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Day 1
Cross over with Jeepers Creepers. As always the only thing that belongs to me is the plot. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters belong to the genius that is Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, etc. The Creeper is the brain child of Brad Parker and others.
Some of the dialogue between Parker and Buffy and Buffy and Spike is taken from the BtVS episode ‘Harsh Light of Day’ and was transcribed by Joan the English Chick at the site www.buffy-vs-angel.com. Thanx so much Joan, you’re a life saver (hugs and puppies forever ; )
~Ghost Writer
Day 1
“So where’d you guys say you found this again?” Riley Finn asked the small group of soldiers.
“It was in one of the tunnels,” Forrest said, referring to the honeycomb of natural caverns the Initiative base resided in. “What do you make of it Finn?”
“I’m more of a retrieval guy,” the soldier admitted and resumed studying the thing Forrest’s team had brought in.
It had what he assumed to be wings wrapped around its body, hiding it from sight with several flaps of skin covering the head in a similar manner. To him it looked like a giant cocoon, but Riley somehow doubted that a butterfly would hatch out of it. He couldn’t wait to hear what Professor Walsh though of it.
The 23 days were about to begin and the creature slowly came awake, taking stock of organs and its surroundings; inhaling the many scents as its lungs began to function once more. Its sluggish heartbeat slowly increased, pumping blood through its body, feeding the large wings that had cocooned it through its long hibernation. The caul of flesh covering its face rippled and drew back as its wings fell to its sides, tucking against its back as it sat up, effortlessly breaking the flimsy restraints that tied it to the table. It looked around the room with milky eyes. It was not in its resting place and this room was filled with the stench of demons and the sweet scent of its prey. Its lips pulled back in a savage grin, revealing sharp, jagged teeth and its nostrils flared as it scented the air.
Let the hunt begin.
Riley never knew what hit him. One minute he was delivering a report and the next there was an excruciating pain in his back, the sensation of being thrown, then the horrible gulping sounds from somewhere behind him. The soldier struggled to draw a breath as a hot fluid he dimly recognized as blood pooled beneath him.
Then the screams began…
Then nothing at all…
Day 5
Professor Margaret Walsh sat in her office, writing her report. Several nights ago something had happened inside the Initiative…and it was her job to find out what. From what she and others had been able to glean from the handful of survivors she knew that Forrest and several others had discovered something in one of the caves and brought it back for analysis…and the something had woken up. Descriptions were sketchy at best; some said that it looked like a giant cocoon, others that it resembled the Mothman of West Virginia among other places. She’d ask Forrest himself but for the fact that he was missing as was Finn and almost a hundred others.
The floors and walls of the complex were coated in blood with not a body to be found. She and several commanding officers had discovered the twenty-three survivors huddled in one of the holding cells, some terrified to the point of catatonia. What could so petrify so many seasoned soldiers who dealt with hostiles and sub-terrestrials on a nightly basis? Maggie had no idea.
Locking the report in a hidden safe she locked her office and headed home, her mind a whirl of thoughts. She was so preoccupied that she never heard the rustle of wings in the darkness or the steady approach of booted footsteps on the sidewalk behind her until she was grabbed from behind and a clawed hand tore her throat out.
Day 21
Every 23rd fall,
For 23 days,
It gets to eat…
That phrase played over and over in Buffy’s mind as she wandered through the quad. The same phrase that had echoed through her dreams for twenty consecutive nights. The dreams were always the same; those words repeated over and over by a disembodied voice as a bat-winged figure was silhouetted by the moon, and then there was blood, and screams… Giles was researching his heart out but so far hadn’t found anything; add to that Spike being a pain in their collective asses, and the list of missing persons was getting longer.
One of the first to go missing had been a T.A. from her Psych class, she thought his name was Riley, and then Professor Walsh has disappeared…too bad Parker couldn’t do the same. Buffy mentally berated herself for being a bad Slayer but couldn’t stop a small smirk; it wasn’t like the S.O.B. didn’t have it coming. And who did he think he was not calling her?
Just then she caught sight of Parker on a bench, talking to a young blonde Barbie wanna-be.
“You know, it hit me hard,” he was saying. “My dad. Since then I just don’t put stuff off anymore. It’s all about living for the now.”
Buffy’s jaw dropped. He fed me a line? Squaring her shoulders she walked up to them.
“Parker?”
He looked up at her and smiled.
“Buffy,” he greeted, all smiles then turned to his companion. “Buffy Summers, this is Katie Loomis.”
Katie waved at the Slayer who gave her a polite smile before turning back to Parker.
