Title: Breaking a Slayer 44-47

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Buffy/Spike/Angel. Xander/Anya. Willow/Tara.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice. DarkRhiannon@aol.com

Rating: NC-17.

Author's Note: Quotes are from Ats "To Shanshu in LA." I've taken considerable liberties with them.

*

Buffy hated driving. It didn't get any better at night, either. And she knew that Spike would be pissed at her for taking his car, but she had no choice. She needed her mates. First, she needed to make sure they were ok, then she needed to kick their butts from here till Sunday for turning her into a throat-ripping psycho.

That was it, Buffy was sure. Somehow, the bond was being freaksome and she was doing vampy things now. *Just my luck,* she thought glumly. *The first slayer in history to completely lose it and start ripping out vamp throats with her teeth. Yup, that'll look just great in Giles's Watcher diaries. I bet Willow and Tara are telling him all about it right now…*

*

Willow traced lavender oil down Tara’s pale skin with a tremulous hand. Trying to concentrate on the ritual for the equinox would have been difficult under normal circumstances. Mixing it with sex magic made for serious focusing difficulty. Tara smiled lovingly at her and Willow smiled back, hesitancy forgotten in the utter acceptance and kindness in that gaze. Then Willow smoothed the oil across the tip of one of Tara’s nipples and that gaze darkened. No one had ever looked at Willow with such desire before, and a flare of lust raced through her as she continued smoothing the oil across her lover’s full breasts.

Willow could happily have feasted upon them for hours, she thought, trying to stay focused on the ritual and barely hanging on as she traced more oil down Tara’s now trembling body. Tara had the most beautiful body, womanly yet slender, curved in all the right places with a luscious ripeness that spoke of fertility and pleasure.

Willows hands moved lower, rubbing the oil into Tara’s flat belly and gliding across the perfect skin there. She stopped for a moment and Tara moaned helplessly as Willow poured more of the scented oil into her hands. She resumed her gentle caresses, spreading the oil to the top of the dark gold nest of curls that adorned her lover’s sex. Willow could feel the throbbing beat of Tara’s pulse there as she slowly smoothed oil into the tender mound beneath her fingers. She lingered there for long moments and Tara spread her feet further apart in response, groaning at the intimate caress of Willow’s gentle fingers on her clit.

Willow stopped reluctantly, and Tara’s smoky gaze promised retribution in kind when it was her turn. Willow poured a bit more oil into her hands and knelt before her Love, smoothing the oil into her thigh, knee, calf, and foot before reaching up to anoint the other leg similarly. Once she had finished, Willow moved behind Tara, beginning again at her lover’s smoothly muscled shoulders and trailing streams of the oil down her graceful back.

Tara rubbed her ass invitingly into Willows oil-coated hands as the witch smeared the scented stuff into her buttocks with long sweeping motions. Willow cupped Tara’s ass in her hands and ground her own mound into it for a moment, too caught up in the beauty of her lover’s body and the love/lust it inspired within her to resist the impulse. She slid one slippery hand around to cup Tara's breast, pinching at the hardened nipple. Her other hand snaked its way around Tara's well-oiled hip to trace her slit with knowing fingers. Tara leaned her head back upon Willow's shoulder and groaned in abandon as her lover caressed her.

"Enough," Tara panted finally. "It’s my turn now, Willow." She took the oil from her lover and began pouring it directly down the front of Willow’s pale body, smoothing it across her collarbone with one gentle hand.

*

Hand over laborious hand, Angel and Spike had climbed to the ground floor. They stared across the elevator shaft at the inferno that raged in what used to be Angel's office. They had to jump from the precarious safety of the access ladder to the floor of the office. It was the only way out. But did either of them actually have the strength left to do it?

"Shit, Sire. You go first, right?" Spike refused to consider the possibility of failure. They would get out, they would save Angel's human friends and then they would beat the fucking hell out of whatever demon had caused this mayhem. That was his plan, anyway.

He climbed up next to Angel, moving easily now that his pain was damped. His sire didn't look well. Angel's normally white skin had gone gray with exhaustion under the soot and ash smearing it liberally. He could barely keep his eyes open, and Spike slapped his face gently, to try to help him focus. "Sire, you must jump now, you can't wait any longer," Spike urged, worried that if Angel paused even a few more moments, that his strength simply wouldn't be sufficient.

Angel nodded and pressed a quick kiss to Spike's mouth. At least it was meant to be quick. Spike threaded strong fingers behind his sire's head and held him there, plundering his mouth in a passionate kiss that set his head spinning with desire and love. Then he pulled back and pushed at Angel.

"Jump. Do it now, Angelus."

At the hated name, Angel gathered his strength and leapt from the ladder toward the opening of the elevator. He landed half in and half out of the shaft and began sliding back. Clawing frantically at the door and finding no purchase, Angel summoned the last of his will and gouged deep furrows in the floor with his fingers, pulling his considerable bulk out of the elevator shaft at last.

He lay there on the floor, too spent to even move as Spike landed lithely beside him, then fell to the floor as his leg buckled under the strain. The pain that Angel had taken from him flared anew in his body and Spike screamed in anguish as he collapsed. Flames surrounded them, moving ever closer and obscuring their only route to the outside.

*

Buffy was exhausted. She turned Spike’s car off the freeway and drove the few remaining blocks toward Angel’s office and apartment in a haze. She didn’t understand why she was so tired…the exhaustion had hit all of a sudden -- almost as if it came from outside her. *Doesn’t matter,* she thought. *I’m almost there and then we can all rest together.* She turned the last corner and slammed on her brakes in horror. The entire block was up in flames and the center of the conflagration was Angel’s office.

Firetrucks and ambulances were pulled haphazardly to the side of the street in a maze of vehicles as the firefighters and paramedics struggled to save the people who’d been trapped in the buildings. Buffy pulled Spike’s car to one side and jumped out, running toward the building that housed Angel’s office.

It was completely engulfed in flame. Smoke blinded her as she neared it. A brawny firefighter caught her by the arm. "Missy, where the hell do you think you’re going? You need to get away from here before the whole block comes down!"

"I can’t, my…" (mates? lovers?) "…husband is in there," Buffy yelled frantically. She tried to pull her arm from his grasp but he held on tight, preventing her from running into the flames.

"You can't do anything, we had to pull out of that part. The blaze is just too strong in the heart," the man shouted.

Fed up with the human holding her from her mates, Buffy snarled viciously at him and pushed him away. She ran into the building almost faster than his eyes could follow as he gaped at the tiny figure who'd growled at him like some kind of animal.

Choking and coughing at the acrid smoke, Buffy dropped to her knees and crawled through the outer office, uncaring of the glass and debris slicing into her flesh. "Angel? Spike? Answer me!" she called, cursing inwardly at the black smoke that kept her from seeing anything in the inferno around her. With fire raging about her, Buffy gave up searching with her external senses and closed her eyes.

Giles had worked with her on meditation, though she'd been skeptical ever since the unfortunate Cruciamentum incident. Still, she knew that the power Willow and Tara had raised with her just a few nights earlier was accessible to her somehow, if she could only reach it. Buffy slowed her breathing, trying not to cough, and focused all her will on the invisible bonds she sometimes felt tethering her to her lovers.

Shining cords appeared in her mind. Cool gray was Angel. Not the dull gray of a cloudy day, but a shimmering vibrant gray that somehow contained within it all the darkling hues of his character. Deep reds and glittering golds, black and violet twined in a multi-helix of unspeakable beauty. Beautiful inside and out was Angel, even the darker aspects that he tried so hard to hide from her.

Buffy held the gray cord in her mind's hand and felt with intangible fingers for the other, newer cord. Spike was iridescent, incandescent black, his power both volatile and somehow constant. She felt, more than ever, the love that tied him, will-he or no, to both Angel and herself.

