Demon Hunting

Disclaimer: If I owned them I'd be living by myself!

Summary: Revelations and Dru goes hunting.

Reviews: Yes, please. Readers Rock but Reviewers RULE!

A/N: Sorry this took so long but RL has been beyond frustrating. Will try to update 'Resurrected' next. Let's all hope there is a speedy end to the stresses interrupting the Squirl's creative efforts.

WayWard Childe: You let me rant and cry, thanks for the cyber shoulder. I would have gone postal long before now.

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Giles awkwardly patted Xander on the shoulder. The younger man's solid frame tensed under the tentative touch. "Xander, what happened?"

The shaggy haired Scooby inhaled shakily but when he looked up, his eyes were dry. Fury burned in the whiskey-hued depths. "Something Mrs. S said or did sent Spike into a panic attack. He thought I was there to punish him. He didn't say it but it was pretty clear from the way he was shaking in that corner. He looked at me and his terror was almost tangible. And listen to me; guess I'm spending too much time with you when I know words like that."

Giles allowed a tiny smile at the attempt. He'd been waiting for the joke that inevitably slipped out to ease tensions. He watched as Xander sat on the grass Indian style and bent his head. In low steady tones laced with impotent rage, he told the Watcher what had transpired in the basement. When he finished the short dissertation, he just sat there idly twisting the square of white linen in his large calloused hands.

Finally, Giles cleared his throat and gazed blindly at a tree at the other side of the yard. "They tortured him if he spoke." The statement was nearly inaudible.

Xander looked up, shocked. "But why? I mean, talking is his thing, he can't not talk. When he kidnapped me and Willow, all I wanted him to do was stop talking but not like this. I'm so confused." He moaned. "I have not had enough sleep for this." He repeated his earlier lament.

"I didn't hear him talk that much when I was Angelus' 'guest'." Giles admitted. "He was very angry a good deal of the time." He looked down at the glasses dangling from his fingers. "He stopped Angelus from killing me. Just before you came in, Angelus was going to use a chainsaw on me to get the information he wanted. Spike stopped him."

Xander took a deep breath. "I didn't know."

"I realize that. I find it difficult to talk about that time. Drusilla used her thrall to convince me that she was Jenny and seduced me into telling her what they needed to know." Giles continued softly.

Dark eyes widened. "She seduced you?" Shock colored each word.

"Not completely, it was more of a seduction of my emotions than my body." Giles rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Afterwards, Spike sat there in his chair, watching me. I don't know what he was thinking but the expression on his face and in his eyes…. She hurt him so badly by choosing Angelus over him. He loved her so much, I could see it. He risked a lot by betraying Angelus. He saved my life."

"And now you're trying to pay him back." Xander realized.

"Yes." The admission was very, very quiet. There was a long pause. "There's more."

Xander gave a short bark of unamused laughter. "There always is."

An ironic smiled flitted across Rupert's handsome face. "Yes, indeed." He reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he no longer had. After a minute, he remembered and stopped. "Drusilla's here. She's come to help Spike."

"Keep her away from me." Xander shuddered, remembering the time she'd almost bitten him.

Giles chuckled. "She told me about her attempt to turn you during that ill-advised Valentine's Day spell. The ritual that Spike performed to restore her worked much differently than they first imagined. Over the past couple of years, she has regained much of her sanity. She's still clairvoyant but she is much more coherent. I don't know if they were aware that would happen but she is different than she was. I don't think she'll ever be completely sane but her mental capacity is vastly improved. She has promised not to touch anyone who has been helping Spike. She's the one killing the soldiers."

"Good for her." Xander's voice was low and vicious.

"Xander." The older man's tone was reproving. "She's killing humans."

"I'm inclined to agree with Mrs. S. What those people are doing is inhuman and I don't feel sorry for any of them that Drusilla catches up with." The brunette stood up, stuffing the twisted handkerchief into his pocket. "When is she coming over to see Spike?"

"She's sleeping at my house right now but I believe she plans on being here at sunset." Giles told him as they began slowly walking back to the house.

Xander nodded thoughtfully. "Buffy and Dawn shouldn't be here when she gets here. I'm not real thrilled about Mrs. Summers being here either but I don't think she'd be willing to leave. Wait a minute." He stopped suddenly as something Giles said sank in. "She's at your house? Are you nuts?"

"I may very well be but she told me some things that made me reconsider turning her away." The Watcher replied wryly.

The younger man shivered. "And a cold chill just went down my back. Something tells me I'm not gonna like any of it."

