4

Too many hours 'til sunset, Faith thought, as she sat fidgeting beside the window of her tiny hotel room, looking out across the rooftops of Oaxaca, toward the fluffy clouds that hovered in the afternoon sky, above the jagged blue mountains in the distance. She faced south toward the flattened summit of Monte Alban, where the excavated temples of the Zapotec Civilization stood.

She puffed on a cigarette, listening to the sounds of traffic, along with radios playing music, and children shouting in Spanish. The air was also filled with the aromas of cooking corn, rice, beans, and chili, mingling with the smells of mangos, papayas, and other fruits; none of which she would ever eat again. She also smelled the aromas of tequila, rum and beer; all of which she could drink; but not the aroma of what she wanted the most; human blood.

It didn't have to be this way, she thought. Two weeks ago I was a naked dead girl, with a pair of vampire fang wounds in my neck. That's the way vampire slayers are supposed to finish their careers. If Spike had just let me stay that way, I wouldn't be constantly tormented by the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of things I can never have again. I'd now be a comfortably embalmed corpse in a coffin.

"Six feet under." She said, "Five by five and fine with me."

A man spoke behind her.

"I'd say better than fine. I'd say you're doing a bang-up job."

Faith turned around, and saw Richard Wilkins, the late Mayor of Sunnydale California standing there, looking at her proudly.

She told him, "Get out!"

The firmly built, slightly balding man was casually dressed.

He laughed. "Well, gosh." he smiled. "I think, you know, a 'hello' or a 'nice to see you' might be a little more welcome. It's the end of humanity, Faith," He shook his head. "not the end of courtesy."

"You're wasting your time." She told him, "I know who you are, what you are."

The man nodded. "Yeah. Yeah." He looked at Faith. "Nobody's explained to you how this works, have they?"

He started pacing in the tiny room. "You see... I am part of the First, as you kids call it, but I'm also me, Richard Wilkins III, late Mayor and founder of Sunnydale. Here. I'll prove it to you. Ask me a question only I know the answer to. Something like..." He laughed. "Where did I hide the moon pies in my office? Or... who was my favorite character in little women? Meg." He laughed again. "I know. I know. Most people guess Beth, but Meg, she's such a proper young lady. Remember when Jo burned her hair?"

Faith looked him in the face. "I know what you're doing, and it's not going to work." She turned her back on him, facing out the window again. "But feel free to keep talking, 'cause, hell, I could listen to you yap all day."

He spoke firmly, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Language! When you return to Sunnydale, you'll be the new leader. You keep throwing the 'h-e-double hockey sticks' around, pretty soon, the girls are going to pick up on it. Then what?"

She told him, "You want me to go back to Sunnydale, to get Buffy and all the potentials killed by your Army of Vampire Cavemen, and you expect me to worry, 'cause some of them might die swearin'?"

"It's a pity." He sighed. "You were doing a great job with them, by the way. Much better than Buffy ever did."

She told him, "Buffy got them far enough."

He asked, "Why are you protecting her? You think she cares about you? She nearly killed you, Faith."

"It's different now."

He walked up to Faith, and looked out the window beside her.

He said, "No matter what you would have done, Buffy would have always seen you as a killer, not as a person. And if she knew you were a vampire, she would have all the excuse she needed, to finish what she started when she stuck that knife in your belly.

"You should have stayed on your guard, Faith. Buffy was dangerous. Do you think that Spike, her vampire lover, killed you without her prior knowledge?"

"I never thought of that." she said.

He said, "Deep down, you always wanted Buffy to accept you, to love you even. Why do you think that was?"

"You a shrink now?"

"You kept looking for love and acceptance from those people, those friends of yours, but you were never gonna find it. The truth is, nobody will ever love you. Not the way I love you.

She shouted, "Get out!"

"They would forever have seen you as a killer, especially now that you're a vampire."

"I haven't killed any human being, since I was vamped. Only dogs."

"I know. You haven't yet; but you will, the first time you get hungry enough, when there aren't any rottweilers or pit bulls around."

"I said get out!"

"I'll always be with you, firecracker," he told her, "in everything you do."

Then he vanished from her sight.

There was a knock on the door

Faith called out, "Who's there?"

A high pitched voice called, "Andrew and Jonathan!"

She got up, stepped away from the window, went over to the door, slid the bolt sideways, and pulled the door open.

The two sunburned, Sunnydale High graduates stood in the doorway, looking anxiously up and down the deserted corridor. Jonathan carried a small, bulging, brown paper bag.

"Come on in," she said with annoyance, "before anyone sees you both acting suspicious."

They stepped inside the room. Faith shut the door behind them, sliding the bolt across, locking the door.

Jonathan held up the paper bag. "We've brought you something to eat. Chicken Burritos. I hope you like them."

She looked at the bag uneasily. "Thank you. I'll eat later."