Holding both tenuous cords with trembling mental fingers, Buffy kept her eyes closed and crawled toward the feeling of her mates in her mind. The ties were weak and she nearly lost them as she tried to avoid burning rubble and molten pools of metal and plastic. The fumes were overwhelming her when she finally reached the vampires.

Through the smoke, Buffy could see them now, collapsed in a heap by the open door to the elevator shaft. It was acting as a chimney, pulling more oxygen down to feed the blaze that surrounded them. Buffy crawled to Spike and smoothed tears of pain from his face. His leg, hideously broken, had punctured the skin of his thigh and blood poured from the wound. He was unconscious from blood loss, she guessed, since it couldn't have been the fumes that subdued him.

Gathering her strength, Buffy made the difficult decision and lifted the slighter of the vampires, carrying him from the building. She left Spike rather unceremoniously by the front door and headed back into the blaze for her soulmate.

*

Tara smoothed her oil slick hands across Willow's chest, inching torturously slowly down to brush the tops of her pale breasts. Willow sighed in desire as Tara traced the outline of each areola with skillful fingers. Tara was an expert at wringing every last response from Willow's willing body and tonight was the culmination of their play and religion all in one.

Sex magic was not about the sex, per se. It was about harnessing that enormous, vital human drive and using the power that it raised for a purpose. In this case, the witches had decided to send the power to Buffy. They knew the pain and agony she had gone through earlier that summer, and knew that there was nothing they could do to take that pain away.

They could, however, augment Buffy's clearly tenuous hold on normality with strength and compassion. They could direct power to her, now that she'd participated in a sacred circle with them, and she would benefit in unanticipated ways from the augmentation. At least, that was the plan…if Tara could only keep focused on the ritual instead of losing herself in her overwhelming need to make her lover scream her name in pleasure and repletion.

Tara gritted her teeth and swept oiled fingers across the rose-tipped breasts of her lover, swirling the oil into Willow's pale flesh with painstaking care. Willow sighed louder and pushed her breasts into Tara's hands, rubbing against her to increase the friction.

Tara swept the oil downward over Willow's taut stomach, dabbling it into her navel and smiling as her lover squirmed. Willow stilled as Tara's capable hands swept lower, rubbing the sweet scented oil into the coarse red curls that grew in a triangle at the apex of her lover's legs. Tara pushed those legs apart and rubbed the oil along Willow's slit, smiling in delight at the rapt expression on her lover's face.

Willow was an amazingly responsive lover, attuned to every thought and feeling that Tara possessed. Making love with her was rapture and Tara thanked the goddess every day for the gift of love between the two of them. She moved her hands to Willow's smoothly muscled hips, sliding more oil down them as she moved lower. Tara knelt before Willow and poured oil down first one leg and then the other, watching as it snaked its way down the white flesh of her beloved.

Willow shook with passion, a passion shared by Tara, who could barely keep herself from feasting upon the tender bud directly in front of her face as she worked the oil into Willow's pretty legs. She reached her tongue out to taste Willow's sex and gave it a lingering lick. Willow groaned and rocked her hips forward to meet Tara's mouth, pressing desperately against that talented tongue.

Tara recalled her purpose with difficulty and stood abruptly, nearly knocking Willow over as she jumped behind her and out of temptation's immediacy. Of course, looking at Willow's slender back and curvy ass was no less tempting. Tara hastened to apply the oil, which was symbolic of harmony, peace and tranquility, essential ingredients in Buffy's mental balance. She slithered her hands down Willow's spine, seeking and finding each sensitive spot and soothing/inflaming the lust that her lover was feeling. Moving further down, she slicked oil across Willow's ass, rubbing it into the white flesh with, perhaps, more enthusiasm than the spell strictly called for.

Now she knew why more people didn't attempt this spell…or rather, why more didn't complete it successfully. The temptation to simply give in to one's desires and fuck the other spell caster was nearly unbearable. Tara moved her hands to the backs of Willow's thighs, smoothing the oil down to the sensitive backs of her knees. Willow's legs nearly buckled at this intimate caress and Tara hastened to apply the remaining oil to her lover's lower legs and feet before they totally lost it.

At last they were ready. The oil covered every inch of their skin. It was time to begin.

*

Buffy struggled back through the flames and smoke, eyes closed and heart racing in fear for her love and herself. She had left poor Spike outside bleeding onto the pavement and unconscious from blood loss. She only hoped that if the paramedics found him, they wouldn't declare him dead. Perhaps an IV of blood might help him, though she'd never actually heard of a vampire getting blood any way but orally.

Tracing the grayish tie that linked her to Angel, Buffy crawled slowly back through the noxious smoke. At least near the floor it was a little easier to breathe. Still, she needed to get to Angel and get the hell out before she passed out and trapped them both in the blaze.

At last she found her lover and fell upon him, hugging him and kissing his unresponsive face. "Angel," she cried, "Please wake up, love. We've got to get out of here. Now!"

Angel opened blurry eyes at the unexpected sound of his mate's voice. "Buffy?" he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass, you big lug. Let's get the hell out of here. Or were you so fond of hell when I sent you there that you want to repeat that whole little scenario?"

Her words stung him, as she had hoped they would, and he glared at her as he lumbered to his feet with none of his usual grace.

"Good boy," she murmured, sorry to have hurt him, but glad that it had the desired effect.

Angel's eyes narrowed as he realized he'd been had, but he knew she was right in using any means necessary to goad him into movement. "Let's go, Buffy," he said, trying hard to sound authoritative, but only managing weak. Blood loss, wounds and fasting had taken a terrible toll on his body.

Buffy wrapped an arm around his waist and he flinched at the pain before steeling himself and leaning heavily on her as they moved into the smoke and flames.

*

The flames climbed high into the night sky as Willow lowered Tara to an unbleached cotton blanket inside the sacred circle. "Oh, earth dwelling mother, lady of desire, goddess of love, hear my spell and grant me power to rise as my passion rises." She caressed her lover with hands that trembled with need and desire. Tara kissed her gently, delving into Willow's mouth with hungry, passionate kisses. They kissed as if they would climb into each other's body, devouring each other with desperate need.

Willow broke the kiss, gasping for air, and moved her mouth to one of Tara's nipples, sucking it hungrily into her mouth and laving the pointed nipple with her tongue until Tara groaned in want. Willow switched to the other breast, kissing and sucking at it with equal care until Tara ground herself against Willow's leg in an effort to assuage the lust that was building within her.

Tara flipped Willow to her back and knelt above her, kissing and nipping at her breasts with the same ferocity Willow had shown to hers. She kissed lower and lower on Willow's belly until she reached the flaming curls that glistened with oil in the firelight. "Oh, horned god, ruler of passion and promise, god of the hunt and lover of the goddess, hear my spell and grant me power to rise as my passion rises." She lowered her mouth to Willow's waiting slit and licked slowly up it, suckling the sensitive flesh into her mouth and sliding her tongue deep into the honeyed sweetness that flowed there.

Willow was so sweet, not tangy at all, and so responsive that Tara could hardly believe it possible. She parted Willow's shaking legs and traced her lover's clit with her tongue before sucking it into her mouth and laving it with soft, lingering strokes. Willow writhed in abandon below her and Tara smiled into her cunt as she ate her out.

Willow had had enough of this one-sidedness, and pulled and tugged until she got Tara's legs up near her mouth and her lover's luscious cunt opened to her. They formed their own sacred circle, intertwined and locked together, each one caressing and suckling on the other, fingers plunging into hot, wet cunts and mouths fastened to clits, pulling orgasm after orgasm from each other. The power waxed, waned a bit, waxed higher and higher with each crashing orgasm as the witches continued the ritual.

This was where women had an extraordinary advantage over male witches. They didn't spend all their power at once in one huge rush. Instead the power grew stronger and stronger as the night wore on, their young, healthy bodies able to reach higher and higher pinnacles of pleasure until they were both screaming with desire and power.

