(‘They made something,’ he said, a whisper in the dead of night where the sun couldn’t hurt them, where the humans most feared. ‘Something that’s coming after us.’ ‘Like what?’ His partner in destruction scoffed. ‘What could defeat us? Measly humans with their frightened lives? They’re too scared to venture far at night. Oh, occasionally you run across a magickally gifted one, but, no…’ But he shook his head, adamant. ‘More than that.’ The fear in his voice must have caught his partner’s attention now, because he asked, ‘More? More what?’ But he could only shrug. ‘That’s what we don’t know.’)
Angelus paused on his way back to Buffy. Where did that (memory/thought) come from? It wasn’t his; hell, it wasn’t even the soul’s. Acathla’s? Usually his memories held a tint to them, something else that told Angelus that the former demon was still around, rattling inside his head.
Spinning on his heel, mentally asking his lover for forgiveness over his tardiness, Angelus returned to the library.
“Shamans, Rupert,” he said as the doors banged open, once more startling the watcher. Angelus moved with stalker-like grace into the library, eyes swirling red and blue, power radiating off him in waves that impressed even the human as the doors slammed closed behind Angelus.
“What?” he asked, confused. “It’s not the end of the day,” he dismissed, turning back to his research. Ah, but he’d grown soft – he’d become too used to the help of his slayer’s friends whenever something new cropped up. Now he was alone in his research again, and it took much longer than he’d expected.
“Shamans,” Angelus repeated from directly in front of Rupert, and the human looked up, quickly realizing that this wasn’t a threat…it was something far worse. His attention hadn’t left the vampire-god long enough for him to make it to the back of the library, to the table where he now sat. And yet suddenly, Angelus was there.
(Creation. It was the birth of the world again, light and darkness, chaos and order, yin and yang. It was a birth, messy and hard, but the results were magnificent. The birth of a Warrior for the Light from that which she was to battle. The Demon, a pureblood, spliced into the warrior, pure, virginal, innocent, and strong. The strongest of her clan, handpicked especially for this.)
Shaking off this latest memory, Angelus growled. At himself for only now remembering, at Rupert for not discovering this sooner, or for not knowing this. And at those who had done this. Oh, Angelus didn’t care about the girl; she was useless, pointless, and dead. But it directly affected Buffy. And that, he cared about.
“You know,” he hissed, eyes mere slits. “You, Rupert, had to know. Ripper was too greedy for knowledge not to have discovered this. You read up on it, studied it, I know you did.”
“What?” Rupert demanded, at a complete loss as to what Angelus was talking about.
“Shamans, Rupert,” Angelus grabbed his hand, twisting barely healed fingers until they snapped once more. Rupert grunted in pain, face a mask of agony, but kept his shouts to himself. “Good boy,” Angelus approved, impressed anew at the watcher’s resilience.
“They’re the ones who started this, Rupert,” Angelus said, leaning negligently against the table, idly twisting another finger. “The shamans did this…what do they have to do with the Watcher’s Council?”
“Shamans?” Rupert’s voice was faint, the pain from broken fingers disorienting his mind. But then Angelus’ words penetrated, and his eyes sharpened. “What shamans?”
The realization did not go unnoticed by the vampire-god. “Ah, you do know, don’t you, Rupert? The shamans…why don’t you tell me about them?”
Silence. “Nothing? I’m disappointed, Rupert,” Angelus shook his head, foot lashing out into Rupert’s stomach, pushing him and the chair back into the stacks. “See,” he snarled, lifting Rupert by his already bruised throat. “I had higher hopes for you. But then I guess your love and devotion to Buffy only extends to her when she’s doing what you want. When she’s dying and sacrificing and bleeding.”
“No,” he protested, and Angelus paused. There was something in his tone that caught Angelus’ attention.
“Then why don’t you tell me?”
“Because you’re an impatient prick,” He muttered, hand massaging his throat for the second time that day.
“Now Rupert,” Angelus warned.
