Buffy clicked the television off and slipped up to her bedroom, past Joyce's room—where her mother had disappeared only a half-hour ago with much fanfare with a headache. She felt a pang of regret for the knock-down, drag-out with Dawn. Her self-control around her sister was admittedly thin, but that was only because control was so imperative in every other facet of her life. Blowing up at Dawn was a safety valve, where Buffy could just be a pissed off older sister, and not have to shoulder the mythic responsibility of Always Doing Right. Buffy's hand hovered next to her sister's bedroom door, but the light was out, and Buffy didn't want to impose. Or start another fight with the apologizing.
In her room, Buffy fished her stakes out of the weapons chest and arranged them on the floor like pointed wooden dolls. A few were selected from the bunch, and separated into a new pile. She began to polish the closest. Anything to distract from the burning in her gut that told her hunt, kill, glory in death. In the enjoining spell dream, she had faced the First Slayer. The snarled black dreadlocks and white face paint. Sineya. She had told the First that the Slayer no longer slept on a pile of bones. And yet, here was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, applying cloth to her stakes to keep her body, as taut as a bow string, from snapping her back into the Old Ways. Hunt, Kill, Glory in Death.
Minutes later, the voice was barely quieter in the warm night air, bored as it was with predictable fledge kills of patrol.
So much for self-control.
***///***
The now-familiar turrets of Sunnydale's resident vamp castle loomed against the night. Lights glowed inside. Riley took in the sight of the city below. Warm suburban domiciles, happy in their warm suburban assurances. The light behind the wooden doors promised no such warmth, only hell.
Riley kicked through the rotted wood. "I want hell."
He prepped his taser and advanced.