Willow had worked four fingers into Tara's flowing cunt, pistoning her arm in and out, faster and faster as Tara writhed on her. Tara, in turn, was making love to Willow with mouth and fingers, wrenching pleasure from her in waves that threatened to overwhelm her consciousness completely.

At last, they reached the very heights of love, lust, and power, and released it all into the night along the bond that they felt with Buffy. Spent, the witches collapsed into sleep, the fire and sacred circle keeping them safe under the bright starry sky.

*

Buffy wasn't going to make it. She could feel the fumes overwhelming her system, shutting down her breathing, making it impossible to think. She stumbled under Angel's weight, trying desperately to find her way through the inferno that blazed around them. Angel was little help. His body shook with the effort of just taking one step at a time, flinching from the constant and terrible pain.

Buffy stumbled again and this time Angel came crashing down with her. They fell to the floor in a particularly dangerous place, with melting plastic and burning wood all around them. The heat was intense and Angel was whimpering in agony as his cool flesh was seared in an almost sun-like burn.

Buffy couldn't go on, couldn't stand, couldn't catch her breath. She coughed and coughed, as her lungs tried to rid themselves of the noxious fumes, without luck. Her vision got blurry and her head started to spin as she began to asphyxiate.

Suddenly, without warning, blue-green power arced into her from nowhere. Buffy's head snapped back and her eyes glowed amber, startlingly like Spike's in that moment. The power felt familiar, felt like…Willow? And Tara, too. Buffy realized that the witches must have sent it to her somehow, but how had they known that she needed it right now?

*Enough thinking, stupid, get Angel and get the hell out of here,* Buffy thought to herself, jumping to her feet with renewed vigor. She hauled her lover to his feet with all her strength and began pulling/carrying him toward the door, now outlined to her oddly-changed vision as a greener patch in the hellish flickering of the flames. They stumbled the last few steps and made it outside just as the beams of the ceiling collapsed behind them, sparking madly like some pile of firecrackers gone horribly wrong.

Buffy half-carried Angel to Spike's car and pushed him into the back seat, grateful that the paramedics and firefighters had concentrated their efforts on the larger building to the right of the office. She raced back to Spike, still unconscious on the ground and ominously, no longer bleeding from the dreadful wound in his leg. Hefting him with difficulty, Buffy returned to the car, slinging him inside on top of Angel. There was only one place she could think of to go, and she prayed that her father was away on a business trip, as usual.

Buffy reached her father's condo in only a few minutes, thanking the powers that be and Willow and Tara for the luck. She unlocked the door with the key code that her father had given her, grateful that he never bothered to change it. Pulling first Spike and then Angel into the condo, Buffy closed and locked the door behind her before sinking to her knees next to the blond vampire.

If Spike was going to heal, the first thing she needed to do was straighten his leg out. Buffy winced at the thought, but knew she couldn't escape the task. She went to the kitchen, grabbed some scissors and cut Spike's jeans from his leg to expose the wound. It was ghastly. Bone shards jutted from the pale flesh like obscene pick up sticks.

Gritting her teeth, Buffy pulled Spike's leg straight, pushing on the bones with one hand to move them back into place. At least now she couldn't see them. She felt up and down the leg, trying to make sure that everything was lined up properly. As far as she could tell, it was.

She bandaged the leg with sheets torn from her father's bed, wondering as she did so if silk was ok to use for bandages. Served him right anyway, the big jerk.

Next, Buffy turned her attention to Angel. She had to get him to wake up. Buffy shook him gently, then more firmly, wincing at the bandages she saw all over his torso. Clearly the vampires' sojourn in LA had not been without incident. At last, Angel opened his eyes. Buffy cried in relief, desperately happy to have her mate awake and truly with her once again.

Buffy held Angel's wounded body in her arms. He had stopped flinching from her touch, even though the pain was worsening with every passing hour. The attack, the fast, and the fire had taken their toll on his aged vampiric flesh. Angel was barely able to speak any longer, almost unable to form coherent thoughts.

Without fresh blood to sustain it, his body was suffering, the pain tearing at him with razor sharp claws. He writhed in helpless agony, screaming and thrashing as Buffy held him. The pain subsided a bit, waves receding before the next, even greater onslaught. Angel worried that now that the time had come for the ritual, he'd not have the presence of mind to even say the simple words that would bind the soul deeper to him.

Angel's eyes glowed amber as he smelled the blood of his childe and mate. Buffy's hands and knees were lacerated and covered with semi-dried blood, her Slayer's immune system speeding the healing along. Angel was hungry…starving for the blood that he could smell and barely able to remember why he couldn't take some.

"Buffy," he whispered. "What time is it?"

"It's near midnight," she answered, confused as to why he cared.

"Good," he said. "Help me up."

Buffy helped Angel to his feet and was shocked to see him vamp out as she did so. "Back away, Buffy," he ordered urgently. Taking a deep, unnecessary breath, Angel slashed open the tips of his fingers with his fangs and began drawing a pentacle on the floor. He had to bite again and again to get any blood at all from his fingers, he was so parched. At last he had the pentacle drawn.

He hadn't gone without blood for two damned weeks, left Buffy alone to face her friends and whatever ghastly things the hellmouth was throwing at her, hell, let this happen to his Childe, in order to fail now.

Another wave of pain hit, taking his non-existent breathe away and he couldn't even howl, it was so intense. Pain, fear, rage, need, blood, blood, BLOOD!

He shrieked in agony and began chanting:

"Whilst demonic Angelus dwells within me let my soul be bound, let it ne'er break free. By the blood of my sire, now damned to hell, lock my soul to the vessel in which it doth dwell. By my soul, by my death, by the blood that I spill, so mote it be, wright this now as I will."

Three times he chanted it, forcing the iron will that had kept him going through the fight, fast, and flames to channel all the power he had accumulated in his centuries as a vampire into the spell. He felt the demon surface and subside, fighting over and over again as he sealed the soul ever closer to himself. At last he was finished. Angel collapsed in a heap on the floor, body screaming for blood, mind crying for rest. He reached a hand to smear through the pentacle, breaking the barrier and allowing the energy to dissipate.

Buffy grabbed for Angel as he collapsed, but could not enter until he broke the lines of the pentacle. Then she was there, offering her throat to her love with no thought of the consequences to herself.

Angel struck with desperation, sinking fangs deep into his Mark on Buffy's neck. He sucked hard and she writhed with pain, pain in which she was joined as her blood burned through Angel's body, healing with such speed that he broke away from her and screamed at the agony of the growing flesh. There was otherworldly energy there in Buffy's blood that hadn't been there only weeks earlier. That one draught of powerful blood was enough to heal most of his wounds and he retained barely enough presence of mind not to strike again at his love, too afraid of harming her.

Besides, he thought, there was one who needed that healing, as well. Angel moved to Spike, cradling the broken body of his Childe in his arms. "Buffy," he begged, "I know I can't ask it, but please, can you help him? I swear, I won't let him take too much, but he's wounded because of me. He dared the flames to save me."

Buffy smiled wearily at her soulmate. Of course she would save Spike if she could. He was hers now, as surely as Angel was. After all that he had done for Angel and for her, she couldn't let him suffer, not if she could help it. She leaned close to Spike's mouth and Angel help him to her neck, pressing the Mark against his mouth until blood welled into it.

Suddenly, Spike began lapping at the blood, then sucking harder. Buffy moaned at the feeling of his teeth sinking into the wound, deepening it, then moaned again as Spike's hands drifted up her body, clutching at her as he sucked. One lacerated hand brushed across her filthy flannel shirt, rubbing at the nipple that hardened immediately below it.

