Previously…
Still on the floor, Buffy slowly turned her head to the right, and the sight before her was shocking. Joyce Summers, her mother, was sitting in a wooden chair, hands and feet bound to the arms and legs, and gagged. She obviously couldn't speak, but that didn't stop her from trying, she desperately pulled at her bonds, but there wasn't much give. There were wet and dried tear streaks trailing down her cheeks and her eyes were filled with nothing but pure, horrified panic.
"You're awake. Good. We've been waiting, haven't we, Mother?"
Buffy sat up and quickly assessed the situation, realizing several things at once. One, she was a vampire. Two, any familial feelings of love for the woman in front of her were gone. In fact, she actually felt like killing her. Hmm, that was an interesting thing…she would get back to that thought in a moment. Third and lastly, she just knew she did not like the vibe coming from the vampire grinning maniacally at her standing beside Joyce. She recognized that he was one of the three vampires who'd killed her. She was also pretty certain he was her sire, and that didn't thrill her, either. Seems like she already has a hefty list of things to deal with after just rising. Oh well, she thought, gotta do what you gotta do, and deftly jumped to her feet.
"And you are?" she asked, tone deliberately and deeply belligerent.
The vampire clicked his tongue at her. "Manners, little one," correcting her like an errant child.
Yeah, I'm going to have to kill him just for the 'little one' comment alone.
"My question still stands," Buffy said, her voice falsely saccharine, a demure smile playing on her lips.
He smiled at her supposed compliance. "Zachary Kralik, your sire," he said, adding a ridiculous bow to his answer, his smarmy timbre really off-putting.
Ugh. This vamp is definitely dead, sire or not.
"Uh-huh, and why do you have her here?" She tilted her head in Joyce's direction without even looking at her. "I'm guessing you were going to use her as bait to get me here, but you managed that without Joyce." There was a whimper from Buffy's mom, most likely due to the detached tone and calling her by her first name instead of 'Mom.'
"Yes, Hobson, your brother, by the way, was trailing you, and ran ahead to let me know that luckily for us you seemed to be coming our direction, so the plan changed." Kralik shrugged. "I'm not a plans written in stone kinda guy."
"And what exactly is your grand plan?" Buffy asked, fighting not to roll her eyes, trying not to sound too annoyed yet, already so done with egotistical vampires and their incessant need to end the world. Come on, people, make these decisions based on good sense! Logical, practical thought processes, how hard is it?
The only answer she received was a rather drawn out, "Errrr," making it clear that he didn't seem to have a plan beyond turning the Slayer. Lame, she thought, sighing internally. "Do you mind if we put this 'what's next' discussion on hold? My stomach would be growling right now if it could." Buffy was hungry, her need urgent.
"Oh, of course," Kralik said, apparently however many brain cells he had left were working overtime on still formulating the next step of his nonexistent plan. He stepped back and gestured that Buffy now had the floor next to Joyce.
"Do you mind? I'd like a little privacy. This is going to be a mother-daughter bonding moment, I think. It should really be shared between the two of us, you know."
Thank god, she thought when Kralik moved to leave. Her annoyance spiked again when he said, "Don't play with your food," before he shut the door.
'Don't play with your food'? What kind of vampire was he? Buffy's experience showed her that vampires loved 'playing with their food.' Darla loved to play the innocent (the Catholic school uniform came to mind) and slightly seductive teenager, drawing from her experience as a prostitute during her human days. Spike would torture his victims by driving railroad spikes through their heads before he would feed. Drusilla had a more typical approach by causing pain. So unoriginal, in Buffy's opinion.
And Angelus, well, he was in a class of his own when it came to playing with his food. It wasn't just his proficiency with using different objects to create pain but it was his mind games that he loved to play, the ingenuity, the revelry he found in his cruelty was what had made him an absolute master. Buffy remembered them well. Before, those memories had brought nothing but heartache and sadness. Now, she smiled at them, applauding his vicious creativity. Obviously Buffy didn't know if she would have a schtick or what it would even be if she did. She was looking forward to exploring that subject - at a later date - she was too hungry to do more than what was necessary to satisfy her hunger.
Buffy's face transformed and she walked over to Joyce, coming to a standstill right in front of her. She leaned down, letting the woman get a good long look at her, smiling broadly to showcase her new teeth, staring intently with her yellow eyes.
"Well, Joyce, I think this is the end of the line for us. I'd really love to draw this out a little more, but I'm just too hungry." She licked and smacked her lips for emphasis.
Eyes wide, Joyce was silent, not a whimper or sound escaping, shaking her head back and forth frantically.