Andrew told her, "That's not all there is in the bag. We now have, in our possession, Miss Faith, the Gem of Amara."

She said, "Show me."

Jonathan reached in the bag, and pulled out the wooden cross, with the sparkling green crystal at the center.

Faith cried out in agony. She put her hands over her eyes. She felt her fangs extend all the way.

"Put it back in the bag! Put it back in the bag!"

The two fugitives stepped back.

"You're a Vampire!" Jonathan said.

Andrew told him, "Don't put it away!"

Faith stood between them and the bolted door.

Jonathan raised the cross in front of his face. "Get away from the door Faith!"

She leapt forward, pouncing on Andrew who yelped. She gripped his shoulders tight, and put her open mouth near his neck, with her fangs fully extended.

"Put that away or he dies now!"

Jonathan hesitated.

The trembling Andrew yelped, "Put it away Jonathan!"

"All right Faith." Jonathan told her, "Let go of him and I'll put it away. Try anything, I'm taking it out again."

"Okay."

She let go of Andrew, who hurried over beside Jonathan, still trembling. Then Jonathan put the cross back inside the paper bag, while Faith returned to the bolted door, where she stood with her back against it, and her arms folded in front of her. Her fangs remained extended.

Jonathan said, "I suppose this mean you don't want the burritos, doesn't it?"

"Not unless they bleed."

The three stood there, none of them knowing what to say.

Faith finally asked, "Are you sure that's the Gem of Amara?"

"No." Jonathan shook his head. "We thought you'd test it, like you said."

Andrew added, "You know. Have a vampire wear it, and then shove him out into the daylight."

"Since I'm the only vampire here," she told them, "it makes sense for me to be the one who wears it. I wouldn't mind taking the risk. If my skin starts to smoke, I can run right back inside, no real harm done."

Jonathan said, "But as long as it's embedded in this cross, that won't be possible."

"It would be," Faith told him, "If you dig the gem out and hand it to me."

"You're kidding. You want us to desecrate a cross?"

"If you do," she told them, "I'll see to it that you'll both be very well rewarded, when the First is in charge and demons are running things."

"Rewarded?" Andrew asked, "In what way?"

"That'll be up to the First."

Jonathan asked, "Who is this 'First'?"

She told him, "That's short for the 'First Evil', or the 'Master of All that is Evil'."

Jonathan exclaimed, "The Devil you say!"

Faith heard the voice of Mayor Wilkins. "That's what some people call me."

The other two hadn't heard him.

She said, "Some people call him that."

Andrew spoke nervously. "Let's get the hell out of here Jonathan! Now!"

"Right."

His partner in crime began to open the paper bag.

Faith growled and leapt away from the door. This time she pounced on Jonathan, while Andrew shrieked. She gripped Jonathan tight, while she put her mouth against his neck, drove her fangs into his warm flesh, and wrestled him to the floor; while Andrew stood there shaking.

In less than two minutes, Jonathan was dead, and Faith got back up on her feet.

"This fugitive from justice friend of yours," she said, "tasted a lot better than any pit bull or rottweiler." She leered at Andrew. "I can't think of any good reason, why I shouldn't have you for dessert."

Andrew's voice shook, "Is he...Is he...going to become a vampire?"

"Of course not!" She told him. "I don't want anything more to do with you retards; and I can't imagine that anyone else living or undead would either."

She returned to standing with her back against the door.

"Now do you want to cooperate with me Andrew?"

"Whatever you say, Faith. Just don't kill me."

"Then gouge that crystal out of the cross."

"I...I don't have anything to gouge it out with."

"I should have known better than to deal with a couple of retards!" She told him, "Just get the hell out of here! I'll do it myself!"

"Yourself?" He asked, "Is that possible? You'll have to put your hands on a cross, and look at it."

"I have an idea." She told him, "Put it on top of that chest of drawers, next to the door."

Andrew did as she said.

"Now get the hell out of here."

He asked, "Is it all right if I take the burritos with me, since you won't be eating them?"

She shouted, "Just take them and get the hell out of here, and I never want to see you again!"

"Right."

Andrew picked the paper bag up off the bed, where it had fallen, and hurried out the door, slamming it behind himself. She then slid the bolt, locking the door.

Then Faith stepped over to the chest of drawers, shielding her eyes with her left hand. She reached out with her right hand, and touched the green gem in the center of the cross.

"I'm not being burned." She lowered her left hand. "And I can look at it without cringing, just as long as my finger stays on the Gem of Amara.

She went over to the table beside the window, where her handbag lay, and looked out across the rooftops of Oaxaca, to the flattened crest of Monte Alban.

"That ought to be a pleasant Tourist Attraction to visit, this afternoon."

Then she reached in her handbag, took out a jackknife, and returned to the chest of drawers, where the cross with the Gem of Amara was lying.