"90% of the home was incinerated. The fire caught the propane tanks and caused an explosion. No remains were found, but they have concluded that everyone in the household is deceased, because of the intense heat."

Giles nodded, processing Ethan Rayne's words very carefully. They had quickly left the scene before the police could interview them and were now gathered at The Watcher's home. Upon their arrival he had phoned the Master of the Azilot clan, Daniel Holtz, and arranged for him and his guard to meet. The Master now stood at the far end of the home, flanked by two strong looking vampires.

"You are certain that you saw her leave unharmed?"

"Yes, Mr. Giles. She…. She left completely unharmed." Parker shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to seem weak in front of the leader of their Clan. Letting him know that Buffy had easily overpowered him would be more than slightly embarrassing for him to admit.

"Did she say where she was going?" Giles pressed.

"No. She didn't." He noticed the skeptical stares he was receiving and his eyes widened, "I swear it."

"You should have never let her out of your sight!" Giles bellowed. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly in frustration.

"And exactly how were you expecting the boy to do that? She's extremely fast and strong. You are the one who told her to 'run' in the first place." Ethan snarled at the Watcher. He was obviously very agitated, but his soft tone belied how much he didn't want to be in this meeting.

Giles hand immediately left his face and gave a chilling snarl of his own, "You dare you insinuate that the order I gave to my Awakener was improper?"

Ethan scoffed, "Oh, I do more than dare, you insipid-"

"Enough of this." Daniel Holtz voice finally boomed from the side of the room. His face was full of displeasure as he waltzed closer towards the group. "You are all failures in my eyes, so we can stop this passing of blame. We need to find the Awakener and bring her home."

The 3 men nodded, but remained quiet. They all knew better than to test the temper of their leader, especially when it came to important issues such as this.

"If I may, Master…?" Giles continued once he got an approving nod from Holtz, "Buffy was very rarely out of my sight and there were very few places that she would go; the college campus, the movie theatre, the coffee shop… Those are the best places to start."

Holtz nodded, "What about acquaintances of hers?"

A look of guilt flashed on Giles face for a moment, "She didn't, didn't actually have many of those. Aside from Parker… there were none."

Not feeling the least culpable, their Master spoke again, "Well, then. That narrows our search greatly. I am going home to organize a search team. I will call you again, when I need any of your services."

The tone in the vampires' voice left no room for a response. He didn't spare another glance at the trio and stately walked out of Giles' home.

The Watchers eyes never left Ethan's face, "What was the purpose of arguing with me in front of the Master?"

Ethan recoiled in honest shock, "There was no purpose, only stating my opinion. If you're going to accuse my charge of something, you should expect me to respond."

"I don't know what the hell is going on here, Ethan," Giles voice was grim, "but I will. Soon. You can leave my home now."

His ever present snarl reappeared on his face and Ethan stormed out of his house. Parker stayed behind for a moment.

Giles locked eyes with the much younger vampire, "It is in your best interest to keep in touch with me…without Ethan."

Parkers' eyes widened and he darted out of the room without a reply.

Giles walked to the door and made sure it was firmly locked. He turned away from it and walked back to his living room. Despite what the Master had said, he was not going to sit around and wait. No, he was going to find his Awakener.

*

*

*

Buffy eyed Angelus as he stalked back into the room. He was dressed differently; gone were the leather pants and velvet shirt. He was now trying to undo his bow tie from his immaculate tuxedo. He didn't say a word to her or spare her a glance as he moved about his room doing his nightly ritual. She quickly averted her eyes when he began removing his shirt and revealing his bare chest.

Angelus changed clothes in silence. He removed his tuxedo, which he haphazardly tossed to the floor, and changed into a set of black, silk pajamas. He turned towards her. Her eyes were still cast to the ground and he smiled at her innocence. He watched as a shudder went through her body and a momentary flash of emotion went across his face.

She felt the heat of his eyes on her and figured he must have been done changing clothes. Raising her gaze to him, she spoke, "Why is it that you have not killed me?"