"Denial to the end, huh?" she said with a sigh, a little disappointed that Joyce chose not to face the truth, even at the moment before her death. "Well, I guess you're going out in true Joyce form then, so that's something for consistency," she said, shrugging, then lunged and bit down hard into Joyce's carotid artery on the left side of her neck. She moved her teeth out of the way just enough that she could press her lips against the skin, encompassing the puncture wounds and sucking. The first pull of blood flooded into her mouth and Buffy moaned at the sweet, sweet nectar, delighting in the nirvana she found in the life-giving liquid.
The taste was not what she had expected. Human's could only smell blood if there was a lot of it and even so, it had a metallic, coppery tang to it - like a penny. She remembered when Angel had told her he'd smelled blood on the bracelet of the missing Kent Academy student when she'd found it in the cemetery on one of her many nightly patrols last year. Buffy hadn't been able to see any blood on it, not even when examining it in light, highlighting just how sensitive a vampire's sense of smell is. It had been another thing that made the differences between humans, even a Slayer with her heightened senses, and vampires glaringly obvious. Another reason why they shouldn't've worked then. That wasn't a problem now, though. They both were vampires now.
Buffy couldn't swallow the blood fast enough on the next pull and some overflowed, trickling down the lower part of her face - the iconic twin lines of blood dribbling down each side of the chin. My god, she thought with a moan, sucking more blood down her throat. It was hot and sweet, and she couldn't get enough. But, as all things must, it came to an end. She could tell because the quantity of blood lessened until it was like she was sucking air through a straw when trying to get the last of the liquid from a cup.
And that was the end for Joyce Summers.
After drinking Joyce dry, Buffy held the dead woman's head between her hands, keeping her upright for several moments, just looking down at the woman who had been the mother of her human counterpart. It was not out of regret or sentimental reasons, however. More like she was already mentally scrolling through the options -there were several - of what her next steps were going to be.
First and foremost, Buffy wanted Angel (a.k.a. Angelus) at her side. In order to accomplish that Buffy would need to convince or cajole him to lose his soul. And of course that was going to be tricky. It was not even a month ago that he'd tried to commit suicide in order to avoid becoming a killer again. It would be complicated, sure, but Buffy was confident she could manage it.
Second, she needed a cover story. She already knew that her sire was going to get a very big splinter to the heart. Her 'siblings' as well. She was so not dealing with them. Which meant she needed an explanation for Joyce's death. It would need to be believable, plausible enough that it would simply be deemed an abduction turned murder case by a stranger who'd vanished that would be an open file in the homicide department. It would eventually become a cold case that would never be solved considering the fact that there would never be a true suspect and little to no chance the perpetrator would ever be found. The abductor would be nothing but a pile of ash on the floor of the abandoned boarding house called Sunnydale Arms. The true killer would be the dutifully grieving daughter, waxing on about how Joyce was the best mom ever, that even as a single mom these last few years she'd made it work, always supporting Buffy, and being there when she needed her. Gag! It would be annoying but she knew could do it. Acting like a half-ditzy blonde would also aid her. Hiding her smart side had given her a way to wiggle out of helping more during the research process and be the 'go-get 'em and knock 'em dead' part of the Scooby Gang. She also lied to the whole world everyday about who she really was, or had been, so it should be a walk in the park.
The next item on her to-do list was to figure out how to pull the wool over the eyes of her Watcher and her friends. Well, former Watcher and former friends. Giles had decades of experience with the supernatural world and Willow, Xander, and Oz had spent enough time in that world to also recognize the signs which would identify a vampire - ice cold skin no matter how hot the temperature, avoidance of sunlight, no appetite for human food, no reflection, an aversion to religious symbols and holy water. She would need to find a way to make sure they didn't realize she was no longer their friend, their Slayer. She would need to play the role of the human Buffy to perfection. It would be the performance of a lifetime, no doubt worthy of an Oscar, she thought with a grin. Faith was almost a nonexistent problem as she'd not been around too much after the New Year. No one really knew what the impulsive, reckless Slayer had been up to lately, not that Buffy cared all that much, especially now.
One might ask why she didn't kill the people in her life like she had just done with Joyce. The answer was simple: it would be so much more fun to toy with them before eating them. And eat them she would! But that was a puzzle to figure out later. Buffy first needed to deal with her most current problems. One: a crazy sire and two vampire siblings who really needed to literally go 'poof' into the air. Two: a plausible cover story for Joyce's 'murder.' Three: find Angel and turn him into Angelus once again (preferably before he staked himself or met the sunrise just as he'd threatened on Christmas morning).
