"Tales of D'Hoffryn…"
Disclaimer: Would Joss want his name associated with this? I think not...But anyway all BTVS characters remain the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and all other owner/creators of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series...Though his brother Mort gets nothing...
Archived at the Cicelyverse page of the Buffy Rebecca verse, .com...
Summary: While saddled with the job of tending the discombobulated First Evil, the Lord of all Things Vengeful tells a few tales of his (well, his people's) exploits with some old friends…
"Sunset…"
Part IX…
Cellar of the Summers' home…
"How dare you, sir?" Buffy fumed, struggling against the ropes William had tied round her. "Is this the way you treat your wife? I must give serious consideration to a formal divorce…"
"You were going to try and tie me up down here, Cics…" he noted, matter of factly. "I may have a soul again but I can sense when a soulless companion is up to something…"
"That was for strictly altruistic reasons…For your own good…!" she squirmed in the ropes…
"Actually…" he smiled. "I believe you. I know you really did just want to take this matter in hand yourself. What were you planning? Some deal with D"Hoffryn or…?"
"Certainly not…" she lied. "Just secure your safety…And continue the work of rounding up our poor citizens here…Waiting for Giles and the Council. I see it was a mistake, now. You can clearly defend yourself well." Smile. "Will…I always knew you had it in you… Now, just let me go so I can help here."
"Cicely…You are lying…" amused look. "Rather badly, too…"
"How dare you?" she glared. "And it was utterly base of you to take advantage of this young woman's body's sexual tension to …Well, take advantage of me…"
"I only kissed you…" he noted. "Then used a trick I learned in China for paralyzing opponents. And by the way, you should be more careful when a vampire makes a move like that. I thought Buffy, let alone you, had more instinctive sense. At least since Angelus returned here…"
"You took shameless advantage of my love for you!" she howled.
"You're going to wake Mother…" he noted.
"Oh, bother…Hmmn…Oh, William…" she beamed suddenly. "Mother? That's so sweet of you. I know she'll appreciate it when she recovers her soul and gets to know you. The soul, I mean. Wouldn't it be nice if she really is my own mother, likewise reincarnated? I never knew her, you know."
"Would be like God to reincarnate your poor mother in a situation where she could become a fiend's victim at any time…" he sighed.
"Now…" she gave a reproving glance… "Don't be like that…Things are working out for us at last. And we'll protect her once this little affair is happily settled…"
"Well, however it's settled…I'll do my best for her…And you, dear…" he nodded.
"And to that purpose, let me go…" she frowned at him. "Come now, William, you need me…"
"I can't trust you in your current, Cics. And in fact to be honest I'd no intention of letting you leave here 'to help' in any case..."
"You let me go, husband…Or so help me!" she glared…Trying to shake free…Then calming. "These won't hold me for long, regardless." Shrewd look.
"No, very true…" he nodded. "Which is why I'll have to put you out again and lock you up somewhere more secure…"
"No!...she squirmed. "William, damn you! I'm trying to save you! Who cares what must be done to accomplish that?! I've earned it a million times over in both my existences! Please…Don't, my love! I take it back about the divorce, I never intended…Let me…" she groaned as he carefully pinched her neck at a point and she collapsed…
"Sorry, love…Truly…" he sighed. "Thank God at least I didn't have to put you in thrall. I would not have wanted to give Spike that edge on you…" he lifted her unconscious body and carried her quickly upstairs…
"Willow!" he hissed… "Come here, girl…"
"Master?"
"Hmmn…?" Will looked at Willow, following him…He shifted the now sleeping, rope-tied Buffy in his arms…
"What's up, Red? Trouble…?"
"No, Master…I only…I could carry her, Master." Willow suggested, a bit eagerly…
Hmmn…What's this about?
"No, she's a bit heavy for you. And more of a handful if she awakes…And what's with the servile crap, girl? I didn't request it."
"Just being a good enthralled servant, William…" Willow noted. "Sorry if you don't like it…"
"There's no call for it, sweetheart. Just do what I ask and that's quite enough. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine...But Buffy's a danger to you…We shouldn't keep her…"
"I've that well in hand, Red. We're taking her to the one place in town she'll have a little difficulty breaking out of…"
"Oh…" Willow, disappointed tone\. "I could probably secure her for you…If you want to deal with more important matters…"
"Red?" he paussed…Eyeing her…She regarding him with blandly blank, pleasant expression…
"What is up here? Truthfully, girl?"
"I'm horny and I'd like to grab Buffy's spot with you…" she noted, speaking a bit flatly. "The thrall and the stuff about this ancient romance has got my motor running. Oh, William, can't I just kill her and be your new girl? We could find a way to summon Cicely in here if you'd like…" she indicated herself. "Much easier to restrain than in Buffy…"
He blinked…My God…
"Willow…Flattered as I am…You don't know what you're soullessly sayin'. Now I order you, girl, to put such thoughts out of your redhead and drop the servile bit. Just help me out as your friend and the friend who's got you in thrall. And keep any ideas about harming Buffy out of your noggin…Ok?"
"Yeah…" sigh…
"Now keep a sixth sense out for anything potentially troublesome and we'll continue to be friends. Until I revert, at least…"
"Right…Mas…William…"
"There's a lamb. And Red, I do appreciate it…It's nice to be fancied by such a lovely girl. But I am very happily married, despite our unfortunate bad luck over the years…"
"Ok…" sigh…
"It will come Red…If not that fellow back in the car…What was his name?"
