Buffy sprinted for almost five blocks before she started resisting the hold on her wrist. The running pair left the street and moved into a poorly maintained playground in the transition area between the industrial and low income housing sections of town. They moved past a beat up swing set that was missing half of its chain swings and then beyond a rusty jungle gym. The glow from a nearby streetlight created creepy insect-like shadows from the neglected equipment.

"Some... of... us... have... to... breath..." the blonde wheezed as she slowed her pace and finally planted her feet in the browned grass. Beside a beaten slide, she stopped running and twisted her wrist free from the strong grasp that had been yanking her forward. With her feet spread a bit, Buffy leaned over with her elbows on her knees and took deep lungfuls of air. Once she finally caught her breath, the teen stood. She tucked her stake into her waistband and tilted her head a bit to the right. She did a quick check of her throat and confirmed that she wasn't bleeding profusely. She was lucky; she doubted the bite would even scar. After wiping her slightly bloodied hand on her jeans, an obviously confused expression crinkled her forehead and shadowed her eyes. Her eyes traveled over the bulky form of her savior.

"Thank you, Darryl," she offered tentatively as she crossed her arms over her chest. Without any doubt in her mind, his intervention had saved her life. Buffy was beyond baffled. She could not understand why the older Epps brother had aided her when the last time she saw him they had come to blows. She would never have thought dusting his vampiric younger brother would win her any type of popularity contest in the dead guy's mind.

The resurrected football player nodded. The movement jerked instead of shifted smoothly. The strangeness of his motion brought attention to the twisted appearance of his neck. His one shoulder hung lower than the other. Buffy's eyes widened when she noticed what she thought was a bone protruding from his lower left forearm. Unconsciously, she raised a hand towards his injury but lowered it without touching him. Her adversarial stance softened. She actually offered him a tentative smile as she asked him why he saved her.

"You kill monsters," Epps stated evenly.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. She wasn't sure what that had to do with his actions. Falling back on habit when she was unsure of herself, the teen joked.

"Everyone needs a hobby. Can you see me collecting stamps?"

Darryl shook his head because he really couldn't see the pretty little blonde doing anything as mundane as collecting stamps. Of course in his previous life, he would have thought that she seemed like the kind of girl who would be cheering along the sidelines of a football game. He would not have imagined her tossing monsters around and saving other pretty girls.

Buffy cringed slightly at the whisper of crunching bone that accompanied Darryl's head movement.

"Why did you save me?" Buffy asked quietly once more.

"I'm a monster," he claimed.

Buffy frowned.

"Ooooh-kaaaay..." she led with the pinched frown of confusion still marring her face.

Darryl sighed. He pointed at her before tapping his chest.

"You kill monsters. I'm a monster."

The resurrected young man just stared at Buffy as if that was all the explanation needed.

"You want me to kill you?" the blonde incredulously asked.

Darryl nodded in the same jerking manner. The sound of bones grinding in his neck once again accompanied the movement.

"I don't understand."

"I'm not right. Should have stayed dead," Epps explained with pain lacing his voice.

"Chris... Chris..." Darryl sobbed and Buffy finally did touch him. Her gentle fingers brushed over his uninjured forearm.

The reanimated teen dropped to his knees as his body shook.

"I tried," he cried despondently. "I tried to die. Stepped in front of a truck. Threw me. Broke stuff but it isn't enough. I can't do it by myself. Not like I can take a bunch of pills or slash my wrists and have it work."

Darryl lifted his head to plead with Buffy. Blackened, opaque tears slid down his cheeks leaving trails like he was crying through two pounds of mascara.

"Please. Help me."

"I..." Buffy stammered as she stared in horror at the jumbled mess on his knees before her. "How can I... um... help you?"

"How do you normally kill monsters?"

"Stake in the heart for vamps. Um, beheading works well for most demons. Also effective for vampires. Sometimes magic?"

Darryl frowned.

"Don't think the stake would guarantee it," he admitted as he shifted his shirt to reveal a giant gouge in his chest already. Sluggish motor oil type fluid leaked from the gaping wound. "The truck did lots of damage. Real person would have been dead on impact. Beheading sounds more promising. Not sure about magic. Don't think a rabbit in a hat will hurt me much."