The pain/pleasure that always flowed through her at her lovers' bites swept Buffy into a haze of need, despite her tiredness, and she arched against Spike's long, naked leg, rubbing against it. His limp body was suddenly not so, and he rolled her to her back, rubbing his now-hard cock against her in needy passion. The green-blue energy residing in Buffy moved its way into him through the blood bond and Spike sank fangs further into Buffy involuntarily as he went into convulsions, his bones reknitting and bonding as if they'd never been broken. Orgasm swept through her body at the hard sucking of her lover and Buffy lost consciousness.

Angel pulled Spike quickly away from Buffy, afraid that once again, they'd endangered her life with their dark needs. He licked the wound closed, and took heart from the strong beating of her heart and lack of pallor in her face. She would be all right, they all would. Spike was healing before Angel's eyes, beautiful even in his blood caked semiconsciousness. Closing his bleary eyes, Angel curled around his two lovers -- safe and relatively sound. He promptly passed out.

Angel woke hungry and smelled blood. His own was dried on his hands and in a dark brown smear on the floor where he'd drawn the pentacle. He smelled the unmistakable scent of his Childe's blood, as well. Spike was sweetness and power wrapped into one and he smelled like family, somehow like home.

But Buffy, Buffy's blood was more. More power, more ripeness--like liquid light--Buffy's blood called to him. Angel wanted more, more than he'd had after the ritual, more than he'd taken when he'd marked her as his mate years before.

He rolled to his knees and crouched over his mate like a dangerous cat and began lapping at the dried blood on his Mark. Buffy moaned at the intrusive sucking and turned her head sleepily to give him better access. Angel knelt above her and sucked hard at his Mark again, lust flaring through him at the indescribably taste of her.

He reached still-healing hands to Buffy's shirt and ripped it from her in one sharp motion. Buffy opened her eyes and gasped at the sight of her mate crouching over her, amber flaring in his eyes and fangs dropping to feast on her. Though startled, she wasn't afraid. The bond between them flared and she felt his deep and utter need of her. She stretched her neck and raised her face to meet his mouth. They kissed passionately, eating at each other's mouths with hunger and desire.

Angel's possessive hands roamed across Buffy's torso, ripping her smoke stained jeans and panties from her with urgency. He broke their kiss and bent his head to suck at one pink nipple and Buffy groaned with passion, overcome by the waves of arousal that tingled through her from his cold mouth on her hot flesh.

Angel growled against her breast and moved a big hand to the other one, pulling at the sensitive flesh and twisting her nipple in his fingers until she cried out, unsure whether she wanted him to stop or continue.

Angel moved his head down Buffy's body, biting and kissing as he went until he reached her sex. He placed a kiss upon the downy curls there before grasping Buffy's legs in urgent hands and wrenching them open. She moaned in desire and then shrieked as he bent his head to lap at her nether lips. He sucked on them one at a time, nibbling and licking at the entrance to her body until he smelled the honey dripping from her.

Spreading her open like a flower, Angel leaned forward and lapped at Buffy's wet slit, licking in long soft strokes from the entrance to her cunt up to her clit and then back again. Buffy yelled her passion and rocked her hips up to meet him. Angel teased her unmercifully until she begged incoherently.

"God…Angel…please!"

"Please what, Lover?" he growled against her sopping wet sex, never ceasing his sucking or licking.

"Please suck me, please eat me, please let me come…" she moaned, desperate for release from this tender torture.

Angel responded by growling harder against her tender skin, then redoubling his efforts, lapping and sucking at her but never quite allowing her the release that she sought so desperately.

Buffy grabbed his head and ground her cunt against his mouth, panting and pleading, "Please, Angel, please…please."

Angel laughed against her and stopped to rip his pants from him. He was still clad in the filthy shirt he'd been wearing through the fire and he tossed it from himself with disdain. Pressing his cock against Buffy's fiery wet entrance, Angel started to ease himself into her with painstaking slowness.

Suddenly he was tackled from the side. Rolling on top of him was Spike…a thoroughly pissed off Spike.

"What the bloody fuck do you think you're doing now, Sire? Tryin' to get us all killed are you?" Spike roared in anger.

Angel grabbed his childe by the shoulders and growled at him, "She's my mate, MINE, Childe. Don't forget it. I'll take her when I want, and you won't stop me again."

As he lifted one huge hand to bat his childe away, Spike replied, "Your bloody soul isn't fixed yet, you stupid git! You've got two more bloomin' rituals to go first. Are you so fucking desperate to lose your soul again? Or can you just not resist the chance to get into the Slayer's pants?" he sneered.

Buffy, who'd been taken by complete surprise at Spike's unexpected attack, pulled back suddenly, her arousal subsiding as she heard his words. "It's not finished?" she asked. "What do you mean? He did the ritual, Spike!"

"Only part of it, Buffy. Sorry luv, but tis true, ask him yourself," Spike growled, aroused himself by the naked forms of his sire and mate.

Buffy turned inquiringly toward Angel and he nodded reluctantly, barely in control of his emotions. They were more volatile than ever, Angel realized, and getting harder to control with each iteration of the spell. "Damn, Buffy, I'm sorry. I should have thought. But the smell of your blood, and my need for you just overwhelmed me."

Buffy smiled sadly at him. "Well, my need was just as strong, Angel. Thank god for Spike. I couldn't bear it if something happened to you now, after you’ve gone through so much already. Speaking of which, what the hell is going on here, anyway? You didn't call, I thought everything was fine until I tried to call you and couldn't get through. What happened to your apartment?" she asked worriedly.

"We were attacked," Angel said, straightening up and gazing at her with concerned eyes. "You shouldn't be here, Buffy, you're putting yourself in danger."

Buffy laughed mirthlessly. "I'm in danger wherever I go, Angel. It's one of the many perks of being the Slayer, along with short life expectancy, bad hours, and pointy sticks."

Spike growled at both of them, "I don't bloody care who attacked us right now. I want a bath." He wiped uselessly at the grime and gore covering him. His hands were healed under all the blood, but they were so filthy it was hard to tell. "Where the fuck are we anyway?" Spike asked.

"I brought you to my father's condo. He's away in Spain or something," Buffy replied. "C'mon, he just had the bathroom redone again for his new girlfriend, cough, whore." She led them down a narrow hall to a door at the end. Pushing it open with her foot, Buffy gazed around in amazement.

Her father had redone the entire room in marble. Black veined marble shower surround, white veined marble floor, even the walls were marble. It was gorgeous, but the sight filled Buffy with anger. Her beautiful mother was dead, she'd been scrounging for money to make ends meet and yet her father could afford to completely redo his bathroom just to impress the new, barely legal-age slut whom he'd taken up with.

"Well, hell," Spike said, "this is more like it." He shucked his clothes off with a grin and leapt into the shower, twisting knobs until a cascade of heated water poured from the multi-fauceted contraption. "Cor, Peaches, you gotta put one of these into the mansion. This is bloody fantastic," he exclaimed, shaking and turning under the water like a wet puppy.

Angel laughed at his childe's antics, broken from his gloom by the outrageous nature of Spike's bathing. He had covered himself with foam from one of the many bottles of bathing gel and was scrubbing it into his white flesh with exaggerated pleasure. Angel watched as Buffy walked in to join Spike, ducking her head under the water and wetting her golden-brown curls with relish. They began soaping each other, giggling and laughing as they washed the filthy ash and smoke from each other's bodies.

Watching their play, Angel couldn't help but feel his arousal growing again. They were both so perfect…so utterly delicious, and they didn't even realize it. He wanted them both. Wanted to tear into that flesh, both white and tan, bite, claw and rip at it until their blood flowed and he could drink it…bathe in it…roll in it as he fucked them into the floor. Angel growled and strode into the enclosure, grabbing Spike and pulling him into a brutal kiss.

Spike was startled at first, but willing, as always, when passion flared. He kissed Angel back with every bit of the ferocity that his sire had used, fangs dropping and ripping at Angel's lips just as Angel's fangs drew blood from Spike. They moaned simultaneously, hands grasping for each other in a rage of feeling.