“You, better than anyone know what I’d do for her. You,” he continued, “Know what I’ve already sacrificed and what they’d do to me should any of this come to light…” he shook his head, a mocking smile flying across bitter lips. “And had the world not gone to hell.”
Suddenly tired, he sat in the chair he’d used for the past couple of days. “I should have realized,” he murmured, “I should have known. But I never…I didn’t put it together.”
“What?”
“The history of the slayer…it’s not something that’s taught,” again, a bitter chuckle. “There are still those watchers, contrary to popular belief, who care about their duties and their slayers. If word were to circulate…it’d be a catastrophe.”
“Word on the First Slayer? Word on how those shamans raped and defiled her? Word on how the Warrior for the Light was created from a demon?”
Unsurprised, Rupert looked into Angelus’ angry eyes. “Yes.”
“What do you know?”
“It’s vague,” Rupert admitted. “This was a long time ago, before my…more colorful exploits, and not everyone has the photographic memory many vampires do.”
“Then let me see if I can refresh your memory,” Angelus said, smoothly walking to where Rupert sat. Crouching before him, he began. “The shamans decided they needed to fight fire with fire, as it were. So they created the slayer, a girl, strong, malleable, able to fight strong demons with a single stake, and hey, when she died, there was always another to be called.”
“It was worse than that,” Rupert’s voice was quiet, revulsion and horror coloring the words. The sick look in his eyes bespoke of shock and disgust, and Angelus had to wonder just how Rupert had ‘forgotten’ all this. “It didn’t work on the first girl.”
Angelus laughed, impressed at the sheer audacity of the beginnings of the Council. “Ah, that is typical, now isn’t it. So they experimented, did they? Went through girl after girl, one after another, until they found one who could bond with this demon, eh?”
“Yes. They never figured out why it was that way, or what was in the First Slayer that caused this…demon to accept her. Bond with her.” Rupert rubbed his eyes, looking tied and defeated. “They went through hundreds of girls, trying the same thing with them over and over.”
Furious, Angelus hauled Rupert up once more, eyes flashing at the human. “This is what Buffy’s dreaming?” he demanded. “She’s dreaming about bonding with this demon?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of demon?”
“I don’t know. The histories never…they never said.”
Throwing the watcher across the room, Angelus roared. Appearing before him, Angelus dragged him up again, fist pounding into Rupert’s stomach, not hard enough to break anything, but definitely enough to bruise. Again, once more, until Rupert couldn’t breathe, and doubled over, gasping ineffectively for air.
“You will never speak of this,” he snarled. “Never.” Angelus made sure he had Rupert’s full attention, that the watcher knew he was deadly serious. Deadly.
Rupert nodded, lip bloody, short of breath from the beating he’d received. His throat hurt, his head throbbed again, and he wasn’t entirely certain that Angelus hadn’t broken something.
“Do. You. Understand.”
“Yes,” Rupert rasped.
“Are you certain, Rupert? Because if you breathe one word of this, I’ll let it be known you knew all along what your dear Council does to children. Rapes them. Defiles them. Takes them and forces something onto them that rends and tears and molds.”
Laughing, Rupert gasped, “The Great Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, worried over the origin of the slayer. Fascinating.”
“Stubborn to the end, eh, Rupert?” Angelus laughed again, low, taunting. “You’re missing the point with that stubbornness, you know.”
“To torture me until I’m dead?”
“You really aren’t as smart as you think you are, then. You don’t see as much as you want to.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Torture, maiming, you’re becoming repetitive, Angelus.”
Pausing in his new litany of tortures he’d planned for
Rupert, Angelus asked, “Why did you give in this time, Ripper? When I had you
last, you resisted with everything in you.” Bringing the dangling man closer,
Angelus wondered, “Could it be that you still care for your slayer? Even knowing
that she’s sleeping with me, willingly sleeping with me, in my bed, in my
arms, under me, willingly accepting my cock in her tight hot body, you help her?
Love is blind, isn’t Ripper.”
Dropping him into an unceremonious heap on the floor,
Angelus left. “Take him back to the dungeon,” he instructed Donato and Guius.
