Part 3

Over the next few days Buffy grew exceedingly perturbed with her lack of success at finding out anything about the vampire Angelus - The Scourge of Europe and reputed Slayer Killer. All of the books, academic journals and articles about him and his vampiric genesis had without explanation vanished from within the library walls. What pissed her off for the most part was that she was undecided if it had been Giles, trying to safeguard her from whatever horrors that they may contain or Wesley, to a great extent trying to emphasize his council given authority; whom had been answerable for the disappearance. Either way she was becoming more and more desperate to know about him and what he could possibly be up to in good old Sunnydale - not that she couldn't guess.

She confided her dissatisfaction over the entire circumstances to Willow, which as you would expect sent her best friend into research mode on the internet. Willow's frenzied search was not in vain as she had discovered an great quantity of information about his European activities since he had been turned - killings, other odious crimes and unsurprisingly his childer - but what Buffy was interested in, the Slayer Killings, there was not even the most brief of indications.

Deciding against going to the probable source - at least for the moment - Buffy managed to convince Willow that there was only one way for them to gather the much needed information. They needed to break into the library and Giles' office to steal it. Even though Willow was to say the least tentative about the moral consequence of such an exploit, she agreed and also dragged Oz into their plan. So the trio waited with irritation for their opportunity and it came on a night where Wesley had plans and Giles was preoccupied by a date with Jenny Calendar.

Leaving Oz as their lookout in the school parking lot, Buffy and Willow snuck into the inner recesses of the library - using the keys that Giles had given Buffy for early morning training purposes - and entered Giles' office to look around. Searching every single part of the extraordinarily clean office, the duo in the long run found one volume of the watcher diaries with a few entries - leading up to the slayer's eventual termination - about Angelus. Disenchanted about the derisory findings, Buffy had Willow photocopy the pages and then they left the building.

After Willow and Oz dropped her off at her house, Buffy went up to her room and looked over the watcher's observations on her antagonist. They were ambiguous and not very constructive, but they gave her an indication about what the slayer's - Marianna Davis - last few days/nights were like. Mind games, torture and then mercifully the peaceful and pain-free slumber of death. Buffy was beyond doubt not comforted by the epigrammatic and callous notations made by the watcher, but all the same she added them to her growing pile of information on Angelus before she - as ill at ease as she was - headed out into the darkness for her nightly patrol.

Angelus was feeling agitated and bored to tears, the town's demonic population had barely put up any resistance to his take over and it was much too soon to begin his plans for the agile slayer. He supposed that he could seek out Spike and Drusilla, but candidly they were in simple terms not worth the struggle right now - in particular Spike.

With nothing better to do, he decided to get a bite to eat and maybe - with a small amount good luck - he would be able to clandestinely watch the slayer in combat, as he had on numerous instances since meeting with her. He was forced - if only in his own mind - to admit that he had a rancorous esteem for her fighting capabilities which were undeniably not the customary council moves that were taught to each of the prior slayers.

Once he was out in the night hunting it only took him a few minutes to find a most enthusiastic and appetizing victim and only a few moments more for him to lure her away from the crowd and into a shadowy, deserted alley where he proceeded to thrall, fuck and kill the injudicious brunette. However it did not gratify him as it once would have, now he longed for somewhat more. What he sought after - considered necessary - was a meal that put up a scuffle before they died, as an alternative to been willingly escorted to the slaughter.

If he was to be candid with his inner-self, Angelus was going to have to acknowledge that what he in actuality sought - no needed - was the slayer. Not for his dinner, even though he was convinced that sooner rather than later she would die by his hand, he just wanted her. It was an atrocity; he was Angelus the Scourge of Europe and he was expected to kill his mortal adversary and not want to mate with the little bitch. But for some immeasurable raison d'être he was drawn to this one and for much more than her capability as a slayer. She had something that none of the previous slayer's had possessed - a spunk, an attitude that set her apart from all who had come before her and all those yet to be called - and he was finding that the combination was irresistible.

Incensed with the direction of his thoughts, Angelus grabbed the first person that came along and snapped their flimsy neck before tearing into the victim's gorge with a lesser amount of finesse than a newly risen fledgling. Leaving the two bodies exposed in the alley, he meandered out into the darkness of night and ran immediately into the little redheaded companion of the slayer. Going against his natural feeling he did not kill her where she stood and as he walked away he persuaded himself that he had done so only because he had yet to begin to play the game with his slayer and death just was not as much fun until he did so.

He all of a sudden found himself passing by the lair where Dru and Spike were purportedly hiding out in and an evil simper crossed his handsome expression. Surreptitiously he entered the old derelict building and watched his supercilious and intractable childer intermingle. The two of them looked despondent over something - or someone - and from the whispers around the demonic community they deserved to do so, failing time after time against the slayer.

