Buffy twirled a stake between her fingers. All was not right in the world. It was not solely her problem, she told herself. Somehow, somewhere, the telephone gods had decreed that no call should connect with another party tonight. Willow and Tara's machine picked up, Giles and Xander's lines were both busy (busy? Who aside from each other could they be talking to at this time of night?), Riley's had rung off into infinity, the clickity-clicking of the government tap setting her teeth on edge. In her desperation, had talked to Cordelia for a few minutes. For the third time since returning from Dracula's castle, she had attempted to reach Angel. And was assured that everything in LA was fine, better than fine, nothing like being all blowed up months before to reinforce how fine the present could be.
She meandered over to a headstone, collapsing heavily on Mrs. Susan Manners, loving wife, devoted mother, world renowned three-time tri-state cook-off champion, county cross-stitch queen, 1942-2000 whom was fated in a few minutes to be so much dust in the wind. Oh god, Buffy thought, Riley's been listening to way too much Kansas lately. The blue tank top she'd changed into clung to her shoulder blades in the sticky heat. Buffy wrinkled her nose as she thought of vamp dust clumping on her skin.
"On the plus side," Buffy said to herself as she studied the text with all the seriousness of a late homework assignment, "my headstone's gonna be a lot less cluttered."
The perfect intro line for a vamp to burst out of Mrs. Susan's grave went unremarked. She pursed her lips. Hour two of Buffy Doesn't Hunt the Vamps Like a Rabid Dog, and no vamps had popped up yet. She mildly wondered if patrolling had ever been this boring for past Slayers.
Buffy inspected the end of her stake, flicking motes of dust from the dark grain of the wood.
***///***
Xander slowed to a jog along the edge of Rotterdam, taking in a view of the twisted spiral of the faux-cathedral and the castle turrets at once. As he approached the wide-set drive of the Dracula's estate, he noticed the smashed-in double doors.
"Late to the party, as usual," he quipped dryly.
It seemed prudent to stash the blue glowy vase thing safely in a hollowed out crevice under the massive stone steps, out of sight out of mind, before entering Dracula's love nest. The original plan: hide the jar before the Chipped Wonder arrived to do whatever serious damage he'd planned to the premises and bluff Spike out of his hell-bent destruction. Revised plan: use a bit of well-applied violence to disable the vampire when he was off his guard, fishing about for the canopic jar.
On second thought, Xander palmed the urn's lid. The jokester in Xander couldn't resist a potential laugh. Oh I'm sorry Spike, looks like your precious jar's all smashed. This was all that's left. That'll teach 'em to break and enter.
***///***
The taser arm fell limply to his side. Riley felt the voice call to him through the foundation, vibrating through the stone into his marrow. He walked like a creature possessed through the drafty halls.
His Master was calling.
The Initiative vest loaded with stakes clanked against the stone. The belt of holy water and stun grenades shuttered against a table. A hand drew silken curtains around his mind, beckoned him in with a slender finger. Such a sweet voice. It was to the arms of his lover that he was headed. Hadn't she told him to sleep alone in Lowell house tonight? His lover beckoned again with more urgency. The hand turned palm-side out, bleeding at the wrist.
Kneel.
The command triggered a brief struggle of will. But the velvet line of blood on alabaster skin was too seductive. He kneeled. The hand jerked away suddenly and Riley cried out, tricked, deprived.
He tore at the heavy damask drapes. The taser impeded progress and was discarded. Save me, the voice echoed weakly, as though it were at the end of its strength.
"Buffy," he whispered. The image of her broken body came to him—eyes rolled back into the sockets, blood pooling under her skull, naked bone jutting from her cheekbone, chest, thighs—an angular form crouching over the flushed, dead flesh. It bared its teeth as it turned, grinning, saying just as clearly as if it had been spoken, bagged me another Slayer, I have.
"No!" Jumping to his feet, a guttural cry ripped from his mouth. He barreled through the curtains.
On the other side, he found a target for his rage. A body, nearly as tall as he, slinking along the corridor shrouded in a weird blue haze. He took the target up by the throat. The howls of the protesting flesh did nothing to stop Riley as he choked the life out of the dusky-haired intruder. The black-haired fiend who had come with the intention to kill her.
The wretched creature called his name, struck feebly at his chest with open palms as if to push him away. Riley squeezed harder. No one would touch his Master. No one but him.
Not ever again.