"Xander…Alexander…Harris…"
"He reminded me a bit of an old friend of mine. Anyway…If it's not him, someone…You're too good to miss, Red. Just be patient and as sweet as you already are, when fully equipped with soul…"
"if I had power…Like Buffy…" she eyed Buffy in his arms… "You'd like me then, wouldn't you?"
"Willow…I asked you to stop thinking along these lines. Power's not the answer and I'd no idea Cicely had power of any sort when I first hooked up with her…"
"Right, sorry…"
"I loved her because she saw something worth loving in me. That's how it works, Red…"
"Oh…I think you're very sexy, William…"
"Deeper than that, sweetheart…Again, flattered, but I really hafta insist you focus on the task at hand…"
"Ok…Sorry…"
"Thanks…" he looked up the street…Ah…Thought I remembered it from when Spike broke in that first week. He increased speed, sensing Buffy was stirring a bit…
Don't wanna keep doing that neck pinch…Might do some permanent damage…
"The Bank of Sunnydale…?" Willow stared.
"The very thing…" he nodded, smiling… "For such valuable cargo…"
…
Large transport helicopter, 4000 feet above the town line of Sunnydale…
"Well?" Giles in flight suit with parachute, eyed the elderly man next to him…The old man in deep mediation. Ten other men and women, all in the same flight suit, with chutes, some bearing guns, others more antique weapons such as crossbows, two standing by large crates…
"I sense the field begins just ahead…" the old man looked at him. "Very powerful but our orb should protect us."
"Deploy the orb, Wesley…!" Giles turned to one of the two standing by the crates, a tall, bespectacled young man in flight suit…One Wesley Wyndham-Price, candidate Watcher. Wesley nodding and opening the crate near him…Pulling out a large, electric-blue glowing orb…Touching it with a large metal ring…
"All of you!" he shouted to the others… "Touch your rings and put them on...!"
Each team member stepped forward…Touching ring…Giles, last, after the elderly mystic. Wesley touched another and carefully made his way forward to the pilot's area. Handing the ring to the pilot, a young woman of mid-twenties years, who nodded thanks and carefully put it on her right wrist…
"Everyone secure?" Giles called. "Whatever you do once we enter the spell zone, don't remove the ring…!"
Wesley had returned…Eyeing Giles… "So William the Bloody wasn't lying about the spell…?!" he noted, in necessarily loud voice over the drone of the helicopter…
"For all we know it's of his making and simply bait to draw us in after disabling Buffy…!" Giles replied… "The original mission plan remains in force. We make a surveillance, determine if Buffy is alive and can be retrieved. Destroy any vampires, particularly William the Bloody and Drusilla, we encounter…!"
"Sir? What about civilians?!" a young team member, a short female, brunette…Haley, he recognized. Wesley and the other younger members looking at him as well…
"Their protection goes without saying…!" Giles, quickly. "Though our top priority is to break this spell. That is the best and really, only, way to rescue them…!"
"Sir? If William was telling the truth! And has recovered a soul…If all the vampires in the spell zone now have souls, however temporarily…!" Wesley began…
"That's not our concern, Mr. Wyndham-Price! They are better off destroyed…!"
"But if they could assist us? At least until they revert?"
"Mr. Wyndham-Price!…All of you!" Giles eyed the group, raising his voice as loudly as he could… "Do not let your natural sympathies for these creatures and their fates blind you to the larger issue at hand! We must prevent D'Hoffryn's scheme from succeeding! He must not acquire Buffy Summers for his tool…!"
"I still don't fully understand why D'Hoffryn should hope to acquire Ms. Summers?!" Wesley, holding onto crate as the copter rocked a bit in its stationary position… "Surely even soulless she'd sense the worthlessness of his offers. And self-interest would keep her from wishing to die at this time…!"
"This mission doesn't require your complete understanding, Wyndham-Price…It requires your complete obedience to the mission directives…!" Giles, voice a bit harsh even with the required shouting over the engine noise. "Are we quite clear on that?"
"Yes, sir!" Wesley, flatly…
"All right…! Check your equipment! Remember to stay in touch by cell or satellite phone at all times…Rendezvous at the designated coordinates…Do not engage the Slayer or any creatures or humans on your own…! Good luck!" Giles addressed the group, turning at end to press intercom to pilot. "Go in!"
The copter moved on, crossing the Sunnydale town line…
…..
Just outside the Bank of Sunnydale's looted (by several top-level employees) vault…Now closed and retime set to open in ten hours…William having confirmed from a vamped assistant manager previously at Willie's that there'd be no problem with air…And gotten a detailed set of instructions as to how to reset the timer…Having assumed beforehand he might need a place to "deposit" Buffy safely…
"Hello, Dru?" William spoke into his cell. "We've got Buffy secured at the Sunnydale Bank. She should be all right for a bit. No, I opted for plan B. I didn't think we could risk letting her have freedom of movement under the influence. She was plotting to cut a deal with D'Hoffryn or anyone on the Evil team to help me…" he paused. Willow waiting patiently…
"Yeah…" wan smile… "A very good wife, thanks Dru. That's kind of you…"