Part 2

Angelus looked down on the lowly masses as they moved below him while he surveyed his most recent acquisition, The Bronze. He had bought it on a caprice when the subsequent owner had died out of the blue from severe - and perplexing - blood loss and so far it did not seem to be such a flawed investment. As a matter of fact more or less every person under the age of twenty-five - who lived in the immediate vicinity - used the club as a meeting place, a place to chill out and relax, including the slayer and her whiny little friends.

Quaking with unadulterated aversion as he pictured those teenaged losers who dared to try to grasp a place in the slayer's light. He was beyond doubt at a shortfall for words as to why such a accomplished fighter, the strongest and - he had to unenthusiastically divulge - the most desirable slayer on record associated with them. It was unconvinced that she could assert that they were an aid to her in her holy quest - except for maybe the redhead, there was something about her that screamed untapped power - because from what he had heard of the group in action, they hid while she did all of the work.

Casting an additional speedy perusal around the dance floor area of the club, Angelus stilled as two exceedingly familiar forms came into view, Spike and Drusilla. He had yet had to deal with them since they had remained out of his sight since he had announced his claim - uncontested by any - to the throne of the Hellmouth. Regrettably he had known that their seclusion had been a transitory thing and now he would have to take time out of his hectic schedule in order to re-educate his wilful childe and grand-childe in the ways of loyalty and obedience. Did they in reality believe that he would forget about what had occurred in Prague just a little over a century ago?

However before the occasion arose for him to brazen out his wayward family he was sidetracked by a tingling feeling shooting straight down his spine and the telltale swish of blond hair that continually accompanied the slayer's presence. Surely enough she - and her puerile friends - were entering the club and he sharpened his gaze upon her athletic figure and growled in both satisfaction and discontentment at the outfit that she had chosen to wear that night. Her tank top was made of a skin-tight material, blood red in colour, that somehow managed to shimmer even in the moody lighting of the club, ending just above her navel and it was low-cut enough for him to see the swell of her enticing breasts. Her skirt did not contain much more material than her top and he more or less swallowed his own tongue as she took her seat and it rode up another inch, exposing more of her toned, tanned thigh to his and every other horny male's gaze.

Silently he cursed himself and his overactive hormones over his perverted fascination and attraction to his mortal adversary. Why couldn't this slayer have looked like most of her predecessors, all muscled and butch? It seemed perpetually unmerited that those idiots in the Watcher's Council should gain such a weapon to fight on the side of all things good and pure. There was even a rumour amongst the demon community that she used her feminine charms to aid in her slaying and as he watched her transfixed, he knew that he could not wait another night to find out if the rumour was true. Making eye contact with the human minion he had tending bar, he gave him the signal to deliver a free drink to the slayer; before he walked away to prepare himself for the big meeting.

Buffy was undeniably not her accustomed vivacious self as she patrolled all twelve of Sunnydale's cemeteries - single-handedly - as per usual. She had tried so relentlessly to break with her typical practice, to pretend to be ordinary and hang out at The Bronze like the rest of Sunnydale's teenaged population, but a amalgamation of things occurring had caused her to head out on patrol only a few minutes after arriving. Her friends and their respective others coupled nature combined with a mysterious drink from the club's new owner and the presence of so many of the undead had given her the need to kill things.

As she headed into the final cemetery on her patrol itinerary, Rest Haven, a peculiar feeling began to boil within the pit of her stomach. It was a feeling that she had felt only once  or twice before, firstly was the one time she had seen that sinfully desirable guy at The Bronze just about a month earlier and then again at The Bronze that night just before she had walked out. She glanced around the open area of the cemetery and saw naught around that could possibly be the cause, so she merely shrugged it off as a belated corollary to the pop quiz the new chemistry teacher had given out that afternoon.

Sitting herself down on the nearest headstone, she heaved a sigh at the ennui of slaying during the past few weeks. It seemed as though all of Sunnydale's spine-chilling things were staying out of sight and even though Giles - and that Wesley person - were confident it was due to the mayor and his plans, she was not so sure. However with no proof and disproportionate amounts of energy that she could not work off on the undead, Buffy was having to put in extra hours of training with the British twins. Lately her usual one hour training sessions had been running four or more hours and even with kicking the watcher's collective butts, she was still keyed up with something - or over something yet to come.