Buffy tugged at Darryl's good arm in hopes of getting him off his knees. It disturbed something fundamental inside her to see him begging for death. The reanimated corpse allowed himself to be lifted to his feet.

"Fresh outta hats and bunnies," Buffy offered. "Um, I do have a really nice sword at the school library that works well for beheading."

"Sounds good," Darryl stated almost optimistically before turning and heading in the direction of Sunnydale High without any further comment. He assumed Buffy would follow him. He wasn't wrong in his assumption. Buffy trailed the resurrected football player across the park until she sped up to walk beside the badly damaged young man. Neither teen noticed the vampire that had trailed them from a distance far enough to avoid detection but not too far that he hadn't heard their strange conversation.

Once they reached the school, Buffy unlocked the back library door with the key Giles had provided so that she could always have access to the variety of weapons and information stored there. She moved through the darkened stacks with a precision borne from familiarity. Darryl followed her closely and succeeded in only knocking books down from two of the shelves. The library had never been a hang out point for him when he had been in school. He was unaware of where everything was in the room. In the dim light, Darryl stumbled against the reference table as well as bumped into the circulation desk before he finally stopped trying to follow Buffy through the darkness.

Buffy finally turned on the small lamp in the library office. It offered little light and would not alert anyone to their late night presence in the school. Although it was unlikely that anyone was wondering around the school this late in the evening to see the illumination anyway. After grabbing the key from Giles' desk drawer, Buffy opened the locked cage and liberated a short sword from the hidden stash of blades. Snapping shut she cabinet, the blonde moved back towards the remaining Epps brother. She glanced at Darryl then around at the library. Her focus returned to the reanimated corpse.

"Um, I don't think this is gonna work here," she admitted. "You are not going to go poof like a vamp. Think there would be some really weird questions if your body was found here in the morning. And Giles would not be loving the mess."

It took Darryl a moment to understand Buffy's dilemma. He absently rubbed at his chest wound before announcing that he knew just the place.

Buffy followed him out of the library, around the school and down behind the athletic fields to an unused portion of the school. The old science building had been abandoned when unhealthy levels of asbestos were discovered during renovations in the eighties. It was cheaper for the school district to build the new science wing attached to the main building than it was to properly contain and remove the hazardous building materials from the old building. The old science labs were little more than storage now and students were never supposed to enter it.

Ignoring the no trespassing signs, Darryl pushed open one of the broken side doors and led Buffy around the corner to the lab his brother and Eric had utilized for their reanimation project. When they entered the forgotten laboratory, Buffy drew back. She shuddered. The smell of decomposing flesh washed over her. She gagged and had to fight the urge to vomit. She tried breathing through her mouth but the smell seemed to cling to her tongue. Horrified, she demanded to know what the stench was as she held her sleeve up to her nose in hopes of filtering the awful odor.

Darryl waved his hand towards a gurney with a couple lumps under it. There were not enough parts to make even a half of a complete body. He explained that the parts were from the first corpse Eric and Chris had collected to create a companion for him.

"Guess this one didn't work?" Buffy stared in horror at the covered body parts.

Darryl shrugged and explained that the plan to create him a companion came to a crashing halt when Chris and Eric were attacked by vampires on the night they were supposed to return with a second body.

Buffy shivered but it wasn't because of Darryl's explanation. She frowned and glanced over her shoulder. She peered into the dark hallway but didn't see a threat. The tickle crawled over her skin again and she stepped further into the room and tightened her hold on her sword. When no danger suddenly appeared, Buffy shook her head and attempted to ignore the continual creeping warning that a supernatural predator was nearby. She turned back to Darryl. She chewed lightly on her lower lip for a moment.

"You're sure this is what you want?" she questioned softly. Compassion and pity brought moisture to pool in her eyes. "I don't want to kill you."

Darryl nodded.

"I'm already dead," the older teen replied. "My body is just too stupid to realize it."

Buffy raised her sword and Darryl closed his eyes. The tip of the sword wavered for a moment. Nothing happened for an extended moment then the clatter of the sword hitting the ground startled open Darryl's eyes. Arms wrapped around his waist in an almost crushing hug. Utterly confused, the reanimated corpse lifted his undamaged arm and tentatively returned the embrace.