Buffy didn't know what to think as she watched them together. They were so harsh in their passion for each other. Each caress Angel bestowed upon Spike seemed rougher than the next. Buffy gasped in surprise as Angel pushed Spike against the wall and thrust into him with no warning. It looked painful and violent and…gods, was she getting turned on by this?

Spike shuddered as Angel plowed into his ass, shaking under the onslaught of his sire's passionate fucking. His own cock throbbed with need and arousal as Spike braced himself against the wall with both hands to buck backward into Angel's every brutal thrust.

This was how Angelus had taken him, with no care for his childe's pleasure, only his own. Then Angel reached one huge hand around and grabbed Spike's cock and he remembered that this wasn't his sire, exactly. Angel pumped in time to his thrusts, gentling them just enough to entice Spike backwards into his arms. He caressed Spike with one hand while pumping him with the other, teasing at his nipple with talented fingers and sucking gently at his neck until Spike felt himself spiraling into orgasm. At that last second before coming, Angel sank fangs into him and Spike spasmed in his hand, spilling his cold seed into the wall of the shower where the water rapidly swirled it away down the drain.

Angel came with growls and grunts, releasing Spike's cock to grab his hips and grind himself into Spike's ass. At last he was spent and pulled back from his chide with reluctance. It was only then that he realized Buffy had seen the entire thing. *God, what must she be thinking,* he thought as he turned to face her with chagrin.

Buffy was trailing one tanned hand over her breasts, twisting and pulling on the nipples while she rubbed at her clit with the other hand. Watching her two lovers so wrapped up in each other had been mind-blowingly erotic and she was still frustrated from Angel's earlier teasing.

Spike looked up and was on her in a flash, moving her hand aside to grab her rounded breasts with his hands instead, as he kissed her deeply. Angel followed suit instantly, kneeling before her to feast once more on her sex, this time, without the teasing. He plundered her cunt with his tongue, thrusting it into her the way he longed to do with his cock.

Buffy wavered, nearly falling, as her lovers ravished her body. Spike moved quickly behind her, balancing his sire's aggressively carnal attack with his own assault on Buffy from behind. He slid his hands around to cup her breasts, stroking and twisting until she moaned in pleasured pain.

Angel pushed her legs further apart and delved even deeper into her honeyed cunt, feasting on his mate with abandon. Buffy bucked into his cold mouth as the warm water cascaded over her body, coming in waves so intense that Spike had to hold her up as her legs lost all strength. Angel continued sipping and lapping at her cunt until the tremors finally subsided. Only then did he move up her body to lean over and kiss her hungrily.

Tasting herself on her mate's tongue was unexpectedly arousing to Buffy and she grabbed Angel's neck, pulling him closer to her and kissing him savagely. He slid to game face at the violence in her kiss and groaned when she pulled away.

"I'm sorry, Buffy, I can't…" he growled, trying desperately to slide back into his human mask, but too out of control to manage it.

"Shut up and bite, damnit," she ordered huskily, turning her head and offering herself unabashedly to him.

Angel paused for a moment, meeting Spike's eyes over Buffy's shoulder. The younger vampire was fighting game face as well, his glorious blue eyes flickering with amber.

"You, too, Spike! Now, do it now, please!" Buffy begged, craving the inexpressible pleasure of the links with her mates and knowing that they needed the power of her blood to heal the remainder of the harm done them by the fire.

They surged against her, Angel moving purposefully so that his again hard cock could not find its way into her enticing cunt. Instead he rubbed himself against her leg as he licked the Mark on her neck that proclaimed his possession to all the demon world.

Buffy moaned in anguished lust as Spike kissed the other side of her neck, scraping fangs against the skin there in delicious circles around the smaller Mark that he'd placed there. He ground his cock against Buffy's delectable ass and she moaned again, grinding herself back into him.

Hearing her, Angel knew what Spike must be doing. He lifted Buffy easily in his huge hands and brought her slowly down, her legs twining around Spike's and her cunt wide open to his hard cock.

Spike groaned at the heat enveloping his cold shaft and began thrusting upwards into his lover as Angel pushed her down onto him. The three of them rocked together in a frenzy of abandoned lust, Buffy's panting moans mixing with the rough growling of her mates. Angel moved slightly, grinding his cock against her exposed clit and Buffy felt herself begin to fall over the edge into bliss.

At that moment, both vampires sank fangs into her neck and the pain froze her on the edge for long moments before it was followed by the ecstatic bliss that only they could give her.

Angel sucked at his mate's neck as he came…her powerful, magic-infused blood searing through him like a healing flame.

Spike was similarly transported, his mouth working at Buffy's neck while he spilled himself inside her. The doubled burning of her blood and cunt nearly incapacitated him with mindless pleasure.

At last the spiral dance of bliss slowed to a pleasant throb and the vampires drew away from their mate, afraid that they'd taken too much from her. Buffy simply smiled at them, glowing with satisfaction and pleasure.

Spike withdrew from her heated folds reluctantly, kissing her neck again and again as he did so. She was bloody amazing, he thought, gazing with love on the tiny, but deadly beauty before him. Taking up a loofah and some lavender scented soap, Spike slowly washed Buffy's back, sliding the sponge gently over her tanned skin. This…this must be happiness, he thought, introspectively. This feeling of complete and utter possession and possessing, this trust that flowed like water between the three of them, binding them into a powerful and loving triad.

Angel kissed Buffy again and again, gentle now that his passion had waned. She was so beautiful, so small yet powerful. He was constantly amazed that she was able to fight so well in such a compact package. He smiled into her eyes as he bent his head and kissed down her collarbone to suckle at her nipple.

Buffy moaned, little explosions of afterglow pinging through her clit at Angel's gentle teasing. Sighing, she pushed him away, just enough to reclaim his mouth with her own for a long, languorous kiss. Angel turned her around so that Spike could kiss her as well, and his childe did, pressing soft, sensual kisses to Buffy's warm mouth.

She took the soap from him and began trailing it over his hard body, reveling in the chance to touch him all over. Buffy stepped around behind him to grab for the shampoo and pour some into her palm. She scrubbed at his peroxide white hair and Spike sighed in pleasure as she caressed his head. At his sigh, Angel leaned forward to kiss him, exploring his mouth gently as he stroked large hands over Spike's body to rinse the soap from him.

Spike had never felt so entwined with other beings as he did in that moment with Angel before him and Buffy behind, both caressing him and murmuring their love in soft voices. He basked in the warmth of Buffy behind him and the cool strength of his sire in front of him, loving every moment and never wanting the feeling to end. Angel reached one finger under Spike's chin to tip his head back and Spike closed his eyes as the water washed through his hair, rinsing away the grime of the fire.

"My turn," he growled at Angel and grabbed the soap to pay Angel back in kind. Spike and Buffy pounced on the larger vampire and drew him, laughing, into the full stream of the water. Buffy washed his hair, standing on tip-toe and pulling gently at it with tiny fingers until he sighed with pleasure. Spike attacked the dirt and soot still clinging to his sire's massive frame with a loofah and more soap until Angel's alabaster skin glowed. Finally they rinsed him, turning him this way and that and laughing at his expression when the water poured right into his eyes.

Sputtering and laughing himself, Angel pulled Buffy into the cascade and began soaping her short curls. They were getting longer, he noticed, framing her face in becoming waves as the weight pulled the curl out. At last they were done and reluctantly turned the water off.

Spike ventured from the shower first and returned with sumptuous Egyptian cotton towels. Throwing one at Angel, he turned to Buffy and enveloped her in the soft folds of the cotton. She sighed with pleasure at the feeling and rubbed against him in contentment. Spike pressed a kiss to her mouth before grabbing a towel for himself and scrubbing at his hair with it. He dried the rest of his body off and looked up at the laughter of his lovers.