~~~~~~~~~~
He entered the dungeons with a thump, flying through the air and landing hard on
the floor of his cell. Apparently, the two demons who guarded him the past few
days didn’t like humans. Or maybe it was just him.
“Giles!” Cordelia shouted, jerking off the cot they argued over endlessly, and kneeling before him. “What happened? We thought you were dead.”
“Ow,” he hissed as Cordelia tried to help him up. “Not dead,” he mumbled.
“Then where were you, G-Man.”
“Oh, do shut up, Xander, I’m in no mood for the names today.” Wincing as he lay on the cot, the irony of waking several weeks ago – was that all it was? – in much the same position was not lost on him.
“Giles?” Willow’s timid voice asked. “What happened?”
“Angelus had some questions,” he said, mindful not only of the threat to the others should Giles spill about Buffy and her nightmares, but that he’d do much to protect her. Even now.
“Questions?” Xander snorted. “I’d say he didn’t like the answers.”
“He had some research with which he required my assistance.”
“What,” Xander demanded, obviously not believing any of this, “Does the god of the world need research he couldn’t already know?”
“He wanted to know the history of something and didn’t want to look himself,” Giles admitted, still careful to keep Buffy’s name out of this conversation. Except this group wasn’t good with catching onto secrets.
He was conflicted about what he’d witnessed, between his beloved slayer and her vampire lover, from Angelus as he threatened over something he should’ve danced with joy about…but most of all, with himself. He’d known about the First Slayer, but hadn’t remembered…hadn’t wanted to remember. Now, as he thought back, Giles remembered the sick feeling that plagued him for days when he’d discovered the ancient scrolls on the birth – creation more like it – of that poor girl.
He’d been with several others, Julia, Anita, Perry, Vincent, and George. He showed them what he’d found, what he’d translated, but only Perry had believed him. The rest had criticized his translation, coming up with several other possibilities; and, while the argument had lasted several weeks, nothing concrete had even been established. And, as it was bordering on illegal, looking through restricted tomes in the Council Archives, they’d never confronted anyone else about it.
Less than three months afterwards, he was smoking, doing drugs, drinking, and performing black magicks with Ethan.
Still, the thought that someone had purposely done that to a young girl gave him nightmares, and he’d vowed to always protect his slayer – should he ever have one – from anything like that.
Even at the expense of his own job, honor, pride…life.
Would he now, knowing that Buffy was with Angelus? Yes. Would he now, knowing that she willingly slept with the sadistic monster? Yes. Why, he wondered, but immediately knew the answer. Because he knew why she did what she did. Oh, maybe not at first, but after the pain went away, after he had some perspective on everything, Giles realized what had happened.
Angelus captured them all, people he didn’t care about in the least, for one reason and one reason only. To ensure Buffy’s cooperation.
Well, it worked, didn’t it. Sighing, he laid back on the cot allowing Cordelia to prod his ribs, grimacing with every touch. Buffy cooperated, they lived, and the world as it now was, endured.
Giles shuddered to think what would happen – not only to them, but to the entire planet – if anything happened to Buffy. These dreams, nightmares, were proof that Angelus wasn’t willing to tolerate any harm to her. On a fatherly/watcher level, Giles applauded that. As a human, however, he wondered if it weren’t better that this whole planet burned.
Dismissing that thought as quickly as it came, he tried to sleep. Just a minute, just a little nap. God, he was tired. Achy, tired, and now, with so many new revelations, he had more to think on than he’d like. Certainly more than he could share with his present company.
Buffy obviously felt something for Angelus, but what Giles couldn’t say. Love? She had loved Angel, much to Giles dismay. Lust? Much as he didn’t want to think on that, Giles admitted that it was something to think on. But why was she with him?
“Love is blind, isn’t it, Ripper.”
At the time, Giles thought Angelus referred to his, Giles’, love for Buffy. Now Giles wondered. Was it Buffy’s love for Angelus? Or…or was it Angelus’ love for Buffy? Now there was a thought.
“-and doesn’t come to see us anymore,” Willow was saying when Giles returned his attention to the group.