Giles shook his head. "No, you're not. Come on back in so I can tell you and Joyce at the same time. I don't think I can repeat this more than once." He held the back door open, letting Xander precede him into the house. As quickly and as emotionlessly as possible he repeated some of what the vampire had told him the night before. She had asked him to keep the details to himself. "Drusilla knows what happened to Spike but she has to get him to tell her. That's the only way to get him back. As his Sire, she has control over his demon and that is how she's going to get through to him."

Joyce bent her head, tears slipping down her face. "I didn't know. I thought I was helping."

"Of course not. How could you? It says something that he did speak to you. Knowing what the consequences could be, he still spoke to you." Giles covered her trembling hands with one of his own.

Xander glanced at the monitor. He hadn't heard very much noise from the basement since he'd returned to the house. "I think I should go check on him." He stated quietly, more to give Joyce time to compose herself than from any desire to see the vampire again.

In the basement…

Xander paused halfway down the stairs to give the demon a chance to become aware of his presence. He needn't have worried. Spike had fallen asleep huddled in the corner; his vampiric instincts had kicked in and putting him to sleep for the day. He'd finished the remaining blood and the bags littered the floor in a small circle around his bare feet.

With a stealth that would have surprised his friends, Xander glided across the cement floor. He eased into the chair that he'd left near the vampire's hidey corner. He watched Spike sleep for several minutes. The platinum tipped head was leaning against the wall, dark lashes fanned across lean cheeks. The human noticed distantly that Spike appeared to have recovered some of his weight but was nowhere near back to his normal size. Xander saw with a start of surprise that the vampire was breathing in his sleep. A shiver wracked the thin frame and with a pang, Xander realized that he was cold. Quietly, he stood and picked up the blanket from the cot. He let it drift down to cover the shaking body.

Frowning from the conflicting sentiments deep in his chest, Xander silently walked back to the staircase. He took another last look at the slumbering vampire before slowly and thoughtfully ascending the stairs.

Sunnydale College campus, psychology class…

Willow bumped into Buffy as she leaned down to grab her book bag and grinned when the Slayer jumped in surprise. She'd been deep in thought while she stared glassy-eyed at the Teacher's Assistant, Riley Finn. The redhead leaned over and spoke directly into her best friend's ear.

"Wasn't it nice of him to give us everything we need for the next test?" Willow commented slyly. "I would have hated to have been daydreaming and missed it."

Buffy grimaced at the other girl. "Just tell me you took good notes." She groaned.

"Not to worry, every word dutifully noted in my trusty note book." Willow nodded decisively. "I wonder why Professor Walsh wasn't here today." She mused as they began gathering their gear.

"She had a few personal things she had to take care of." Riley answered, walking up to the two girls. "Sorry, couldn't help overhearing." He smiled shyly.

Buffy gazed up at him with wide green eyes. "Hi."

Willow grinned, amused at her friend's sudden lack of social skills. "Hey, Riley."

Riley shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Look, Buffy. I was wondering if maybe you could… What I wanted to know was if you…. Well, there's this great coffee place just off campus and I wondered if you wanted to go there after your last class?" He finally managed to stumble through the question.

Buffy's face lit up. "I'd love to." She gushed, then her expression fell. "But I can't. I have to go home and watch the… um… neighbor's kid, yeah, that's it. I have to baby-sit." She frowned at the injustice of her life.

Riley frowned with puzzlement over her disjointed sentence. He winced as he remembered that Professor Walsh wanted him to go over the surveillance tape of the Hostile's lair. "That's okay, I need to do some work for the professor for tomorrow's classes. I'd forgotten. Can I get a rain-check?" He gazed at her with hopeful hazel eyes. "How about tomorrow after classes?"

Buffy chewed her lower lip in frustration. "I can't. I don't know how long I'm gonna have to va – ah - baby-sit."

Willow's expression was sympathetic. She knew how hard it was to have Spike ensconced in the basement. She'd been grateful to Xander for taking her shift when they'd realized that Giles had forgotten her class schedule.

"Um, Buffy? We're gonna be late for our next class. We need to go." Willow gently reminded her friend who was too busy staring at her crush to notice the time passing. Riley and Buffy both shook themselves out of the haze they'd fallen into.

Buffy visibly started and picked up her bag from where she'd dropped it. Riley grinned sheepishly and nodded. "See you in class tomorrow?"

Both girls nodded. "Yup, bright and early." Willow chirped.

He gazed at the floor. "Well, then." He stopped.

Buffy hefted her bag. "Yeah, well." She countered.

Willow looked at both of them and beamed. "I'll meet you in the hall, Buff." She said astutely.

Riley looked around the empty classroom and then back at the redhead. He leaned over quickly and pressed a swift kiss on her cheek. "Thanks." He murmured.

Willow blushed as she hurried out of the room.