"Whut?" he asked, then reached up to his hair as he realized what they must be laughing at. "Bugger off," he swore at them, chagrined that his hair had tightened back into the unruly curls that he tried so hard to tame with gel.

"Shush, Spike, it's cute," Buffy giggled, reaching up to fluff the curls even higher as she laughed at Spike's indignant expression.

"She's right, Childe. It suits you," Angel added, tousling Spike's head with an affectionate hand.

Buffy looked with happiness on her two mates. They were healed, strong and ready to face whatever was thrown at them next. She had a feeling it wasn't going to be fun. But together they could face anything, she was confident.

*

She wasn't so sure once she stood by the side of the hospital bed and gazed at an unconscious and battered Wesley.  His heart monitor was beeping regularly. Angel stood beside his bed, watching him before turning and walking from the room. "Thank you, Childe, for saving him from the fire," he said to Spike, waiting silently outside the door.

Spike nodded his acceptance of the thanks, grim at the condition of the former Watcher. He knew that once Angel saw his other employee, his sire would be livid.  They walked into another wing and to Cordelia's bed. She was sedated, so she was no longer convulsing, as she had been when Spike had last seen her, but from the darting of her eyes, she still had permanent visions.

Angel took hold of her left hand and leaned on the bed.  "Cordelia, I'm gonna fix this.  Promise.  I'm gonna get you back.  We need you back." He looked down as he let go of her hand and noticed a black symbol on the back of it.

The three left the hospital much subdued. "I have to go see the Oracles," he said to Spike as they drove away. I want you to stay with Buffy and keep her safe until I return."

"Bugger that," Spike spat angrily. "I want a piece of them, too, Sire."

"I'm not some child who you can leave behind, Angel," Buffy said, in agreement with Spike. "We all go together, or we don't go at all."

Angel nodded reluctantly and drove them to the old post office. He pulled a piece of parchment from his duster pocked, grateful that it hadn't burned up in the fire. He'd never have been able to get to the Oracles without it.

He recited the spell to get to the Oracles, changing the words slightly to accommodate his childe and mate. "We come before the Oracles for guidance and direction.  We beseech access to the knowing ones."

The doorway opened with a blinding flash of light. The three of them stumbled into the chamber of the Oracles, blinking and stopping with shock at the sight of the Oracles lying on the floor, dead, with a bloody scythe still buried in the woman's body.

"This isn't what they usually look like, is it?" Buffy asked in worry.

A ghostly image of the woman appeared beside her.

"It's unfortunate," the blue woman said.  "Things are unraveling.  The dark ones broach our temples now."

"Can you help us?" Angel asked desperately.

"I can't stay long.  I've been dead a while," she replied.  "So far I don't like it."

Angel added urgently, "My friend who gets the visions..."

The woman nodded. "Is in trouble.  It's his mark, the one who did this."

"Who?  Who did this?" Buffy asked.

"Voca.  A warrior of the underworld.  He wants you weak.  So he opened her mind to all the ones who cry out in pain and need.  She doesn't have long either," the Oracle added.

"Bloody hell," Spike interjected. "How can we stop it?"

"The sacred scroll of Aberjian is now in Voca's possession.  The scroll is what you need," The Oracle responded, fading as she spoke.

"Wait," Buffy begged.

"Find the scroll," the Oracle murmured.  "The words of Anatole, only they can remove the mark and save your friend."

"Tell us where to find him.  We'll repay him for what he did here," Angel added.

"He is here for the raising," she said.

Spike kicked at a broken pedestal with a foot. "The raising?"

The Oracle nodded, "Like so many of them he hides behind man's law.  Stop him." She faded away before their eyes.

"We will," Angel swore, grabbing the scythe as they left.

*

"I don't want to hear your arguments again, Spike. I need you here, *we* need you here," Angel insisted as they stood outside the hospital where Cordelia and Wesley lay.

"Why can't Buffy stay here and guard them?" Spike whined, wanting more than anything to be at his sire's side in this struggle.

"I need her with me," Angel said, again. "I don't know what spells they'll have to guard against vampires, but chances are good that if I can't get through them, then you couldn't either. Buffy can."

Spike reluctantly accepted the argument and he pulled Angel to him in a fierce embrace. "Don't bloody die, you great poof," he whispered hoarsely. "I swear I'll find your ashes and piss on 'em if you do."

Angel kissed his childe slowly and passionately. "I'm not going anywhere, Spike," he growled. "Not with you to come back to, my Most Favored Childe. Now guard my people," he ordered, kissing Spike again before turning abruptly to climb into his car.

Buffy hugged Spike to her with desperate strength. "I'll take care of him, I promise, Spike," she said as he bent his head to kiss her thoroughly.

"Take care of yourself, first, Pet," Spike ordered. "Peaches can watch out for himself," he growled, trying to hide the fear that raged within him at the thought of them fighting without him. He turned and paced back into the hospital, trying not to feel left behind and failing miserably.

*

Five vampires were chained to a box sitting in the middle of a pentacle laid into the floor inside a poorly lit crypt.  Two monks entered, chanting, followed by Voca.  "We have prepared a holy place in the darkness and anointed it with oil.  We have taken of the blood of the living and gathered together the living dead."

Voca chanted,  "As it was written they shall prepare the way and the very gate of hell shall open.  That which is above shall tremble (the earth trembled) for that which is below shall arise.  And the world shall know the beast -- and the beast shall know the world."
 
 

*

A group of people was walking down the steps in front of Wolfram and Hart.

Lilah asked, "Aren't we going to be late?"

Holland responded lightly, "You never want to be on time for a ritual, the chanting, the blood rites, they go on forever."

Angel and Buffy gazed at them from behind a pillar as Lindsey motioned to two guys standing in front of a moving van.

"You guys follow us," he said.

Holland turned to Lindsey.  "I know you covered all the bases here."

"Yes, sir," Lindsey replied.

Holland continued, "Senior partners are keeping a close watch on us.  We don't wanna let them down."

Lindsey gulped, then stated, "We won't."

Holland got into the limo.  Lilah turned to Lindsey before getting in herself. "Remember when Robert Price let the senior partners down and they made him eat his liver?  -- I don't know what made me think of that."

After a moment Lindsey followed the other two into the back of the limo.  Angel and Buffy watched them drive off, followed by the movers, then climbed into his car and trailed them.

*

Voca walked slowly from one point of the pentacle to the next, chanting the ritual as the monks responded. "Five are without breath."

Monks:  "Yet they live."

Voca:  "Five are without time."

Monks:  "Yet they live."

The party from Wolfram and Hart enters the crypt.

Voca:  "Five are without soul."

Monks:  "Yet they live."

Holland was annoyed, "They haven't even gotten to the Latin yet."

Voca:  "Five are without sun."

Monks:  "Yet they live."

Voca looked up, then laid the scroll down on top of the crate and walked to face the steps leading down into the crypt.

Lilah was confused, "What is it?"

"I don't know," Holland responded.

Voca produced another scythe.  A moment later Angel burst through the door at the top of the stairs and the two of them began battling with the scythes.

Holland turned to Lindsey, "Lindsey?"

Lindsey watched the fight between Voca and Angel for a moment then stepped forward and picked up the scroll. "Five are dead." The monks didn't respond. "Say it!" he ordered.

Monks:  "Yet they live."

Lindsey continued in Latin. "And the five shall be a sacrifice... and the one who is dead shall live..."

Holland spoke to Lilah, "Get the movers in here."

"Yes Sir," she said.

Lindsey continued in Latin, "Even as life and death are not two things but one... in darkness is the light, in light is the darkness.  Arise!  Arise!  Arise!"

The five vampires turned to dust and bones as the earth shook and a whirlwind began to spin around the box.  Before Lindsey's eyes, a small blonde woman…the Slayer, he realized…jumped directly into the whirlwind within the pentacle and pushed the box out of it with one mighty heave. The whirlwind didn't dissipate, instead sucking the vampire dust and bones into the center. An incandescent light formed at the center and, unable to find the now-missing box, centered itself upon the Slayer instead. The ring of light exploded outward arrowing into Buffy in a huge blast and throwing her against the wall.  She landed in an unconscious heap on the floor.