“Buffy has a lot to do up there,” Giles said, and immediately regretted it. He didn’t want them knowing Buffy suffered from nightmares relating to the slayer’s origin. He didn’t want that getting around. Not only for her sake with the group here, but for what it’d do should something like that leak into the world.
And his sake as well. Angelus would kill him, Giles was more than certain of that.
And while he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect, he could deal with his death. It was what his death would do to Buffy that kept Giles’ lips closed.
Closing his eyes again, blocking out the chatter of the
group trying to decipher what his last statement meant, Giles dozed. He had a
feeling that he was going to need all the sleep he could manage.
~~~~~~~~~~
(‘You were born for me,’ he’d told her, angry eyes boring into hers. Not for
Angel, Angelus. Not for the soul, the beautiful bright soul she’d first loved,
but for the demon, the crazy demon who changed the world for her. Who taught her
the ways of the world, demonic and human, who taught her sexual lessons she’d
never dreamed of, who taught her what it meant to be strong, really, truly
strong in the face of insurmountable conflict. And yet who held her closely as
she cried out in terror over things neither could change.)
“Angelus!” She screamed, shaking in unfamiliar cold arms, soft and supple that held her close. That soothed and comforted but did nothing to ease.
“Shh, Buffy,” a voice said, the lilting accent, scared and foreign. “My dear Bright Star, break free. You have to break free from the bonds that hold you.”
But Buffy barely understood what the strange woman was saying, who she was, let alone whose arms held her. The words, in a language she couldn’t comprehend, didn’t soothe, the embrace, not his, only made her shake harder as she fought the current that caught her. Holding her down, drowning her in pain and abuse. Her eyes wouldn’t open, her heart wouldn’t slow, her blood sped faster, and her very bones ached.
“Angelus!” She screamed again, willing him by her side, begging for him to be there, for him to make it all stop!
“He’ll return shortly, my darling,” the voice said, soft, calming, anything but. Pressed cool lips to hers, begging, needing. “Please, Buffy, please don’t leave me.”
But Buffy couldn’t understand. She was trapped and there was no getting out.
“Drusilla,” Angelus said as he entered the room, his strident steps carrying him quickly to Buffy’s side. “When did they begin?”
With Buffy held close to her breasts, one hand petting her hair, one holding the slayer’s thrashing body close to her, Dru looked with large frightened eyes at her Sire. “Daddy,” she whispered, “They’re killing her.”
“I know,” Angelus nodded, gently taking his lover into his own arms, wrapping himself protectively around Buffy. “How long?”
“Too long, they’ve been doing this for too long. It hurts her, it hurts all of them.” Dru shuddered, curling onto her side next to Angelus, head resting on his strong thigh, one hand clutching Buffy’s. “Make them stop?”
“I will,” he promised, cupping Buffy’s face with both hands. “Baby,” he whispered, kissing her forehead, “Baby, you have to wake up.”
“Angelus, please, make it stop!”
“Not it,” Drusilla corrected, a single tear running down her pale face. “Them. They do this, they always did this. They used her, they hurt her. Bad men.” She hissed at whatever scene she could see, a low warning growl echoing in the room.
“Dru,” Angelus looked at his childe. “I need your help. I have to enter Buffy’s dream. I have to know what she’s up against. I have to…”
“You have to save her, daddy,” Drusilla nodded, sitting up and smiling. “She doesn’t know it, but that’s what she’s waiting for. It’s why they take her, night after night. She’s caught, hunted down, and trapped; racing through the desert because there’s no one there to help her. So strong, so sure, so alone. One girl in all the world. Alone she shall fight.”
Giving her an impatient look, Angelus snapped, “Dru.” When she looked at him again, he said, “Help me find her.”
“You already know where she is, daddy,” Dru smiled, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “My Bright Star is waiting for you.” Dru caught Buffy’s flailing hands, giving them to Angelus and kissing Buffy’s bare shoulder.
“All you have to do is find her.”