Buffy's big green eyes fixed on Riley's boyish face. "Thought she'd never leave." She breathed.

"Me, too." Riley answered. He leaned down as she raised her face and their lips met for a passionate kiss.

They were breathless when they broke apart but they smiled at each other goofily. "Tomorrow then." Riley confirmed.

Buffy nodded and waved as she left to meet Willow in the hall.

Later, Summers house…

The demon woke to the realization that someone had put a blanket over his perpetually cold body. The soft warmth of the blanket was a luxury he'd been conditioned to believe he didn't deserve. He looked around and yawned, the terror from earlier still dragged at his limbs as he rose cautiously from his corner. The lure of his cot was more than he could resist and he wrapped his blanket around his thin frame before lying down. With a tiny sigh of contentment, he allowed himself to drift back into sleep feeling safe for the first time in many months.

Sunset….

Drusilla rose from where she'd been deeply sleeping in Rupert's spare bedroom. She noticed with a small smile that the Watcher had pulled the drapes closed against the sun. She knew that it would have been very easy for him to give in to his hatred and leave them open to dust her. He had told her he would buy some bagged animal blood and for her to help herself. She'd laughed at his presumption that she would tamely exist on animal blood like her Sire. Angel was burdened with a soul that tormented him if he fed on humans, Dru had no such hindrance. She had soldiers to hunt. She left the apartment and paused. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift for a few minutes. A smile flitted across her lovely face. Her childe was safe, warm and well fed. She would be with him soon and would recover her sweet William's shattered mind. But first there were humans who needed to pay for their transgressions against her childe.

Drusilla had been watching the Initiative soldiers for more than a few days. She had been waiting for the opportunity to attempt a rescue of her William but had been pleasantly surprised when he'd escaped on his own. She'd known it was prearranged and had not been in the least surprised when the soldiers began following her childe as he attempted to feed himself.

She'd been beyond angry as she watched Spike get hungrier and weaker. Her dark knight had been a powerful vampire and these humans had tortured and starved him. They would pay.

Drusilla glided through the shadows lining the street down from the Watcher's apartment. She ignored the humans who were foolish enough to be out after dark in a town where mysterious deaths were a common occurrence. She quickly found the cemetery where the soldiers were once more hunting for her childe. They were again in teams of two. She smirked at their blithe assumption that their way was still best and they were safe. Waiting patiently was something that she had worked hard on and the benefits were paying off. Gliding along the edge of the forest that surrounding the cemetery, she smiled in malicious glee when one of the abhorrent humans wandered away from his partner and ended up within a few feet of the waiting vampire.

Mike Caden was only 20 and had been in the Army 2 years. He'd been shocked when he'd been chosen for this special team. He'd grown up in Missouri where the only demon he'd known was his uncle's old stubborn mule. He snickered occasionally at the unintended pun but the truth was sometimes stranger than state reputations. There were days that he still couldn't believe he was living in California, the Sunshine State, and spent his night hunting vampires. He'd seen more atrocities in the last ten months than he'd seen his entire life. What the Professor and Special Agent Finn had done to that blond vampire had caused him to investigate ways to transfer out of the Initiative. To his horror, he'd been told that transfer was impossible. He wasn't as committed to the cause as the others were. A tiny, hidden part of him had cheered when the vampire escaped.

Mike stopped at the edge of the treed portion of the old cemetery. He thought he'd seen a shadow move but didn't want to get any closer to investigate. He'd seen the drained corpses of the others. He didn't want to die that way. That was one reason he'd broken regulations and contacted his retired uncle for help in getting reassigned. While his grand-uncles who'd held high rank in all four branches of the service had died, his Uncle George still had contacts in the highest offices of the personnel branch. Mike gulped and held his rifle tighter. He knew the weapon was useless against vampires and was increasingly frustrated that they were issued daily. He raised a hand and wiped sweat from his brow, dislodging the fringe of sandy hair that fell over his forehead. His blue/gray eyes swept nervously back and forth seeking the source of the movement he'd seen.

A soft rustle sounded off to Mike's right, he spun in that direction and found his gaze caught by a pair of icy blue eyes. He gasped and knew that death was standing in before him. The beautiful woman standing in front of him was pale as a corpse and somehow Mike knew that this was a vampire. A cold sweat broke out over his slender body. He nearly stopped breathing in his silent panic. Something about her eyes kept him captive and unable to speak. He shivered as she approached him and leaned into his neck. He closed his eyes and waited for the bite that would drain his life. A small spark in him hoped she wouldn't turn him because he would rather die than be captured by his co-workers and suffer the same torture they'd dished out to the blond vampire.

TBC