, the Slayer sensed something in the darkness. This was a new addition. Never before had an actual presence cut into her perception. A sensation unlike the looming doom of the darkness shivered up her spine. The new feeling literally screamed at her in its intensity. There was a demon near her. For some reason, the knowledge that some beast hid nearby did not frighten her as much as the encroaching nothing did. Buffy stopped running and spun in hopes of finding the evil now present.
With a soft cry, the Slayer opened her eyes. She jerked to a sitting position and swiped the tears from her cheeks. This was becoming nightly habit for the young woman. It was always either tears or violence. She would wake weeping or thrashing. She rubbed her fingers into her hair as if hoping to massage the terror-filled dreams from her mind. At least this time, she had not woken her mother with her cries. That was a bonus. Buffy took a steadying breath and realized that the uncomfortable sensation that screamed demon had persisted even outside her dream. She glanced around her room and barely swallowed the squeak of fear when she saw Angel standing in her room. The handsome vampire rested against the windowsill. The soft glow from her closet light cast a light illumination into her room. It allowed her to see his shadowed features. Angel offered Buffy a soft smile. His dark eyes reflected deep concern for her.
"Mind if I come in?" the vampire inquired despite the fact that he was already in her room. The soft spoken intruder had hoped to ease the obvious anxiety that clouded the teen's face. The soft joke seemed to offer him no assistance.
"You're already in," Buffy accused as she climbed from her tangled sheets. Unbidden, mental images of the passage she had read the previous day flashed in her mind. Victims, young girls like herself swam in her memory and threatened to pull her into her own nightmare recall. She swallowed and forced down a sudden desire to scream. She faced her guest with her bed acting as a safety buffer. Angel watched as the Slayer's fingers sought the comfort of the wooden stake that was under her pillow. Her unconscious movement confused him. He had thought they were well past the Slayer feeling the need for a weapon in his presence. His dark gaze noticed Buffy's fine trembling and the rapid hammering of her heart. It made his heart clench.
"How are you?" Angel asked in hopes of easing the tension. He needed some way to reach the teen and he was unsure of how to breach the sudden chasm that separated them far more efficiently than her bed did.
"Peachy," tersely replied the teen. Unconsciously, her empty hand deftly scanned over her pajama top to make sure that she was properly covered. "Why are you here?"
"I was worried about you."
"I'm here. I'm alive."
"I... just... I," stammered Angel. He was unsure what to say next. Buffy's reception to his arrival was not what he expected. During the entire summer, the souled vampire had stressed over how Buffy was recovering. He had approached Giles and Willow on several occasions but neither had any information to share. The vampire had even tried to approach Joyce a couple times. Just like their previous meetings, the Slayer's mother had been suspicious of his appearance and refused to share anything beyond saying that Buffy was recovering from the incident at her father's home.
"Are you here for a specific reason or is this just a social call?" Buffy demanded as she gripped her stake more firmly in her hand. She tried to concentrate on the comfort of the firm, smooth wood in her hand instead of allowing the flickering memories to resurface. She could feel the same anxiety building that tipped her into her panic episode while at Giles' flat. It was a pressure inside her head that threatened to erupt into the real world. The dim contents of her room began to become fuzzy to Buffy's vision. Noticing the change, the Slayer struggled to maintain her grasp on her current situation. She did not want to fall under the powerful pull of the flashbacks that still haunted her. Buffy attempted to use Angel as a focal point for her vision but all she could think about when she looked at him was the dead bodies Sir Lawrence Briggs documented. She rapidly shifted her focus to the tousled comforter on her bed. It was innocent of wrong-doing and offered only safe memories.
"I needed to know that you were recovered. That you were okay. No one would tell me how you really were and I couldn't stand not knowing," rambled Angel as he tried to stress how very worried he had been about the teen. He felt so frustrated and confused. He had never felt the way he felt for Buffy and he was unsure of how to express himself properly. Her open hostility in response to his concern only further confused him. It had been too long since Angel had cultivated any type of true relationship. He wasn't sure how to reach Buffy because he was so sorely lacking in practice.
"Well, you have seen me," Buffy replied as she squeezed her hand so tightly on her stake that the wood actually creaked slightly. "I am alive and kicking. Next time you want to check on me, make an appointment. School starts this week. I need all the rest I can get."