As she sat there in the darkness the feeling within her grew ever more stronger and Buffy looked around just the once more, but this time she saw someone standing off in the vastness; obscured by the darkness and shadows. The individual began to move toward her position and she stood up waiting to engage the character - and probable demon - who was skulking around a graveyard in the dead of night. When the figure had closed to within a few feet of her, Buffy received a surprise. Actually it was more of a bolt from the blue than a surprise, the shady figure was in fact her mystery man from The Bronze.

"Hello?" she called out intending to give him a austere caveat about prowling around Sunnydale unaided at night, someone as scandalously magnificent as him should not be left out to be demon fodder.

The unidentified man disregarded her greeting, simply moving towards her as though she had not even uttered a syllable until he was standing right in front of her. Raking his passionate chocolate brown eyes up and down the length of her diminutive yet nimble frame, he made her feel more ill at ease than her doctor did during her yearly physical examination.

"Hello yourself," he at long last spoke in a timbre that was meant to induce the most hot blooded of fantasies.

Buffy was for a short time bewildered into silence, but she shook off the spell of seduction he had cast upon her. "You shouldn't be out here *alone* at night. It isn't safe."

"And why would that be?" he asked her as he displayed a rakish smirk.

"There's - uh - gangs," she managed to babble out like some bubble-headed bimbo.

The smirk continued as if he found her entertaining - whether it was her bubble-headedness or her actions she wasn't certain, "If it's that unsafe out here - what are you doing out in the middle of a cemetery alone?"

"Well - " Buffy was stumped. What could she possibly say to his question and not seem like a total moron? "I guess you got me there. I should definitely be at home right now."

He reached out and grasped a hold of her diminutive hand, he felt icy to the touch and someplace in the back of her psyche there was a glimmer of recognition - familiarity - but she could not seize hold of the ephemeral brain wave. Definitely feeling distressed with the sensations that this stranger was evoking within her mind and body, Buffy pulled away from his hand breaking the contact and putting a little bit of much needed expanse between them.

"Scared?"

Buffy opened her mouth to refute the spoken indictment, but as an alternative she found herself nodding more or less indiscernibly. "Maybe just a little bit."

"Advantageous," the handsome stranger acknowledged with his now customary smirk. "Trepidation is a acceptable corollary - some people might even say it was nourishing."

His chocolate brown eyes met with her hazel ones and she felt a pull - a magnetism drawing her in - something within her wanted to simply drown in their heated depths. Shaking him away from her thoughts and breaking the eye contact, she spoke. "What do you want from me?"

He placed his fingers in a pistol-grip upon her stubborn chin, gently forcing her to make eye contact with him once again. "Until now I thought I knew, but - "

"But what?"

The smirk vanished only to be interchanged with an even more devastating half smile which gave a twinkle to his gorgeous eyes. "I guess I may need to alter my plans after all."

Buffy pulled her chin away from his hand and stepped back, putting more distance between them and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. "You are one strange guy."

"You beyond doubt have no concept," he replied, his half smile still plastered athwart his features. Reaching forward he grasped her hand once again and pulled it towards his lips, laying a kiss gently upon it. "Until we meet again."

Buffy watched without a sound - vulnerably - as he sauntered away, her stomach clenched with a edginess that she had not even recognized that she was feeling. Even as she relaxed her body, her mind continued to whirl in an endeavour to handle the out of the ordinary encounter. Despite however many times she thought about it on the way back home, she could come to know conclusions. In the end as she was climbing into her bed, unreservedly fatigued for the first time in weeks, an disconcerting perspicacity settled over her, one that told her that this time she might have just met her match.

Complaining discontentedly, Buffy traipsed her way into the library of Sunnydale High for an early morning training session before the classes started for the day. As she pushed open the double doors the first thing she saw were piles and piles of demonology books spread out across the table, desk and floor and right in the middle of all the pandemonium sat Giles and his antagonist, Wesley.

"Golly," Buffy said her voice laced with severe derision. "You two are positively party animals, aren't you?"

"For your information Miss. Summers, we were up all night searching for any clue about whatever The Mayor is up to," Wesley answered back in his typical clipped British manner. "A fruitless search so far, I might add."