"Thank you for saving me," Buffy muttered into his chest.

A rumble of a choking laugh gurgled from Darryl. He patted the young woman's back and offered her a tiny smile. Sighing, Buffy stepped back from the hug. Tears were running slowly down her cheeks. The dead boy reached down and picked up her dropped sword. He held it towards her.

"Thank you for saving me," he stated with an encouraging smile twisted on his damaged face.

Buffy nodded in understanding but didn't say a word. Instead, she took back her sword. This time, the end did not waver and Darryl didn't close his eyes. He just stared at the young woman as a calm acceptance flowed over him.

Buffy took a deep breath.

"Good bye, Darryl," she whispered.

Darryl grinned at the pretty hero.

The sword swung.

His head hit the ground with a squishing thud. His finally dead body followed separately.

The sword clanged on the ground once again.

Buffy sobbed.

She brought her hands up to cover her face and slowly sunk down to her knees. For a moment, the rush of horrors that was her life overwhelmed the teen. In her time as a Slayer, she had killed so many monsters but never had her actions made her feel so monstrous as she felt at this moment. Life used to be so much easier. Good was good and evil was evil. Her life since her assault was now a wash of grays. Her shoulders shook and her tears streamed unchecked. Buffy was so caught in the crushing mental anguish that she never noticed when the creeping warning skyrocketed as the predator she had noticed a few moments ago stepped into the dimly lit room.

"Slayer."

At the sound, Buffy whipped upward. Her hand grabbed at the hilt of her sword as she stood and whirled to face the new threat. The sword never wavered as Buffy naturally fell into a defensive position.

"Spike?" she replied in confusion as she recognized the vampire despite the blurring vision from her tears. Even distorted, the vampire's attire and hair were hard to mistake.

The bleached blond vampire just stood there staring at her. His head tilted slightly and his brow furrowed as if he were trying to understand a particularly confusing puzzle.

"He saved you earlier tonight," the vamp finally stated.

"Yup," Buffy replied as she swiped tears from her face with her left hand. She could now proper see her unexpected visitor.

"You killed him."

"Yup."

A heartbeat passed and then another.

"You are the most confusing white hat I have ever seen."

Buffy shrugged.

Spike reached out with his finger and caught the final tear that trailed over the teen's cheek. He stared at the droplet on his fingertip for a moment before looking back at Buffy. He didn't understand how she could shed tears for the death of something that she slayed. If it was going to bother her, he thought she shouldn't have done it.

"You cry for him but you still killed him."

"Yup."

"Why?"

Buffy took a deep breath before stepping past Spike and heading out the door. Over her shoulder, she addressed the vampire's question in the only manner she could. "I thought it was the right thing to do. For him not for me."

Buffy walked through the door. Spike stared after her for just a moment before he glanced around the laboratory. He pulled his lighter from his pocket. Flame leaped to life. Instead of lighting a cigarette, the vampire touched the flame to the sheet covering the decomposing body parts. It sputtered and smoked until the material caught fire. Replacing the lighter in his pocket, Spike shoved the gurney towards the back of the room where it bumped against Darryl's corpse. The vampire kicked a canister of oxygen towards the flaming gurney. The whole room would go up in flames once the pressurized container ruptured from the heat. Without a backwards glance, Spike followed Buffy from the room. By morning, there would no evidence that someone was using the lab or that Buffy had been there.

At the edge of the school grounds, Spike caught up with the slowly trudging teen. He fell into place beside her as she walked towards her home. The vampire was still confused. He struggled with what he had seen tonight as well as the fact that Drusilla obviously wanted him to see it. It made no sense to him. If Buffy was a proper Slayer, she would have destroyed anything undead without a single regret. The zombie kid would have been toast without another thought. There would have been no tears. She didn't kill him because of Council teachings. She did it because she thought it was right. Spike stole a glance at the silent teen as he wondered if whatever made her this Daughter thing made her drastically different than other white hats he had encountered. He would have to ask Drusilla. She had been the one to insist the teen wasn't a Slayer. He hoped she would have answers. He hated not understanding things.