Angel nodded in understanding although his feelings were hurt that Buffy was not as thrilled to see him as he was to see her. He wished her a soft good night and prepared to leave.
"I missed you," Angel whispered after turning to face the window. Desperately, the vampire hoped that the teen would acknowledge his concern and invite him to stay. He needed the comfort of her presence to know that she was truly well.
"Just go," Buffy replied as she wrapped her arms around her body and tried to stop the trembling. She closed her eyes and attempted to control her crushing anxiety. When she opened her eyes again, her vampire visitor was gone. The teen scrambled around her bed and slammed shut her window and snapped the lock into place. For a moment, she stood at the window and shook uncontrollably. Then, just as quickly as her flight to the window, she hurried to the telephone. Despite the time, she dialed.
"Giles," she practically sobbed into the phone as her knees finally gave way and she sank to the floor. Disjointed muttering answered her plea as her Watcher attempted to concentrate on the unexpected conversation. The older gentleman had been snoring heavily when his telephone startled him from his dreams.
"Giles, you have to find some way to un-invite a vampire," she cried to the groggy and confused man. "There has to be some way to keep my house safe. Please, Giles. Can you find one?"
Although Rupert barely understood what his Slayer was saying through her tears, he promised to help however he could. He whispered all the soothing words he could muster and made a number of rash promises that if he had been fully awake would never have passed his lips. The ex-Watcher found himself babbling in a manner more reminiscent of the teens he mentored than the stiff British gentleman he prided himself on being. As he rambled, his words helped Buffy focus once more on the present. She fought back the hallucinations still hovering on the edge of her perceptions. Her heart rate lowered once more and her breathing deepened. Buffy reached to the top of her bed and pulled her fluffy comforter over her body. Even though the night was warm, the teen felt so very cold. She wrapped the flowery blanket around herself as she mumbled replies over the phone. Finally, she yawned through a thank you and a good night to the flustered man she awoke and hung up the phone.
Exhausted, Buffy curled into a ball on the floor beside her bed. She slept there the rest of the night. In the morning, Joyce discovered her daughter huddled on the floor fast asleep. Unsure of what to say, her mother just shook her head. She picked up the phone and returned it to the nightstand before quietly leaving the room. All she could think was that even if the floor seemed like a poor place to rest, at least Buffy had slept through the night without waking her with nightmare induced screaming. It was a blessing in her eyes. Joyce prayed that it meant her daughter had turned a corner in her emotional recovery.
"You obviously care nothing about a tip," the Master criticized as his eyes narrowed on the new arrivals to his underground prison. "That is not my order. That is an over-aged, artery clogging waiting heart-attack on legs."
Spike shoved the overweight and balding man into the sunken church ruins. The reek of urine emanated from the babbling and crying older man. The blond vampire shoved him hard and his body passed through the barrier that held the Master in its grasp. The Master captured the unappetizing victim by the throat. His disgust over the offering was obvious despite his grotesque features.
"This is foul and unfit for consumption," the head of the Aurelian Order groused as he shook the victim like a he was a rag doll and not a substantially sized man.
"Beggars should be no choosers, Gramps," Spike replied with a smirk.
The Master's eyes narrowed as he immediately completed the proverb line and replied "but yet they will."
Under his breath, the timid vampire who followed Spike into the cave offered the final line. "Who can bring a beggar from choice to beg still."
Both the Master and Spike ignored the quiet vampire's muttering. They likewise ignored the snuffling of the suit-clothed middle-aged man still caught in the Master's grasp.
"I am not a beggar," ordered the Master with all the pompous regal air that a truly old and powerful being can summon.
"Maybe not, but you ain't the chooser either."
Spike crossed his arms and stared at his trapped great-great-grandsire. The distant family members weighed their opponents. Neither was willing to concede power to the other and the stalemate might have carried for hours if the choking of the weeping offering hadn't broken the growing silence. Hunger finally prodded the impasse where ego would not have budged.
"Shut up already," the Master ordered the man who had previously been the chief of the Sunnydale police department before falling to the unenviable position of supper. Striking with a speed more swift than any natural predator, the Master sunk his fangs into the neck of his blubbering captive.
Before long, the body was drained. The Master dropped the dry husk to the ground and kicked it towards the entrance. He informed Spike that his offering was not going to keep him in his good graces. Spike shrugged.