Although Joyce was dead, Buffy still twisted her neck, hearing a satisfying crack. She let go and Joyce's head sagged forward, chin nearly touching her sternum. An idea was coming to mind on how she could spin the situation in her favor. She next went to the door and testing her new strength she gave one sharp kick to the wooden barrier. It shattered, the whole door exploding outward, thousands of pieces of wooden splinters and dust going everywhere. The damage she'd inflicted had been greater than what she would've been able to achieve if she were still only a Slayer. Oh, the fun she was going to have!
"Did you save some for us?" a suave British voice asked as Buffy exited the room with the corpse.
"Now, now, Percy," Kralik said in a scolding manner, "the first kill is special and it shouldn't be shared. I let you have Linus all to yourself, didn't I?" The vampire said nothing. "Didn't I?" Kralik asked again, his tone darkening.
Cowed, Percy bowed his head, and mumbled out an apology.
Yeah, Buffy was definitely the only vampire who would be walking out of this derelict house. The day Buffy became submissive like that was the day she'd voluntarily and happily drink a gallon of Holy water.
"Now, we need to-" Kralik started to say before his head began twitching violently, his speech cutting off. "Pills, I need my p-pills! PILLS!"
The way Linus and Percy scrambled around to get a pill bottle and a glass of water for Kralik would've been hilarious, but Buffy had things to do and didn't have time to stop and watch the ensuing mini circus act. She just used the distraction to swipe up a few of the bigger splinters of wood, holding them behind her back, waiting for some semblance of normalcy to reign again.
Pills swallowed, Kralik began to talk as if there hadn't been an interruption. "We need to make introductions. This is-"
Buffy didn't give him a chance to finish. In quick succession and with deadly precision she threw two of the wooden pieces, her vampire siblings disintegrating into dust before they could register what had happened.
Her sire let out a howl of furious rage. "Stop! I command you to STOP," he roared, advancing toward her.
Buffy slammed into Kralik, and he stumbled backwards, finally coming to a stop when his back hit a wall. She was in front of him before he could even blink, shoving her improvised stake into his chest, the wooden tip pressing against his unbeating heart. He froze instinctively, realizing that he would also be dust with just a little more pressure.
Kralik laughed. "You don't like to share attention, I see. You could've just said so. Now, let me go." Buffy didn't budge. Kralik frowned. "We need to work on your obedience. I gave you an order-" He did not have a chance to finish his sentence, tapering off into a sort of gurgle as Buffy pushed the stake forward, piercing his heart, and in a menacing voice said, "I'm done taking orders." She took a step backward and watched as her sire joined the dust of her siblings, blending with the original filth blanketing the floor of the abandoned building. Dusting her hands off, Buffy made a mental note that she could mark dealing with her sire and siblings from her list. Next order of business - Angel.
And so, with nary a glance backward, Buffy left the dilapidated house intent on finding her boyfriend, disappearing into the night.
December, 1998, Sunnydale, California
The Master, as he was now known as, having shed his human name of Heinrich Joseph Nest long ago, stood in a corner of the factory in Sunnydale, California, watching the multitude of vampires working to make the vision he had for the world become reality. It would be the greatest accomplishment of his very long life. And long it had been - over 800 hundred years he'd walked this Earth. Watching the rise and fall of civilizations and kingdoms and fiefdoms, benefiting from the carnage humans inflicted upon each other as they fought for crowns or lands and riches or even ideologies - some reasonable and others utterly ridiculous - or in the name of their gods/goddesses created amusement like nothing else ever could. The entertainment and never ending supply of blood the warring humans provided had been plentiful and so, so glorious. Vampires could gorge themselves nearly every night during the numerous crusades or conquering of new lands, hardly ever drawing the attention of the Vampire Slayer - the supernatural girls the Shadowmen had created to combat the multitude of demons that remained or were created by mutation in this dimension after the Old Ones were gone.
Ah, the Old Ones, he thought fondly, wistfully, saddened that he'd not walked the Earth at the same time, seeing firsthand the hell the Old Ones had made Earth into. Maloker, an Old One and so a pure demon, had created the first vampire after humankind began to rise, somehow getting their hands on powerful magicks capable of banishing the Old Ones to other dimensions and destroying the demons who were left on Earth after the banishment. A demon lord - a demon who was not quite an Old One but still very powerful - named Archaeus later developed his own bloodline of vampires, which the Master was a proud descendant of.