His trademark smirk still on his face, he slowly moved towards her. His shirt was unbuttoned and with each step it swayed against his paleness, showing more of his toned flesh with each movement. "Who said I wanted to kill you?"

"I am Azilot. One who wanted to murder you." She looked flustered for a moment, another tremble of weakness taking over her body, and then corrected herself, "One who still wants to murder you."

Angelus gave a sigh, though a smile was on his lips. He walked past her and into a different room of his chambers that she couldn't see. He returned to the room, but still out of her sight, "When was the last time you've fed, dear girl?"

Buffy was startled by his question. Confused she asked sarcastically, "Why does it matter, dear fiend?"

He appeared in front of her, a silver thermos in his hands, "You're shaking. It must have been some time."

She stared at the thermos, already sensing the rich human blood inside of it, "I-I don't know."

He smiled at her hunger. Maybe she wasn't impenetrable after all. "If I release you, do you promise to behave yourself like a good little girl?"

Her eyes snapped to his and she snarled angrily, "I am no ones little girl, thanks to you!"

Still smiling, he shrugged, "I guess that's promise enough." He reached up and undid her chains. Her body collapsed to the floor. He sat the thermos in front of her and stepped back.

She knelt down out of pure exhaustion and moved her arms around. They were terribly sore from being raised for the last day. She gave an untrusting stare at Angelus and reached for the thermos. She grabbed it and gave a long sniff to see if she could trace any contaminations. If there was any way of her getting out of there, she would need some sort of strength.

He leaned up against his bed, "Don't worry. It's not poisoned."

The smell of it backed up his words. She quickly changed her face and began drinking the warm liquid.

Angelus watched her carefully as she fed. Her face did not change like most of their kind. Her eyes glowed a bright, almost neon blue and her face was smooth, as usual. Her teeth simply elongated their canines to a deadly point. He was in awe.

She'd finished her quick meal and had begun licking the remainder of the blood from her lips.

His pants tightened as he grew excited watching her feed. It had been a very long time since he'd been aroused in that way. "Why, Ms. Summers. You're beautiful!"

Buffy's eyes widened as he said her surname. Hearing that he knew her name sent her crashing back to the reality of the situation. He murdered her family. He murdered her family. Without thinking she charged at him, not caring that he could easily kill her.

Angelus was as shocked as she was, but still prepared for anything the young vampire would have done. She slammed him down to the floor and straddled his waist. Wrapping her hands around his neck she screamed in his face, "How do you know my name?!"

Angelus openly laughed at her feisty, yet foolish attempt to over power him. He quickly took over the situation and grabbed her hands to pull them behind her back. Locking them with one hand he adjusted her position with the other so that her womanhood was right on top of his erection. He grew harder at her gasp of surprise, "I know almost everything about you, Buffy Summers."

She blushed, filled with humiliation at their current position and her point of vulnerability. She sat perfectly still on top of the obviously aroused vampire, "H-h-how?"

He ignored her stammered question, "I did not destroy your bloodline and as far as I know, my people had nothing to do with it."

Their position forgotten, she questioned him, "What are you talking about? You're lying to me!"

"I am many things, little one, but a liar is not one of them." He released her hands and sat up quickly, causing her arms to go around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her closer to him. "I did no harm to you, your family, or your clan. It seems…that you don't know as much about me as you think."

Buffy was flustered, not only from the impressive nature of Angelus beneath her, but the look in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Then who was responsible for ruining her life? Her breath slowed as she felt her body responding to his. This was too much. The stress of the Assassins Test she was supposed to take, on top of losing her family, was overwhelming. For some reason she couldn't help but to respond to him. He moved his face in closer to hers and she knew that he was about to kiss her.

She knew that in whatever this momentary weakness was, she would let him.

Angelus wasn't fairing any better. The Azilot on top of him was resting comfortably in his lap and it was driving him insane. Her petite frame seemed to meld perfectly with his and his thoughts were filled with images of taking her on his floor, whether she wanted him to or not. She still had a remainder of her meal on her lips and he reached in to taste it…

"Still have habits of playing with your food, I see."