Angel and Voca were fighting on as if nothing had happened.  The movers rushed in and Holland ordered them, "Shit, that wasn't supposed to happen! Get her out of here."

As the movers grabbed the unconscious Slayer and carried her out, Holland threw a quick glance at Lindsey who was trapped between a madly fighting Angel and Voca and unable to edge around to follow the others out of the crypt. Holland left him there.

Angel and Voca were still fighting--Angel frantically trying to finish it and follow after Buffy.  Lindsey slowly edged his way towards a flaming torch.  He still had the scroll and knew that he couldn't allow Angel to get it.

Angel finally got the scythe away from Voca and pinned him up against the wall.  He knocked the mask of Voca's face to reveal a maggot filled hole where his nose should be. "Nice," he said, then drove the blade of the scythe into Voca's chest, killing him instantly.

Behind him Lindsey had made it to the torch and grabbed ahold of a post topped by a cross, brandishing it in Angel's direction and keeping him from following his fallen mate.  Angel slowly walked towards him, bloody scythe held loosely in his right hand. Everything within him screamed that he had to go after Buffy, but he needed the scroll to save Cordy.

Angel ordered, "Lindsey, give me the scroll."

"That's not gonna happen," Lindsey sneered.  "It belongs to us."

Angel was furious.  "Us.  You put your faith in Wolfram and Hart."

"You said I had to make a choice."

Angel nodded, "And you did."

"Yeah," Lindsey said.  "I had a crisis--and I want to thank you for your help with that--but I see things more clearly now."

"You don't see anything," Angel growled.  "You don't know what faith is."

Lindsey held up the scroll.  "I see that what happened here tonight was foretold--that doesn't bode well for you.  I see that you are either the one with the power--or you're powerless."

Angel was lapsing quickly into Angelus. His mate was taken, his people injured and this pissant lawyer stood before him as if he had a chance in hell of stopping the vampire. "Uh-huh.  You see what I'm gonna do to you if you don't give me that scroll?"

Lindsey laughed. "You need the words of Anatole to cure your friend.  She's your connection to the Powers That Be.  And since it is foretold that we sever all your connections," he held the scroll into the flames burning in the urn beside him, "well..."

Angel threw the scythe, cutting off Lindsey's hand at the wrist.  Lindsey dropped the cross and screamed as he dropped to the ground.  He was cradling his bleeding stump against his chest, as Angel retrieved the scroll from the floor beside him.

"Don't believe everything you're foretold," Angel growled, before sprinting after the men who had taken Buffy.

Lindsey tried to suppress his screams as Angel raced out.

*

Cordelia was lying on the hospital bed.  Wesley was sitting in a wheelchair beside it with Spike leaning over her bed on the other side.

Wesley chanted from the scroll, "And if the beast shalt find thee, and touch thee, thou shalt be wounded in thy soul--and thou shalt know madness.  The beast shalt attack and cripple thee and thy soul shalt know neither friend nor family.   But thou shalt undo the beast.  Thou shalt find the sacred words of Anatole and thy soul shalt be set free. Three times shalt thou say these words: unbind--unbind--unbind."

A white flash issued from Cordelia's body and out of the room.

Cordelia blinked her eyes. Spike looked down at her hand. The mark was gone. Cordy looked up at Spike and he smirked at her. "Hallo, cheerleader," he said.

Cordy gasped, "Spike?"

"Welcome back," he smiled, glad that at least this one thing was right. Angel had only stopped by the hospital long enough to drop off the scroll, despite his concern for Cordelia. He was frantic with worry over Buffy, who he'd been unable to track. Spike understood his concern, feeling it himself. He just needed to take care of his sire's people and then he could follow him in the hunt for their mate.

Cordy gazed up at him. No…it was through him. "The light, it's so beautiful. Thank you." She pushed herself up and reached one trembling hand to his face and pulled him to her. Spike was dumfounded for a moment as Cordy kissed him with amazing tenderness. He felt woozy, suddenly--faint and dazed. Cordy closed her eyes, and fell back against the pillow, truly at peace within herself for the first time in her life. The room glowed again with a white flash, this one centered on Spike. The monitors on the bed began wailing and one let out a steady drone as Cordy's heart flat-lined.

"No!" Spike yelled and Wesley tried frantically to climb from his wheelchair.

"Get Dr. Evans," screamed the nurse who had just entered the room as she ran back into the hallway.

*

Wesley was studying the scroll while Angel tried to get Spike to drink from a warmed cup of blood.  "Here is something."

"What is it?" Angel asked urgently. Unable to find Buffy, he'd returned to the hospital only to find Cordelia dead, Wesley wracked with grief, and Spike suffering from what could only be described as magic-induced shock. Angel had taken them all back to Cordelia's apartment, for lack of a better place to go. He put the cup down and stroked his childe's hair agitatedly as Wesley tried to decipher what the scroll said in regard to Angel, Buffy, or anything else that might help them get her back.

Wesley read, "The beast of Amalfi, a razor toothed six-eyed harbinger of death.  No, wait, that's due to arise in 2003 in Reseda."

Angel continued caressing Spike, concerned that his childe was so out of it. "I would have guessed Tanzania."

"Better cross-reference that," Wesley muttered.  "I'm sorry, I don't know what they were trying to raise in that box, thus I can't predict what the effect of the spell might have been upon the Slayer. I'll keep looking," he promised.

Wesley looked over at Spike, who lay exhausted and drained, upon Cordelia's sofa, barely able to keep his eyes open, but unwilling to rest.

Angel noticed Wesley staring at his childe.

Wesley glanced at him, then explained, "It's just I... I'm not used to..."

Angel nodded, "I know. I miss her too. But we have to find Buffy," he growled urgently. "Cordelia's gone, and Spike is hurt, but god knows what they're doing to Buffy. Please, Wes, keep looking."

Wesley looked down at his books, "Ah, oops. I may have made a tiny mistake." Angel stopped rubbing Spike's hair and got up. "The word Shanshu that I said meant you were going to die? Actually I think it means that you are going to live."

Spike whispered, "Okay, as tiny mistakes go--that's not one!"

Wesley explained, "Shanshu has roots in so many different languages. The most ancient source is the Proto-Bantu and they consider life and death the same thing, part of a cycle, only a thing that's not alive never dies.  It's, it's saying…that you get to live until you die.  It's saying…it's saying you become human."

Angel was shocked. "That's the prophecy?"

Wesley nodded. "Ah, the vampire with a soul, and his get, once he fulfills his destiny, will Shanshu. Become human. It's his reward."

Spike groaned. "Bollocks…Angel a human?"

Wesley interrupted, "But Angel, you don't have any grandchildren, do you?"

"No," Angel replied. "None that I know about, anyway."

"Then I don't understand this reference to your 'get.' That *is* the translation of the word, but it always refers to children. One would assume in your case it would be great-great-grandchildren, but still, if you know of none…" His voice dropped off as he studied the scroll again.

Angel exchanged a long intense look with Spike. "My get…my children? Or my..."

Spike interrupted, "Childer? Wait. What's that thing about him having to fulfill his destiny first?"

Wesley explained, "Well, it's saying that it won't happen tomorrow or the next day.  He has to survive the coming darkness, the apocalyptic battles, a few plagues, and some, uh, several, not that many, fiends that will be unleashed."

Spike groaned, "Typical. I arrive in LA with the only person in history who ever came here to get older and he takes me with him. Forget about bloody Peaches. What does it say about Buffy in the scroll?"

Wesley searched through the scroll. "I can't tell right now, Spike. We know that Wolfram and Hart has her. I'd suggest that you look for her there…somehow."