The two traveled over halfway to Revello Drive before Buffy finally spoke.

"So you were watching me tonight? Following me around?"

Spike nodded.

"You saw me fighting that weird vamp guy?"

Spike nodded again.

"You would have let him kill me?"

Spike frowned slightly. He hadn't actually thought about his inaction at the time but it was true. He wouldn't have done a thing to save the teen. He would have stood there and watched the elder vampire drain her.

Buffy took his silence as confirmation.

"That sucks," she stated before suddenly breaking into a run and leaving the vampire staring after her. Light flashed against the sword she still held in her hand as she disappeared into the shadows.

Spike's frown grew as he watched her run away from him. The expression grew even fiercer when he suddenly realized that Buffy had been correct. Even though she was a white hat and he was a Big Bad, it would have sucked. The thought of her death bothered him for some reason. The unexpected observation startled the vampire and made him feel incredibly uneasy.

"Damn," he muttered. Now he was even more confused and it didn't make him happy.

The Fly bounced into the Master's presence with an exuberance that amused the ancient vampire. Although he chuckled at the flamboyant entrance, he remained seated on his throne along the cavern wall. He smiled indulgently. The ancient vampire could stand to be a bit indulgent. His plans were moving along smoothly. His newest little minion certainly had an ambitious drive that impressed him. Eric was a useful combination of viciousness and cunning. He had brought in twice the number of minions Spike had provided in less time. The Master glanced across the cavern with a particularly evil smile creeping across his fangs. He took extreme pleasure in the acquisition of his newest component required for his release ritual. Chains rattled from both sides of the cavern now and the Master couldn't be happier. Things were progressing smoothly and they should have no problems being prepared for casting the complex spell by the next new moon. There would be a full moon this weekend and so he would only have to wait two more weeks to be free.

"I just had the most exquisite taste of life to ever touch my fangs!" the Fly gushed as he dropped down on the rocky floor at his Sire's feet. He drew attention from his Sire's musings. Friduhelm shivered with pleasure before leaning his head against the Master's knee. Absently, the elder vampire brushed his claws through the Fly's hair in an affectionate manner. The huddled vampire happily rubbed his cheek against the older one's thigh. The younger vampire always enjoyed the attentions the Master provided him. Soft affections were a pleasure for him but then so were the sting of pain and torture. Friduhelm embraced it all for the thrill of the sensation.

"Ah, and what could have possibly given you such a thrill?" asked the Master with a true note of curiosity. It wasn't just boredom fueling his inquiry. His oldest remaining Childe had been traveling the world for almost two millennium. There was little corrupted pleasure he had not already enjoyed. If his Fly had found something amazing, it would be of interest to him also.

His Childe proceeded to describe the blonde warrior that he encountered as well as the little sip of ambrosia which he was able to sneak before being thwarted. For a moment, the vampire was distracted by the audacity of the zombie-like thing who had tossed him away from his prey. With a soft tug on the Fly's styled hair, the Master returned the Fly to the real topic. He asked if the girl was a Slayer.

"Didn't taste like the little piece of Sicilian fluff I drained in 1693."

The Master chuckled. He had been so proud of his Childe when he learned that Friduhelm had not only taken out a Slayer but also that her death directly led to one of the worst magically induced natural disasters in the last five hundred years.

"That was the one that wasn't around to save the island from that chaos mage, correct? He set off that earthquake. It then caused an tsunami, if I remember correctly. Wonderful bit of work that. Thousands died."

"Oh yes. Made her aftertaste all the more sweet. The symphony of destruction in the wake of her death was glorious," remembered Friduhelm with another shiver of lusty joy.

The Fly shook his head and stood. The Master watched him trek across the dimly lit cavern with all the uncontainable vitality that had first caught his attention so long ago. Friduhelm's perversity mixed with his flamboyant demeanor and cruelty made him one of the elder vamp's favorite progeny. Only Luke and Darla had ever given him as much pleasure. Heinrich was happy this one had survived the years.

