Chapter Six: Nothing but Silence

All three of them came at her at once, lunging from the shadows. There was a greasy long-hair in a denim jacket, a muscle-bound, swarthy little guy with gold chains and gelled hair, and a fair-haired preppie in a pastel sweater.

Three vampires. Three losers. Three disgusting male specimens Buffy Summers was happy to dust on the spot.

"Sorry, no Metallica shows in Sunnydale." Poof!

"Are you trying to bite me, Guido? Fugeddaboudit!" Poof!

"See you at the Country Club dance, Lance!" Poof!

And then suddenly her wrist was caught in an iron grip. Suddenly Buffy's stake was wrenched right out of her grasp, and she was staring deep into Irish eyes that never smiled.

"Don't do it, Buffy."

"Don't do what?" Pouting in a way that sent a message no other man could resist, Buffy sent a hot, angry look at the sexy vampire. "I'm trying to do my job, Angel. Either help me, or get out of my way, or get ready to die."

"Sorry, I'm already dead." Angel didn't smile. He just stepped back a little, already half-fading into the darkness.

"Hey, give me back my stake!" Buffy was getting seriously annoyed. Her pout had been more of a come-kiss-me pout than she wanted to admit. Yet Angel hadn't taken the hint. Was he stupid or what?

"Not if you're going to use it to take on the Master. I know what's foretold, Buffy. If you go up against him, you die."

"If I go up against him alone, I die. But I have friends, Angel." Buffy gave him a look. Still angry. Still frustrated. "Not that I expect you to grasp the concept."

"I grasp the concept. I just don't get involved with humans. Any vampire who does is looking to feed."

"Are you talking about Edwina? If you are, you're full of it. That lady is super cool! And the two of us are going to give the Master a real surprise. We have a plan . . ."

"I know her plan," Angel interrupted rudely. "I've seen it before. She gets you to trust her, she makes you feel like a goddess, she gives you potions that melt your resistance. Then she wraps you up and gives you to the Master as a present. Just in time for his Ascension."

Buffy forgot about her frustrated feelings for Angel. She flashed a warrior's daredevil grin. "Yeah, that's the plan. Only when I get up close we change the ending. And the Prophecy."

"Not with this, you don't."

"Give me back my stake, Angel."

Buffy made the first move. And she was close to winning the fight when suddenly it turned into something entirely different. The two of them were kissing like there was no tomorrow. Until he broke away. "Don't trust her, Buffy," whispered a voice in the dark. A voice that faded faster than the buzz from that amazing kiss.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" The hot little blonde looked down at her empty hands, realizing she'd just been played, big time. This was what the world's most fabulous kiss was all about. Getting a piece of wood away from her.

"I have other stakes, Angel," Buffy called out. Of course he was gone. But he could still hear her. She knew he could.

"I HAVE OTHER STAKES!"

Nothing but silence.