Not believing it could be that simple, Angelus nonetheless laid Buffy out on the bed, stretching next to her. Pulling her close, he kissed her softly on the lips, up along her cheek to capture the tears so full of emotion. Pain, rage, power, oh so much power. Strength and vulnerability. Alone…she thought she was alone.
“Buffy,” he said, but wasn’t sure the words were spoken aloud. “Baby, I need you. Don’t leave me.”
With a sudden movement he wasn’t sure happened or not, with a weird flash of white-gold light, a dizzying sensation that catapulted him into someplace else, Angelus knew where he was. Just as Buffy knew when dreaming, he knew now.
Because he was inside her dreams.
She was there, waiting for him. He knew it just as surely as she did. And yet he still couldn’t find her. The firelights beckoned him, drawing him ever closer, but he couldn’t reach her. The scent of death, of…birth? And something else assaulted him, nearly knocking him over with the powerful scent.
Disoriented for a moment, he tried to figure what was up, what was down, where he was. Shaking it off, forcing whatever was trying to keep him from her away, Angelus moved forward. Easily though the thickness, the damp fog that surrounded him, the clinging moisture…it felt as if he was swimming through the tunnel, though Angelus had never swam in his life.
(Once he had, once the soul had, when Spike’s men had dumped her into the Sunnydale Harbor. The soul had rescued her, pulling her from the filth and muck of the still waters. The soul had swum to the docks, hauling her out, kissing her with love, exultant she was alive.)
Dispelling the memory of a time when it wasn’t him, but the soul, Angelus surged forward.
“Buffy!”
He shouted for her, heard her name bounce off walls and ceiling, trapped in the thick fog, moving past it, slowly moving past it. Waiting for her answer. There was none. Pushing forward, desperate to find her, to get her out of whatever ensnared her, Angelus kept going. Deeper into the tunnel system…deeper into Buffy’s mind.
It was endless, and yet the light never wavered. It never dimmed, always calling for him. Always calling to him. Wanting him, beckoning him. To her.
He reached the cave entrance, there, just there. He could see in, see the fires that lighted the chamber, see his beloved against the wall; hear the shamans chanting, a never-ending flow of words and phrases he didn’t understand. But he couldn’t move past the opening. He pushed with brute strength, but the invisible shield didn’t budge. He tried to break through mentally, maybe since he was inside Buffy’s mind that’s what was needed.
But nothing worked. Hours passed, days, years, but Angelus couldn’t push past, couldn’t break into the cave, couldn’t save Buffy from whatever haunted her night after night. Using everything within him, everything Acathla left him, everything he was before that, Angelus tried.
It was no use.
He couldn’t enter the cavern.
Worse, he couldn’t get to Buffy.
“Buffy!” he shouted again, and this time she looked up. Smiled at him. Reached out and beckoned him forward.
“Angelus,” she said softly.
(‘I knew you’d be here, lover,’ she said, walking through the door, not a hair out of place. ‘Naturally,’ he responded with a satisfied smirk, clasping hands with her and kissing her fiercely. She was safe. She was alive. She was his.)
Opening his eyes, Angelus looked down at the woman in his arms, shivering in cold, staring up at him with large silver eyes. Scared. Trembling. But here.
“What happened?” she asked, reaching a shaking hand up to caress his face.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I tried to find you, it felt like forever.” Too long had passed, several lifetimes at least, and he hadn’t been able to break through and get to her. “But I couldn’t get through the cave entrance.”
“But you brought me out of it,” she admitted, eyes already closing in exhaustion. “How’d you know?”
“Those shamans are the origin of the Council,” he said slowly, not entirely sure how much to reveal just yet. He wanted her to know, know what they did to that First Slayer, know what was inside her, but he didn’t want to lose her in the process. He wanted to keep her by his side, while at the same time alienating her from those below.
It was a thin and tricky line to navigate.
“What? How do you know?” Buffy demanded, awake now. Sitting up in their bed, shaking in anger at his revelation, her eyes blazing heat and power, she didn’t even notice she was naked. That the dark sheet pooled around her waist, leaving her delectable breasts, all that soft, smooth skin for his gaze. His touch. His mouth.