Giles coughed loudly, "I would not say that - unerringly. We have been able to rule a few things out."

"Such as?" Buffy requested as her probing stare darted between the two men.

"Uh - I doubt that he will attempt to raise Acathla," Giles replied as he took off his glasses and started to polish them with a cloth he removed from the pocket of his tweed jacket. "Or reanimate The Master."

"And I genuinely have reservations that he will allow himself to be turned," Wesley joined in as he tossed a volume about the Order of Aurelius on the table, where it fell open to a page on The Scourge of Europe complete with sketch.

"Remarkable," Buffy responded once again with sarcasm,  just before she caught sight of the visual rendering. Moving closer to the varnished oak table on which the book lay, she stared at the sketch recognition extolled across her appealing adolescent features.

"Buffy?" Giles questioned, laying a paternal hand upon her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Buffy shook her blond pony-tailed head, as if she was endeavouring to shake out the perplexity that had all of a sudden beleaguered her. "I've seen him," she at long last rejoined pointing at the sketch. "He was at The Bronze a few weeks ago and then last night I bumped into him at the last stop on my patrol route. You know I really didn't get the vamp-vibe off of him."

"That would be because that was not him you provoked," Wesley butted into the tête-à-tête. "Angelus is The Scourge of Europe and not of small town USA."

"And I'm telling you that it was him," Buffy responded as her equanimity began to wear out. "He was standing right in front of me. Hell, we even had a conversation - it was a bizarre one - but  it happened."

A perplexing look crossed Giles' expression, but he repressed it virtually as swiftly as it had come on. "Buffy, I am sure that Wesley is correct -"

"You are?" Buffy and Wesley chorused in more or less comical synchronization.

"Of course. I am moderately definite that if that gentleman you stumbled upon last night had been Angelus, you would not be standing here telling us about it. He is not known as The Slayer Killer for nothing."

A does of glacial apprehension ran down the complete length of Buffy's spine as it was mentioned, "Slayer Killer?"

"That is something that does not concern you. I suggest that you get on with your training session with Mr. Giles while I give my report to the Council."

Buffy gawped at the most modern - and unsolicited - edition to her slayage team like he was a mental patient who had just escaped from a adjacent asylum. "Hello, I am *the slayer*. How exactly does the whole Slayer Killer thing not concern me?" However she did not obtain an riposte because Wesley had already walked away from her and secured himself within the confines of Giles' office. Turning to her watcher she asked, "Giles?"

"We'll confer about it when and if it becomes germane, Buffy. For now I think that we should get started on our session. How about we break out the crossbow?"

"Whatever," she retorted heaving a sigh with dissatisfaction, Giles only brought out the crossbow when he wanted to distract her. Wordlessly she declared that she was going to get the answers that she was in the hunt for, even if she had to get close to the source to get them.

"Quentin, did you not pay attention to me?" Wesley said as stridently as he dared when he received nothing but stillness from the other end of his call. His voice was barely above the level of a murmur in fear that the slayer would overhear what he was saying, after all it was only a wall that separated them and she was holding a weapon. "That Buffy swears that she has seen Angelus."

A soft groan was heard, "We were fearful of this. He vanished from our surveillance very nearly six months ago and we had been incapable of tracking his location. Sorry to say we did not foresee his travelling to the Hellmouth."

"What shall I do?"

"Naught. We will send the supplementary slayer and her watcher to your locality - for support purposes. We cannot expect Miss. Summers to take on both The Mayor of Sunnydale and Angelus at the same time, despite her talents."

"Fine. When should I anticipate the others appearance?"

Quentin Travers countered instantaneously, leaving no doubt that he had been looking forward to this possible occurrence. "Within the next few days - maybe a week at utmost. I shall leave it to you to enlighten the slayer and her watcher of this. Until your next report."

"Adieu Quentin," Wesley managed to whisper before he was cut off.

As he lay the phone down in it's cradle, he looked out of the undersized glass windowpane that was contained within the solid wood door at where Buffy was shooting crossbow bolts at a target. Sighing he got up from his seat and left the virtual protection of the office to enlighten them of the impending coming of the other slayer and her watcher.