*

*

*

"Where did he go?"

"Not sure. You think he could have left any faster?"

Willow sighed as her and Xander searched the entrance to the ball. Angelus had left without a word to either of them and the crowd inside was more than a little antsy at his news. "Does he honestly think we're going to be able to clean up that mess in there?"

"Nope." He gave up searching for their Master and turned his eyes back to her, "I think he's counting on that chaos, Will."

She nodded, "You think what he's saying about the traitor is true?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Did you see how he reacted in there? Something's going on with that guy. I smell a blood sucking rat."

The duo quieted as several people left the hall and walked past them.

They watched them pass and suddenly Willow switched topics, "Did I do ok up there?"

Xander wrapped an arm round his recently acquired partner. Before getting his promotion he and Willow had been friends for many years. He was used to her odd switch of topics, "Of course you did. 18th Century, Judaic stuttery Willow is far gone."

The red head smiled at him, "Thank you, Xander. I hope my little intro wasn't too dramatic. Although, I think Angelus feeds on the drama-"

Her words were cut off by an angry Quentin Travers shoving past her and Xander. Moments later his female partner came past sputtering out apologies and followed him out the door.

Xander growled, realizing that they were going to have to deal with the situation immediately. He looked at Willow, "You ready to go back in there?"

She regarded him seriously, "No. No, I am not. But, we have to."

"Yeah, let's find Spike." They walked back into the main hall and began searching for their Lieutenant Master. It wasn't hard to spot the platinum blonde vampire and they strode over to where he was seated.

Spike had hoped that the two advisors would leave him out of this mess and clean it up themselves. If anyone didn't want the leadership role more than Angelus, it was him. Not that he wouldn't be able to perform the task better than anyone, he would just rather have the glory than the actual hard work. His eyes focused on the duo from behind the red haired woman sitting on his lap.

Xander shook his head, incredulous at the sight, "Are you serious, man?"

"Well, I was about to be until you two gits interrupted me. What do you want?" Spike smiled blithely as the unnamed woman began to nuzzle his neck.

Willow sighed and Xander scoffed in disbelief. He roughly grabbed the slender woman from Spikes lap and pushed her away from them. Ignoring her whimper, he kneeled down and spoke roughly, but quietly to Spike, "What do we want? Do you not notice the several hundred angry vampires surrounding us at this very moment? When Angelus isn't around they all listen to you."

Spike's careless smile stayed in place, none too concerned with the female vampire wellbeing. "Angelus said his piece. I can't change it. What do you want me to do about it? Call off the party? I think that would anger them more than just sittin' here being pissy."

Willow stepped forward, her voice also low and stern, "We just need you start behaving like a leader. Now get off your British ass, get up to that podium, and *say* something to calm these people down!"

Spike looked up to Willow in surprise, his smile falling. He stood and got right in front of her. She stood her ground, not intimidated in the slightest by the older vampire. He smirked again, "Yes ma'am."

Xander shook his head and stood, "About time."

"What can I say? I've always had a thing for redheads." Spike fixed his clothes, ignored Willows look of disgust, and made his way to the podium.

"You think this is gonna end well, Will?"

"Nope." She smiled at her partner, "But it will be very entertaining. Our ladies await, Mr. Harris."

Seeing said ladies across the room, a medium build blonde and the aforementioned Cordelia, the pair made their way over to them, hoping Spike would actually attempt to handle the situation properly.

*

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Ok, so this isn't as long as it should have been, but I'm SO exhausted guys. Sorry. Working retail is a bitch during the holidays and my music has taken up a lot of creative energy. Poop.

BUT, there will be another chapter tomorrow evening! Promise. That is my poor (wo)man's Christmas gift. lol.

Some of you have asked questions about some holes in the story. They are there on purpose, i.e. where is Angelus located, how the hell did she get there, etc. I'm trying to keep her character a little bit… mysterious. Hey, everybody's got their issues. You'll see why later.

Thanks for being so patient guys. *heartheart*

Chy