The first vampires were called Turok-Hans, and they were very, very different from vampires today. They had no human blood and therefore they could not transform their faces in between demon and human. They were deathly pale, bald and humanoid with pronounced brow ridges. Their eyes were clear save for black slit pupils. They had flat bat-like noses, sharpened teeth, pointed ears, and long nails. The Master resembles a Turok-Han more than a human-vampire hybrid. He was pleased to no longer be beholden to either his human visage or his human name. In fact, the Master despises humans, vehemently so. They were nothing more than a food source; cattle he intended to herd, cage, breed, and bleed all for the purpose of feeding vampires. It was a worthy endeavor and one the Master knew would make his sire, albeit indirectly as his sire as Archaeus had been banished before the Master had been reborn, proud.
(Actually, it would not have made Archaeus proud. The kill was only half the fun; the anticipation of the hunt was what really got the blood moving, so to speak, and the Master's plan would render the hunt obsolete after the majority of the human population was imprisoned. Essentially, vampires wouldn't be predators anymore if they always had blood on tap.)
The Master had had years to think on what he would do when he finally broke out of his mystical prison. His original plan had been to open the Hellmouth and allow all manner of demons to invade this dimension, once again making it their hell. His time trapped in such a small space had taken its toll on the old vampire,the Master growing increasingly listless as the years passed. Eventually he'd lost even his agitation that he could no longer hunt his prey and the loathing that he must rely on his family to bring him food like a helpless cub. It was humiliating that he must be fed like a chick, waiting in the nest for his mother to return with a worm or another form of sustenance. He was the Master, descendant of Archaeus, the ruler of the Order of Aurelius and he had been trapped beneath earth for 60 years due to a damnable earthquake occurring during his ritual to open the Hellmouth.
The Master disliking his underground prison was ironic since the Order of Aurelius brethren lived below ground, only going up to the surface for food and to sire new vampires, the idea of living among the humans aborent. It seemed even vampires were vulnerable to cabin fever. He finally had a small but slightly deep pool dug out and filled with blood, submerging himself, enacting a ritual that would allow him to sleep, eliminating the need to feed. He would not regain consciousness until the ritual to wake him was performed.
Two vampires suddenly appeared at his side.
"Bored, now," the red-headed female said, her tone lethargic.
"Why don't you play with your puppy?" her raven-haired companion suggested.
"He hardly screams anymore. Takes the fun out of it when they don't scream," she said pouting.
The Master smiled indulgently at the pair. They were his two newest children, joining his family this past March. They had come at a most fortuitous time. Not long after he sired Willow Rosenberg, she sired Alexander 'Xander' Harris - her best friend and now lover. Darla had brought Willow to him just after he'd woken from his sleep, needing to feed as much as possible to regain his strength and satisfy the hunger that had started to claw at his insides. He had savagely ripped into the necks of his first two meals, too hungry to eat in a more civilized manner. Having taken the edge off, the Master was able to stifle his thirst, holding off in favor of studying his next victim. She was young, her hair a fiery red. She was obviously terrified as she was brought before him and yet there was a fierce determination about her. The Master had pinched her chin, looking into her eyes, trying to figure out what was different about her.
It was the defiance that he'd seen in her eyes that made him decide to turn her instead of just eating and moving on. Her expression clearly conveyed that while she was terrified and likely knew she was about to die (the unnatural faces of her abductors cluing her in), she would not cry and plead with him to let her go. She was silently saying I may be afraid of you but I'm not giving you the satisfaction of hearing me beg for my life. And she didn't, standing rigid, just glaring at him until he lowered his head to bite her. Darla had been surprised when instead of draining her and calling for the next human he began the blood exchange. The Master had not personally sired a vampire in many, many years, decades even before he'd attempted to open the Hellmouth. He'd been content to allow his children to choose who they brought into the fold.
Soon after the Master had risen, he'd lost two of the children who had been with him the longest. His sweet, sweet Darla, and Luke, so strong, so loyal - both taken from him by sheer dumb luck on the side of the humans responsible. Luke's killer was unknown but not Darla's. The White Hats, they called themselves. The Master sneered at the thought of those humans. They were the reason his plans had been delayed. Although the Master would never admit to it, it was actually his fault that Luke and Darla were now dead. They had occurred on separate occasions and after he was released from the magical prison. The Master delved into his mind, bringing the memories of before and after his escape to the forefront.
The Harvest had been a spectacular success, going off without a hitch. Luke acted as his Vessel while Darla and the others, including the newly-awoken Willow, had trapped dozens of humans in their little nightclub, giving Luke and therefore the Master, the ability to quickly gain his freedom. Once free, he had given his family leave to celebrate in however manner they wished, telling them not to bother with concealing their presence or their evil deeds. The humans would know soon enough that they were not alone, that they shared their planet with all manner of creatures, most from their nightmares, others they never could've imagined existed. The Master would make sure of it.
