Rebuilding
Ch 5 – The Baddies
"What're you doing Andy," Warren asked teasingly.
Andrew jumped at the sound of his name and quickly fumbled with his zipper. On the PC's screen two men were double teaming a buxom brunette between them. She was pretty, but Andy's eyes seemed glued to the man's rear end facing the camera lens.
"Uh, n-nothing! Uh, just surfing," Andy replied while fumbling to close the browser window.
"Oh, Andrew… you dirty, little boy," Warren continued his teasing. "But you don't need to be embarrassed, you know. Who among us doesn't like a little internet porn? But we have work to do if you can shift your blood supply to the head above your shoulders."
Behind them, Jonathon stumbled through the door carrying a box which he was obviously struggling with. "Geez, this thing is heavy! I could use a little help here."
"Sorry short-round, you know the rules," Warren said with a smile. "Me and Andrew put up the money for those parts, which means you're the mule this time."
"I would've helped pay if you'd let me know."
"But then we wouldn't have a carrier, now would we? Next time you can help pay and Andy will be the pack mule," Warren offered.
"Why can't you be the mule once in a while," Jonathon asked, not unreasonably.
"I'm the leader and the organizer. I don't carry, that's what I have Franken-Adam for."
"Then why not use the oaf," Jonathon complained.
"In due time; I'm charging him right now for tonight. Now get that junk down here! I want to work on installing the extra equipment on him right away. Andrew… I think the Tannis leaves are starting to not work. You better find some other way to preserve Adam's organic components… that is if you can stop yanking your crank long enough."
"Ew," Jonathon made a face, "I'm not using that chair until it's disinfected. And if you found a good porn site, I hope you remembered to bookmark it."
"Guys," Warren exclaimed in impatience, "Can we forget about sex, please? You two have to review our surveillance tapes and plan out tonight's activities! In the meantime, I need to get started on Adam's modifications."
"What about the Slayer," Andrew asked, starry-eyed now that Warren was back.
"Don't be stupid," Warren replied, "Buffy doesn't care about robberies."
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Vanessa Reston wandered the bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Sunnydale in a funk. She'd thought it was going to be far more fun to seek a little long overdue justice against Dru's paramour and her Sire, Spike, than it had turned out. Sure she'd trashed his possessions, which had been fun, but that hardly mattered in the long term. To really make him suffer, she'd wanted to find Dru, the bitch, and hack off a few of her limbs but she hadn't found her in Sunnydale. Disappointingly, it appeared that Spike was on his own these days. She wondered idly whether he and the nutty one had finally gotten tired of each other or if, perhaps, Drusilla ran into the wrong vampire killer along the way.
Vanessa sat with a sigh at the dusty table in the dining room of the abandoned castle-like structure. At its head and foot were lit candelabra which suffused the room in a weak, yellow glow. The fireplace had a small fire going, but not too large. It wouldn't do to attract attention, considering the Slayer was about. It bothered her to think that Spike was wandering in the Vampire Slayer's territory… what if she found him before she could enact her revenge? What in the world was he doing here, anyway, of all the places in the world where their kind could hang about?
She combed her long, red hair with her fingers and sighed. Outside, the sunlight was shining despicably bright giving everything out there a rosy glow. California… the last place you'd think a vampire would choose to call home.
She stretched out her hand and raked her fingernails down the chest of the man tied to the table top. The nails left behind grooved trails in his skin which quickly filled with blood. The man whimpered, pleading with his eyes, for he was quite well gagged, for mercy. Vanessa ignored this. Placing her face down to the wounds, she licked at the blood welling on the man's muscular chest.
"I'm so bored," she complained to the man. "I so wanted to cause Spike some sort of anguish. Now, between the lack of Dru to torture and the Hellmouth's guardian, I fear I won't have any time at all to do as I had so wished. I may need to simply stake him out in the sunshine and leave this place."
The man, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, issued a muffled plea to be let go. He couldn't form words, but Vanessa had been through this scenario multiple times and they always pleaded the same thing. Oh sure, sometimes they started out defiant but in the end, they all thought they could guilt her out of killing them.
"Shhh… shhhh… there's no need to be afraid, dear. After all, God is supposed to take care of you isn't he," she laughed gaily. "And aren't you all pleased to be going to Heaven, anyway? That's what your religions keep saying… that you're going to a paradise? You'd think that you would thank me for sending you on your way."
Vanessa's face morphed causing another bout of muffled yelling by the man. She might even be tempted to call it screaming, but she'd give him the benefit of the doubt and call it yelling. No reason to strip him of his manliness, after all.
She leaned in and bit the side of the man's throat, making sure that the artery tore. The blood shot down her throat in such a torrent she couldn't swallow fast enough and blood ran down her chin and onto the table. The man was dead in less than a minute, his pleas finally falling silent. Vanessa looked down at the chalky white face and the blank eyes.
"Goodbye, Dennis. Have a safe trip to the afterlife." She bent down and kissed him on his slack lips, leaving a bloody imprint of her mouth upon his.
I've been looking for Spike and Dru for eighty years, she mused. I simply cannot leave until I've punished my silly Sire for abandoning me under the urging of the daft tramp. But without him caring for anyone, how can I inflict the mental torture he so deserves before sending him back to Hell?