"I'm not about to forget the tingle of Slayer on the tongue. Not that one or the slippery eel of a Slayer from Ankgor that escaped me when her Watcher pinned me to a tree with her dropped spear. Only got a couple drops of that first one but I still remember the shine," the vampire shared as he picked up his pace around the small magical prison. "This one though, she was something else. Had the tang and kick of a Slayer but there was something more to it. Something more heady. Like fine wine over juice for the masses. More... I don't know. Just more."

The Fly fell silent as he continued to pace and shuffle through his more interesting kills in his long lifetime. He shifted to his demonic visage in hopes of it helping him filter through so much blood memory. He considered the legions of witches, psychics, and half-breeds that he had devoured over the years. They were not quite right either. Most had a subtle trace of their power in their veins. Some bitter. Some sweet. Some choking with intensity. He had drained holy men and women. He had traveled the world in search of diversity and delicacies. Besides collecting toys and treasures, it was one of his favorite drives in his unlife.

A smile spread across Friduhelm's face as he remembered a single kill that actually held the faintest trace of what seemed to flow so strongly through his mystery meal this evening.

"Perhaps she had a touch of the taste that Shindon monk held when I opened his stone meditation tomb and helped him on his path."

The vampire spun in a circle with his arms out and started to hum a strange little tune before shifting to singing in a heavily accented bit of Japanese. He then pulled his arms in tight against his body as if embracing the thinnest of dance partners. His feet scuffed across the rock with his eyes closed as he focused on his memory. Suddenly, he froze and started to cackle.

"Shokushinbutsu!" he shouted then fell to laughing once again. He was proud of himself for remembering the term for the practice of Buddhist monks hoping to achieve enlightenment by self-mummifying their earthly bodies. Many years ago, the Fly had traveled to Yamagata in Northern Japan specifically to get a chance to drain one of the holy men attempting to turn themselves into Buddhas of the flesh. It had been a challenge to sneak onto the insular island as well as keep hidden given his inability to blend with their society. Despite the hardship, he had spent years waiting for the chance to slip open one of the stone tombs and drain what little liquid remained in the meditating monk.

"The girl today. She held a bit of that tang. A touch of the divine, perhaps?"

"An angel? Nephilim? Xian?" the Master offered.

His Childe snorted. She could not have been the first two types of beings.

"Her touch did not burn my demonic taint. She was smaller even than me so not a godling child of man. Xian... I don't recall what that is," Friduhelm admitted with a shrug as his demonic face fell back to his human mask.

"Immortal being who achieves the state strictly through divine enlightenment. Her spiritual immortality would then lead to the immortality of the body," offered the Master with a bite of disdain in his voice. The elder vampire held little regard for any of the religions of the world and thus felt offended by the pursuit of immortality by means other than embracing the demonic.

The Fly stopped moving and considered the term. He admitted that the girl had an underlying twist of time in her blood but he was not sure the suggestion fit. The girl tasted too fresh. She was too new to be a being that had sought and found divine enlightenment. If he knew anything about divinity, it was that it took time for humans to truly reach peace within their own minds enough to reach selflessly towards godliness. Deciding to move beyond the philosophical realm of religious prey, Friduhelm made comment on Buffy's battle skills which led to the Master offering other suggestions. Amazon, Valkyrie, Fey, and Atlantian were all discarded after prolonged discussion.

Finally, the Fly decided he was done over-thinking the girl. In his mind, it did not matter what she was. He was going to collect her no matter what swirled in her blood. He hugged himself as he imagined the joy of adding her to his treasures. Humming softly to himself, the twisted demon decided that he might just need to keep her alive for a bit so that he could enjoy her taste for years to come.

Author notes:

Ankgor was the capital city of the Khmer Empire which had its height of power from the 9th to the 11th centuries. It was located in the area of what is now Cambodia. The Slayer from there would have most likely utilized a small shield and spear as they were the customary weapons of the infantry and peasantry of this empire. If she had been a royal, she could have killed vamps from the back of an elephant with a mounted ballista. I think that would have been interesting to see. Wonder what stomping by an elephant or staking by tusk would do in a vamp?

Also, the earthquake and subsequent tidal wave mentioned in Sicily during 1693 was a real natural disaster. It destroy at least 45 cities and is believed to have killed over 60,000 people. It was the second worse disaster of its kind to hit that region in recorded history.