"Just wanted to make a point," the younger vamp replied with a smirk. The blond had purposely found the most unappetizing human he could readily collect on short notice. He had grabbed the now dead policeman from his official Sunnydale police chief vehicle when the dead man had pulled into a parking slot for a convience store. Dismissing thoughts of the now dead dinner, Spike glanced around the empty chamber. "You need me."
The Master snorted.
"Not seeing anyone else falling all over themselves to help you out here, Old Man."
The Master's eyes narrowed but he did not refute the statement. With Absalom's death, the Order Head had no one remaining in the area to collect new followers or to bring him sustenance. He did not even have the means to call any remaining children or order members to him. He did need the arrogant pup before him, but he was not about to admit the weakness. The Master locked Spike with a shrewd gaze.
"What do you expect in exchange for assisting me?"
"Dru is sick."
"Ah, and you think I may be in a position to heal her?"
"Well, Darla always said you've been around forever. Figure you learned a thing or two in that time. Maybe you know how to make her better."
Spike explained about the encounter in Prague and Drusilla's subsequent illness. He added that consuming the blood of powerful psychics and magical talents had provided temporary relief from the draining weakness. The Master brought his clawed pointer finger to his mouth and tapped it in thought before admitting that he might know a thing or two that would help. The older vamp noticed the spark of hope that bloomed in the eyes of the younger one. The perceptive vampire knew he had properly enticed the younger vampire. He asked what Spike would offer him for the return of his lover's health.
The younger vampire motioned to the cowering vampire who followed him to meet the Master. The ancient demon appraised the newcomer and found him wanting. He was a slightly dumpy, balding thing with barely enough mystical strength to be seen as demon. The Master scowled. He had spent many millenniums collecting powerful allies and sycophants. This sorry excuse for a vampire would have barely made scratch as minion fodder. It made no sense that his grandchild who had bested not one but two slayers with his strength of fist and fang would see this weak creature as an asset to be shared.
"So, Dru mentioned the path of Cleomedes being needed for your release. Seeing as old Cleo was a Greek astronomer, I figured that Dalton here might be an asset to finding whatever path you need to escape your current accommodations," Spike offered as he slapped a hand harshly on the trembling shoulder of the timid vampire. Dalton stepped forward reluctantly under the pressure from the significantly stronger vampire's hand on his shoulder. The scholarly demon stammered his way into a rambling explanation of the Greek era and educational background of Cleomedes.
Dalton's monologue held the Master's attention for a short while before his ire rose. The ancient vampire was tired of the unneeded history lesson.
"You do realize I was alive long before the Greek Empire?" he snidely informed the geeky minion.
Dalton stammered a sincere apology as he quaked in his dress shoes and nervously pulled at the bottom of his pressed silk vest. The weak vampire desperately hoped that he would survive this meeting. Desperately hoping that his services and knowledge might save his unlife, he then rushed to explain the significance of Cleomedes to the Master's escape.
"I believe that when the seer said the path of Cleomedes, she actually meant that Cleomedes is the lead to the right contact for finding a release. You see, Cleomedes was human and kind of a boring one at that. He is best known for his book On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies. The two volume textbook was part elementary astronomy and part philosophical dissertation."
"Fascinating," the Master responded in a facetious tone that clearly showed how uninteresting he found Dalton's rambling.
If possible, the minion seemed to shrink even further into his frightened shell. He attempted to defend his information as important but kept stumbling over his words.
Spike rolled his eyes at the impatience of his trapped family member and the extreme fear of the supposed brainy translator. The blond freely admitted that he was prone to the same restless tendency but even he was willing to give someone time to provide him the information he needed. If he didn't, he wouldn't be here in the first place. He was hoping his investment of effort would return what he needed for Drusilla. The outcome would be worth the wait.
"Look, Gramps, give Mr. Tweedy a chance to explain. He's got more than half a brain between his ears," Spike aimed in annoyance at the Master. The blond vampire then roughly grabbed Dalton's arm. He shook it harshly. The younger vampire threatened the scholar with a painful and prolonged death if he did not reach his point in a timely fashion. Even if none of the three were aging, Spike wasn't about to spend any more time than necessary in this stuffy hole.