Stepping out into the candlelight that lit the room and into Drusilla's line of sight, but was caught off guard by her corollary to his presence. Instead of her customary cry of daddy and running into his arms, this time she merely stood there staring at him looking all insubstantial with astonishment. Spike however was not so closed mouthed however and voiced his opinion loud and clear.

"Fucking hell if it isn't Peaches," Spike said sardonically as he pulled Drusilla towards him and away from her sire. "I'd heard that you had reared your ugly head around here."

"I gather that is why you and Dru have been avoiding me," Angelus answered with a smirk.

Spike replied with an evils smile of his own, "We haven't been avoiding you, you immense poof. It's just you've been so occupied with sniffing around the slayer to notice little old us." When Angelus growled he continued, "Since you have all of a sudden decided to honour us with your presence, I figure she kicked you ass."

Angelus continued to growl as his chocolate brown eyes began to glow amber and his face contorted into it's vampiric form. "The only ass around here that is going to be kicked is your own if you are not quiet. You have forgotten your place boy."

"Big fucking deal."

With calculated moves, Angelus stalked towards Spike and Drusilla with an unnerving gleam in his amber glowing eyes. "Don't worry boy, I am about to teach you - both of you - what the fucking deal is."

When Buffy and Willow stepped into the library the next morning before classes began for the day they were flabbergasted to find that it was empty except for the presence of Xander and Cordelia at the copious oak table. Looking around as she dumped her stuff on the table, Buffy did not see hide nor hair of her watcher or his superfluous subordinate.

"Where's Giles?" she asked after succinctly greeting her friend and his so-called girlfriend. "It's not like him not to be here."

"Don't know," Xander answered with his arm slung ever so nonchalantly around Cordelia's shoulders. "The G-man wasn't here when we arrived either."

Cordelia sighed as she examined her flawlessly manicured nails. "Who cares? I'm missing cheerleading practice right now."

"So why don't you leave then," Willow muttered under her breath so softly that even Buffy barely heard it.

The twin doors to the library all of a sudden without any warning swung open and the two missing Brits entered the room carrying weighty-looking armfuls of old musty books. The duo placed their bounty onto the checkout counter before Giles turned to address the teenagers seated at the table.

"Good morning," he acknowledged them with a smile. "In case any of you were curious, these are some supplementary sources of information on ascensions."

"Oh joy. Even more research," Buffy piped up acerbically.

"Not for you. Your training regime must be increased, along with your nightly patrol time."

Buffy scrunched up her face in repugnance, "But -"

"No buts," Giles cut her off. "The Mayor's ascension - into God knows what - could occur at any given moment. We must be prepared."

"It's kind of hard to be prepared when you have absolutely no idea what is coming," Buffy muttered cheesed off with her augmented schedule.

Giles sighed wounded by her attitude, "I - we are trying."

Buffy realized her blunder and conceded, "I know."

Willow out of the blue commenced jumping up and down as a inspiration suggested itself to her. "Oh, what about Angelus?" she squealed and at Buffy's austere glare she counteracted it. "I mean the fake Angelus guy."

"Yes," Wesley at long last spoke. "What about that particular vampire? Have you seen him since?"

Perplexed by Wesley's enthusiasm on the subject matter, Buffy spoke, "No -"

"Terrific."

"But I have felt him," Buffy continued on undisturbed by Wesley's disturbance.

"Felt him?" Giles questioned staring at his slayer. "Like you feel the others?"

Buffy took a seat next to Xander and glanced unswervingly at Giles, "No, it's different. When a typical everyday vampire is around it's a warning I feel, but when he's around it's - I'm not sure how to describe what I feel. I guess it's more or less like a tingling along my spine, over my skin - an awareness."

The school bell shrieked an indicator that the first class of the day was due to begin and with some relief Giles sent the teenagers away. The break from them would give him time to gather his thoughts over what his charge had just revealed to him. Was he in fact wrong? Was it actually Angelus who was waltzing around Sunnydale and creating an awareness within the easily influenced teenaged slayer? He certainly hoped not.

Giles' own father had been the watcher in charge of the last slayer to have the misfortune to run into Angelus. Giles himself had not been more than fourteen at the time, but he could still remember Annabelle. Her pale skin, luminescent red hair and sapphire coloured eyes, she had been the object of many of his personal teenaged fantasies. Regrettably her delicate beauty was not what his most vivid recollection associated with the girl, it was his father's melancholy at her death and his consequential immobilization of emotions - he had then and still had now shut everything and everyone out of his life and heart.

Pushing the terrible thoughts from his muddled mind, he gathered up the large pile of books that he had just put down and struggled towards his private office. Not knowing what else to do with himself, Wesley quickly followed suit aware that once he did so they could do nothing but research and hope for the best.