*

It was day at Wolfram and Hart.  Lilah, Holland and Lindsey were entering the vault where Buffy was chained, alone, in the dark.  Lindsey's right arm was in a sling.

Holland said patronizingly, "The senior partners were very impressed with your sacrifice."  Lindsey looked at him. "Trust me, we'll even the score with them."

Lindsey nodded, glancing at the Slayer chained to the wall. "Yes, we will."

Holland smiled evilly. "Beginning with what's in those chains."

Lilah leaning to look more closely at the Slayer, who was barely conscious and totally disoriented.  "We are all very pleased you're here.    I know it's a bit confusing, but it's going to get worse soon," she smiled. "A lot worse…"

"Buffy."

*

Wolfram and Hart had planned very carefully for incarceration of a now-human woman of vampiric origin with unpredictable physical strength. The chains that held the Slayer were reinforced. The bars on the door to her holding cell, likewise. The windows were inaccessible and screened with titanium bars, just in case.

None of these prepared the lawyers for the captivity of a Slayer -- a fact born out by the maiming injuries sustained but not one, but ten security guards and one unfortunate associate.

It started, *as trouble always seems to,* thought Holland Manners, with Lilah Morgan. She went to the enclosure without permission to taunt Buffy Summers with her captivity. "So, Buffy…may I call you Buffy? What a stupid name for a vampire slayer. Does it ever strike you that your name is unspeakably inane…Buffy?" Lilah’s voice made the name into a taunt as she paced in front of the chained and naked girl.

Holland watched the surveillance tapes shot from practically every angle in the room as the elegant attorney walked in front of the girl in shoes that probably cost more than she had lived on the entire past year. The girl growled in response to Lilah’s taunts. It should have been the first warning, thought Holland, but none of us saw it.

A rack of macabre and shiny torture implements hung near the seemingly helpless Slayer and Lilah minced to it in her high heels. She ran caressing fingers down various whips, knives, and spikes before selecting a simple rattan cane from the rack. Not deadly, at first anyway, but extremely painful in the right hands. Lilah had those hands. Despite her meticulous appearance, Holland knew, Lilah delighted in getting down and dirty when the opportunity arose. The tiny golden Slayer was irresistible to her, especially given her unhealthy fixation on Angel.

Lilah minced slowly back to the Slayer and slashed the cane across her thigh lightly. It welted immediately but didn’t draw blood. The Slayer growled again.

"So…Buffy…from our intelligence it seems that you’re not only whoring yourself to Angel, but now to his childe, Spike, as well. Did I miss the description of your services? Are you the Vampire Slayer or the Vampire Layer?" The jealous whine in Lilah’s voice grated on Holland’s nerves but the verbal attack had seemingly no effect upon the chained girl…indeed, she didn’t react at all. The extraordinarily acute sensors in the area around her detected no spike in heartbeat or breathing. It was as if Lilah’s words were nothing but gibberish.

Holland had been mightily impressed at first with the young woman’s self control in not allowing Lilah to get under skin, even as the attorney slashed at her with the cane. It wasn’t until he viewed the tapes repeatedly knowing the denouement that Holland realized the obvious…Buffy wasn’t ignoring Lilah’s taunts at all. It was more simple and infinitely more complex than that…

Lilah continued caning the girl, harder now, and the Slayer began growling in earnest. She pulled at her bonds, ripping gashes in her wrists as she did so. It wasn’t until Lilah began drawling blood with viciously placed blows across the girl’s hips and lower belly that she wrenched the chains from the wall.

Holland watched the next part of the tape in awestruck, if reluctant, admiration of the sheer power embodied in that diminutive frame. Buffy crouched low when she dropped from the wall, then stood in one fluid motion and snapped one of the chains still manacled to her arms across Lilah’s face like a whip. The lawyer shrieked, dropping the cane and crumpling to the floor in agony. The Slayer reached one clawlike hand for the neck of the fallen attorney and grabbed her, pulling her to her knees. Lilah choked slowly as the Slayer tightened her grip around the delicate column of the woman’s throat.

Buffy growled again and Holland paused the tape to catch each frame in slow motion. Buffy’s hazel eyes glared at Lilah as the Slayer bared her teeth…and the change began. The girl’s eyes flashed amber -- not the golden amber of a vampire’s demonic gaze, but a green-imbued amber that resembled sunlight flashing through new spring leaves. The Slayers teeth altered too, frame by frame as Holland watched in dismay and increasing concern. She didn’t look like a vampire…she had no cranial ridges. But she clearly wasn’t simply human anymore either…not even the enhanced humanity of a normal (if there ever was such a thing) Slayer. No…she had altered radically, though subtly.

Holland pulled up the exact words of the spell that had seemingly caused such a colossal screw-up on his laptop: "…that which is below shall arise. And the world shall know the beast -- and the beast shall know the world…And the five shall be a sacrifice... and the one who is dead shall live...Even as life and death are not two things but one... in darkness is the light, in light is the darkness. Arise! Arise! Arise!" He remembered watching an incandescent light explode outward and arrow into the Slayer in a huge blast.

The Beast…he realized…the Beast was the key. The beast mentioned in the spell had been the sire of Angelus. But the beast they had raised was in Buffy Summers…it appeared to be tied somehow to the vampire Marks upon her neck. It made sense, he realized. She was noticeably Marked by not one but both vampires she associated with. Wolfram and Hart had documented the Mark of Angelus upon the Slayer, intending to use the knowledge to trap Angel at some point. But he had left the girl, seemingly abandoning his claim upon her at that time. So they had shelved that idea, given his past, it seemed Angel was just as inconstant as Angelus.

*Clearly,* thought Holland, *we didn’t understand the true nature of that bond.* Holland knew much of Marks, more than most Watchers, who disdained demons as anathema to be eradicated, not potential tools to be manipulated. Marking preserved a human for centuries if done by a powerful vampire. Angelus certainly fit that bill. He was routinely described by unspeakably evil entities as "the most vicious creature" they ever met, "the scourge of Europe," and "the cunning." His childe, William the Bloody, was no less vicious, if more direct, despite his long-term association with Drusilla the Mad.

The Marks were created in the Slayer’s flesh by the dead…vampires. But now, now the Marks lived per the words of the ritual. And somehow the demonic nature of the Marks had imbued the Slayer’s flesh with power that created the beast. The Slayer had apparently descended into madness with the freeing of the Beast within her. The spell said "the Beast shall know the world" and it did. It lived within the Slayer…fusing with her power, enhancing her speed and agility, increasing her endurance and strength. But she’d not spoken since the spell. Holland wondered, idly if she even could.

He sped the tape up to normal speed again and watched the Slayer drop Lilah to the concrete floor like a piece of offal. The lawyer lived…but her once beautiful countenance would be horribly scarred from the links of the chain and the jagged metal hook that the Slayer had whipped so casually across her face.

Alarms went off in the tape and security guards poured into the room, encircling the Slayer and yelling at her to back away from the fallen attorney. The Slayer crouched above her victim once more, naked and bleeding from the purpling cane welts covering her belly and thighs. Then she sprang. It was a leap that shouldn’t -- couldn’t -- be possible, yet she performed it with ease, tackling the two guards closest to the door and ripping an arm off of each with brutal strength. Leaving them screaming and writhing on the floor of the warehouse, the Slayer sped for the door so fast the three guards remaining there were completely unprepared for her attack. She ripped through them, slashing at their faces with both hands and moving through them as if they weren’t even there. Holland switched tapes to the corridor outside the cell. A huge guard was stationed at the end of the hall. Holland watched the man draw his weapon -- against specific instructions that the Slayer was not to be killed -- and shoot at her.

The Slayer’s tiny body rocked back as the guard squeezed off three rounds from his 45. Holland watched the impact of the slugs flatten her. She lay there on the floor in a rapidly growing pool of blood as the guard approached her, weapon ready...

To be continued…