Properly cowed by the younger vampire now in addition to being terrified by the head Aurelian, Dalton continued his explanation. He shared that Cleomedes focused on two things in his best known book. He shared a number of rudimentary astronomical observations. In addition, the Greek lambasted the scientific ideas of the Epicureans.
The Master snorted at mention of the followers of Epicurus. Their philosophy in regards to gods and the supernatural always amused the elder vampire. The Materialists had argued that entities beyond the human could only exist in another world that existed apart from the real world. Their emphasis on beings of reality being made of atoms helped to shroud the previously more easily accepted beliefs in the supernatural. Epicurus and his follows had helped the idea of vampires and other demons to slip further into the status of legend instead of an accepted scientific fact. The ignorance of the masses was a blessing for demons who preyed on humanity and so the Master held a twisted appreciation for the misled Epicurus.
Shaking away his mild amusement over long dead misled philosophers, the Master returned his attention to Dalton's lecture on Cleomedes. The minion was now explaining that the Greek astronomer also wrote extensively about another mathematician and astronomer named Posidonius of Rhodes. In fact, according to human academics, Cleomedes book contained the only remaining renditions of Posidonius' writings.
"It is my belief that Posidonius is actually the scholar who holds the key to your release," Dalton finally stated. "I have found a couple sources that lend me to the belief that Posidonius was actually a Bi-Noste demon half-breed. Since Bi-Noste demons tend to have an affinity for strong magics, I figure the writings of a Bi-Noste half-breed would be a likely place to discover a way to release you."
The nervous vampire fell silent. Like a small prey animal that sensed a predator nearby, he remained frozen in place while he waited to hear the verdict in regards to his information. The minion actually squeaked when the Master finally responded. The geeky translator actually sighed in relief when no violence was offered in reply. Instead, the Master chuckled gleefully and clapped his hand like a child who just received a prized present.
Pleased with the information procured by Spike through the still cowed minion, the Master glided across his prison space. Like a regal king of old, the vampire settled onto a pile of rock. Hope sprung forth in the evil creature's heart. He laughed as he lounged on the rubble seat as if it were a silk swathed throne. When he finally contained his excitement, he focused back on his guest.
"That was worth the wait," praised the Master. "Although, I still would have liked the wine with my dinner. And perhaps a bit more breast meat? Remember it next time."
Spike scowled. He did not plan on there being a next time for him providing his arrogant family head another meal. Although tempted to snark in reply, the British vampire succeeded in holding his tongue briefly. The slight bit of restraint was enough to allow The Master time to bestow his own bit of information in return for the hope Spike's researcher had provided. The elder instructed his impatient grandchild that the Rituals of Eligor contained information and magics that could be used on vampires.
"It has been about three thousand years since I read the Rituals," the Master admitted, "but I believe that there was some type of healing or restoration spell chronicled in it."
"Where can I find the Rituals?" Spike immediately questioned.
The Master shrugged as he admitted to having no idea. The practice of worshiping the Demon Duke Eligor had fallen out of practice before the United States was little more than a collection of colonies. The ancient demon also warned that some human along the way had improperly translated the name Eligor so that he was referenced as Eligos in human texts. Once given a real starting point, Spike could barely contain his desire to scramble from the oppressive pit that housed his great-great-grandsire. With barely a nod in exchange for the research point and a vague promise to get him some more peons for his drudgery, Spike grabbed Dalton by his vest and stalked from the sunken sanctuary.
Half-way to the surface, the British vampire realized that he did not share any information about the pretty little blond he fought a few days previously. Spike shrugged. He wasn't about to return to talk with the ugly bastard. Next time would be soon enough to tell him about the Slayer that wasn't a Slayer. His Dark Princess was waiting for him; she was his only priority. No matter how great a fighter or how strange the teen's behavior when she failed to dust him, the blond girl was not his main concern. That he fleetingly wondered why the pretty little thing seemed to recognize him was once again tossed aside in his thoughts. He was too excited about a possible cure for Drusilla to dwell on the warrior. He would think about her later. A wicked grin settled on his lips as Spike imagined his sire returned to proper health. The vampire chortled with glee as he imagined his Wicked Plum and he feasting on the feisty little warrior. He licked his lips in anticipation and growled in excitement. Spike could hardly wait.