She wandered over to the tiny fire in the brick fireplace and gazed into the flames. She recalled her turning in 1921 and the way that she'd been left empty and bereft by her lord so shortly afterward. As if her new life had been a lark to the suave, pale beauty. She'd been simply tossed away all because Dru wanted her Pale Prince all to herself. She growled quietly in frustration as she tore the cover from the book of poetry she'd taken from him. This she added to the dying flame in front of her and placed her hands above the fire.
"Well, Dru will get hers! I swear this on my own damned soul. But first… my irresponsible Sire will be made to pay before I lose track of him again. He turned his back on me, the traitor, and he will suffer for it!"
Vanessa wrapped a moth eaten and filthy comforter around her thin shoulders and scooted closer to the tiny flame. She was so cold; she was always so cold since the night she'd died and been reborn as one of the Hellspawn. And she'd so enjoyed the sunlight once upon a time; another insult that she would lay at William's feet when she had him where she wanted.
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Across Sunnydale, Rupert Giles rolled over in bed with a groan as the insistent pounding on the front door continued. Peeking at the clock and seeing it was nearly noon, he jumped up and wrapped himself in a robe. He hadn't meant to sleep in so long today, Saturday or no.
Stumbling to the front door, he opened it to see four worried faces staring at him. Tara, Willow, Dawn and Xander wore identical frowns.
"H-hello? What's wrong," he said as he stepped aside to allow them in.
"That's what we've come to find out," Xander said.
"I've been calling and calling you Mr. Giles," Tara frowned even deeper at him. "We were growing worried. It's not healthy for you to be shut away in here, like this."
"So, we've come to make you socialize," Dawn said.
"And we're not taking 'no' for an answer," Willow added. "Go get dressed. We're taking you out to brunch… something that's not a liquid one, either."
"We know you've been drinking heavily, Giles," Xander replied to his silent look of surprise. "And we're not sitting by and watching as Buffy's death destroys you. We need you."
"A-and plus," Tara quickly added, "We just care about you."
"O-oh, well… I-I am quite gratified by your concern for me, but really, I haven't been drinking that much. And I haven't been 'shut away' as you say. I-I've actually been quite busy collating your accounts of what happened and readying my official reports to the Council. But, as I say, I'm quite touched by your concerns. Uh, where is Anya?"
"She's out shopping for a car," Xander said. "I'm not sure why she suddenly feels the need for one, especially since technically she's unemployed again, but that's what she's doing today."
"I see," Giles frowned.
According to Anya's written account, she intended to leave Sunnydale for a while. Obviously she hadn't brought her plans up to the rest of the gang yet, so he would keep her confidence for the moment. (1)
"W-well, since you all plan on not going away until I comply; I'll go get dressed, then."
He gave them all a small smile and made his way back to the downstairs bedroom. As he was getting dressed he flashed on a memory of a disturbing dream he'd had last night. Something involving a rather unrespectable bar, but the details were unclear.
Well, no matter. It was only a dream, after all.
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Much later in the afternoon, Dawn and Xander were sitting in Sunnydale's old mall resting their feet. Displayed around them were bags from several men's clothing stores filled with jeans and shirts, plus a few belts and a new pair of leather boots.
"Well, I think I've put just about enough on my charge card for one day," Xander said, looking over their purchases. "Thanks for coming with, Dawn. You seem to have a good feel for what Spike will wear."
"Sure… it was nice to get out of the house."
He looked at her with concern. She had seemed to lose some of the depression they were all struggling with only days after Buffy's self sacrifice, but now she was looking off into space around the mall's courtyard.
"So kiddo…; want to talk about what's bothering you then? Is it Buffy… 'cause that's okay. No one is expecting you to just get over what happened. None of us are just getting over it."
"Oh, no, it's not that. I mean; maybe it's sort of that, too."
Xander waited a minute as Dawn seemed to concentrate on something and then prompted her, "So?"
"It's just the last time I was here, it was just before Christmas. One of Glory's mind-wiped victims was here. A Latino man and he was shouting at me. I didn't really understand it at the time and most of what he was saying was in Spanish and it was too fast for me to get, but I was just remembering, that's all.
"Xan? It's okay, isn't it? I mean for us to be getting better so soon? I mean, Buffy really did go the way she wanted… saving us… being a hero. It's alright for us to go on, right?"
He reached out and put an arm around her, pulling her against his side. Leaning his face into her hair, he kissed the side of her head.
"It's okay if you're feeling alright and it's okay if you're not really, yet. We're probably going to have good days and bad days and there's no wrong here, okay?"
"Thanks, Xan. I think today has been a good day."
"Not yet it hasn't. I refuse to come to the mall and not grab one of those giant pretzels with too much salt and mustard and a frozen Coke… it just wouldn't be right. What do you say? You with me?"
Dawn smiled, "Yeah… but no mustard on mine."
"Well, that strikes me as abnormal, but okay."
"Are we sure that Spike is coming back tonight?"
"As far as I know," Xan smiled involuntarily. He seemed to do that a lot when he thought of the not-so-menace. "I was going to call A.I. around six-ish and make sure."
"Can I talk to Cordelia? She made me feel better after mom and I know her and Buffy weren't really close or anything…?"
"Of course, you can. Cord is part of the family, isn't she? Besides, I'd rather you talk to her than me talking to Angel or Wes."
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End Chapter 5
See Spanderverse: Points of View, One for details regarding Anya's planned departure.