“A lot of Acathla’s memories are now mine,” he admitted, tearing his eyes – and his thoughts – from her body. There was always plenty of time for that. He needed to tell her this first. This part of the truth. “They were creating the First Slayer.”
Scared, incredulous, tears in her eyes, she asked, “How?”
How do you know this? How could they create her? How could they do such a thing? Why? Why do it, why create something…and how. How, how, how.
Drawing her back down, Angelus tucked her into his side. She was still shaking – fear and anger – but allowed him to dictate this, at least. Not a victory for him, no, and Angelus knew that. But…allowing him to offer this, it was something.
“Sleep,” he instructed, kissing her forehead. “We’ll
discuss this more. Later.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Let me go!” She screamed, throwing him off her, unaware that she’d done so.
Dawn cowered in the corner, shaking with fear over Faith’s nightly terrors. They’d been getting worse, so much so that she couldn’t keep them a secret any longer. Julie tried consoling her, Tara tried a sleeping spell – but that only kept Faith asleep as she struggled, begged, pleaded, to wake up. Doyle was their last resort, and he couldn’t keep a slayer restrained if his life depended on it.
On their ship to London, it did.
“No!” she screamed again. And then, in a language none of them understood, the shouting began. Her tone suggested she didn’t want whatever was happening to happen, but it did.
It always did.
Night after night, dream after dream, whatever happened to Faith, it happened whenever she tried to close her eyes. Exhausted as she was, they got progressively worse. Last night, she’d sent Dawn flying across their small room, crashing into the wall. When she woke, Faith had no memory of it.
Suddenly she woke. Gasping for air, desperate to break free of whatever or whoever held her, she clutched the blanket they’d covered her with. Eyes wild, she looked blindly around the room, still muttering in her strange new language. Dawn thought she said ‘Please don’t make me,’ but that could have been something else.
“Faith!” Doyle shouted, pulling her close, holding her tightly to him in relief. “What happened, lass?”
It was long minutes later when Faith finally answered. Sweaty, scared, looking as if she wanted to leap out of her own skin. But at least the answer was in English. “It wanted me to chose. Wanted me to change. Chose and change. They didn’t want to let me, wouldn’t let me go.”
“Who, Faith?” This was from Julia who crouched before her slayer, a glass of nearly clean water in her hands.
“Don’t know,” Faith admitted, taking the glass and draining it. “Them. Three of them. They wanted me…” her eyes closed, head falling to Doyle’s shoulder as she dozed.
“She’s exhausted,” Tara murmured, running a hand through Faith’s long dark hair. She caught the glass before the slayer’s limp hand dropped it, handing it back to the watcher. “These dreams, they drain her. I think…I think they want something from her.”
“Like what?” Doyle demanded as he gently lay Faith on the single cot they had. Even though her dreams were interrupted, even though she wasn’t getting any sleep no matter how she tried, they all agreed to give her the bed. Not because she was the slayer, but because she was a scared, tired girl with nightmares to add to the nightmare world they’d all found themselves in.
“I don’t know,” Tara admitted in a quiet voice. Turning,
she beckoned Dawn over to her, gripping her sister to her side. “But she keeps
saying they want her. And now, they want her to chose. Chose
what?”
“She doesn’t want to,” Dawn said, laying her head on Tara’s lap. “She doesn’t want the choice.”
“How do you know that, Dawnie?” Tara asked, running a hand through Dawn’s soft hair.
“She said so.”
“When?”
“When she was screaming.”
“You can understand her?” Julia demanded, taking a step closer to the youngest of their motley group. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Because she doesn’t want you to know,” Dawn reasoned, “Or you would’ve been able to understand her, too.”
“Dawn,” Tara said, glaring at Julia for scaring her baby sister. “What else does Faith say?”
“I don’t know. I just know that sometimes, I can understand her. I thought you could, too.” Large, suddenly frightened eyes looked up at her sister. “She doesn’t want to be wherever she is.”
“No, Dawn,” Tara agreed, hugging the girl close. “I don’t think she does.”
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