According to Luke and Darla, there had not been a whisper of where the current Vampire Slayer was destroying his brethren of all kinds. If the Slayer eventually did make her way to Sunnydale, the Master was confident that while he alone could kill her, he would have a score of vampires to assist in the battle. Darla was four hundred years old and Luke had a century on her. The Slayer would be no match for them three. So, why should they hide? The Master's mission to conquer humanity meant that they no longer had to lurk in the shadows, most trying to keep a low profile, not wanting to draw the Slayer's attention to their location. They were done with that now. Let the Slayers come, let them come one after another after another. The Master and his family would welcome each one with open arms and sharp fangs, always ready to sink their teeth into her neck.
"Willow, give Xander control, allow him to do the playing while you watch. It can be as entertaining to watch as it is to be the one doing the torturing. He might also think of something to try on your puppy that you have not," the Master said, his voice encouraging in the way a father would help guide his daughter in a chosen activity.
Willow's crimson smile slowly turned into a smirk, the devilish glint in her eyes making the Master proud. Whereas Darla had liked to play an innocent role during her hunts, Willow exuded power- the provocative woman come to dominate. Both of his girls made him so proud. He only wished Darla were still here to see how far her fledgling sister had come since joining the family. Willow was a fast learner and she had natural talent when it came to doling out physical pain. Xander would just do whatever she told him to do.
"I like that idea," she said, smiling, holding her hand out for Xander. He returned her smile, took her proffered hand and they disappeared to where the puppy was kept. He hoped to hear screams soon.
The Master took another look around him; it wouldn't be long now before his blood plant was operational. He was thinking that…
The Master didn't have the opportunity to finish his thought because suddenly a demon stood in front of him, having 'popped' into existence in the blink of an eye. She was of average height, and she had a regal, statuesque stance and look about her; her hair was dark and curly, gray skin tinged with red and red-rimmed eyes, silvery cuts all over her face, and a symbol carved deeply into the bridge of her nose - all denoted her as a vengeance demon. How the Master loved the chaos those demons could create! And the humans, oh the humans! they could be as imaginative and cruel as the most evil of evil beings.
"Master," she said, bowing deeply, acknowledging and respecting his superiority. It was always good when a demon unknown to him displayed the proper reverence when greeting him. It always put the Master in a good mood.
"Yes, child of vengeance?" he asked benevolently.
"You are summoned," she replied.
Summoned? Summoned? Who would dare to summon the Master as if he were no more than a common vampire? He would clearly need to remind whoever this person was that he was not a vampire to be summoned. He did the summoning!
"I answer to no one," he said. "I-"
The demon promptly stepped forward, placed a hand on his elbow and before the Master could jerk away from her hold or even blink, she teleported them away.
Information about the Master, Archaeus, Maloker, Turok-Hans, the Shadowmen, and the Old Ones is found on the Buffyverse Wiki website and also comes from the comics, which continued the stories of our beloved characters after both TV series were over. The Master in my story is the one from Cordelia's Wishverse episode, so certain plot points are different in the alternate universe. 1. Buffy never came to Sunnydale. 2. The Master escaped his mystical prison with the Harvest ritual. 3. Willow and Xander were not saved by Buffy and were turned into vampires, although we don't know if it was the Master himself or one of his acolytes (i.e. Luke or Darla) who did the siring. I'm making the Master their sire. 4. Luke and Darla had been killed off at some point since they weren't in that episode or even mentioned. I'm going to go with the White Hats - Giles, Oz and Larry being the main members and they simply got really lucky going up against those two considering how strong they were due to their age. 5. Before Darla was killed she took Angel prisoner and vampire Willow loved torturing him as we saw, calling him her "puppy." 6. The Master's ingenious plan is rounding up humans and taking them prisoner so their blood could be drained by a machine that would take the blood from the body, meaning they had access to fresh blood whenever they wanted.
Also, take notice that the time of year is December, 1998 for the Master's POV because this is from the Wishverse and is a little different from the timeline in the "original" universe where my story takes place.
Side note: even though Archaeus is not the vampire who exchanged blood with Heinrich Joseph Nest (a.k.a the Master) he can still be referenced as his sire no matter how many times the Master would be a "great" grandson to the demon lord. It's believed that the Master was turned at some point in the 12th century and a name is never given to identify the vampire who directly turned the Master.