“Parker, what’s going on?”
Picking up a bag from the ground Parker handed it to Katie.
“Hey, Katie, you’re gonna be late for class. I’ll catch up later okay?”
The girl smiled once more at Buffy before leaving.
“Friend of yours?” the Slayer asked.
“Oh yeah, she’s great,” the boy gushed. “You’d really like her. So what’s up?”
“Well, you didn’t call,” Buffy said, trying not to sound meek. “I’d understand if you were busy or sick or something…”
“It’s only been a few days,” Parker defended. “Did you need to talk to me about something?”
Steeling herself Buffy asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Sure it is,” he replied nonchalantly.
“It is?” she sounded skeptical.
“Absolutely.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She nibbled her lower lip as he got ready to leave then suddenly blurted, “What was it to you? Was it just fun or…”
He turned to her and smiled.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you. You know, there aren’t that many girls who view sex like I do. They’re usually all like “oh we had sex now we must be soul mates’ or something. If you wanna get together later sometime?” he continued, not noticing her dark expression.
“Actually I think I’m gonna be busy.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” he said happily. “Just give me a call sometime.”
He winked at her and left. Buffy watched him go, her hands clenched into fists and her nails digging bloody crescents into her palms then whirled as clapping sounded behind her, only mildly surprised to find Spike standing behind the vacated bench.
“Bravo, luv. Nice to see you’ve finally grown a pair.”
“Found the ring?” she asked blandly.
The vampire held his hand up and wiggled the gem at her.
“Official sponsor of my killing you.”
The Slayer didn’t look impressed.
“Why don’t you go bone Harmony and come back later. I’m not in the mood to kick your ass right now.”
She didn’t even try to go for a stake, leaving Spike mildly offended, and actually started to walk off. Thinking fast he called out, “So you let Parker take a poke eh? Didn’t seem like you two knew each other that well, but tell me, what did it take to pry apart the Slayer’s dimpled knees?”
“You’re a pig, Spike,” the departing Slayer called over her shoulder and the bleached vampire hurried to catch up to his (slowly strolling) quarry.
“And then he’s like ‘what are you doin?’ all innocent like and I’m like ‘making a choice’ and I can’t believe I fell for that dead dad crap!” Buffy slurred and downed her latest shot of tequila.
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Guys do that sometimes. Play the coy an’ let the girl “start” it. Power trip makes ‘em hotter.”
“Guys‘re stupid,” she muttered to the table top.
Spike snorted.
“Like you women‘re any differen’? Dru strings me along after that bloody Chaos demon then goes running off with a soddin’ Fungus demon!”
He looked incredulous.
“I mean, have you ever seen one ‘o those things? Looks like a giant rottin’ mushroom, ‘an don’t even get me started on the smell,” he trailed off and downed another shot, then found the bottle empty when he tried to refill his glass. “Oi! Willie! We need another bottle over ‘ere!”
Gathering his minimal courage Willie the Snitch walked up to the table that Spike and the Slayer had claimed several hours earlier. His gaze flicked nervously between the two drunk and commiserating enemies and took a steadying breath.
“Look, Spike…and, uh, Buffy. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your business or anything, ‘cause I do,” he added quickly. “It’s just that you’re kinda scaring off my other clients.”
He gestured to the nearly empty bar, occupied only by the two blondes and a couple Fyarl demons in a booth by the jukebox. Spike puffed up as much as he could without actually getting out of his chair, getting ready for a much needed fight but Buffy grabbed his wrist.
“C’mon Spike, it’s no fun here anymore,” she said solemnly then perked up. “We should go find something to kill.”
Intrigued he turned to her.
“Got somethin’ specific in mind, luv?”
She thought for a moment.
“Well, I’ve been havin’ Slayer dreams for like twenty nights now about the same thing and people are disappearing all over the place.”
He looked skeptical.
“It has wings.”
The vampire grinned.
“Well, all right then. Got ourselves a bit of a challenge.”
He stood and pulled his duster on.
“Lead the way, pet.”
“So have got any idea what this thing looks like, luv?” Spike asked as they wandered aimlessly through the park. Buffy shook her head.
“Not really. It’s human looking but it has wings…”
“So you’ve said. What about this dream of yours?”
“It’s just the thing flying over the moon and some creepy voice saying ‘Every 23rd fall, for 23 days, it gets to eat’. Totally cryptic. Giles has been researching it but so far he hasn’t found anything.”
Dejected she plopped down on a bench and fiddled with her stake.
“Am I repulsive?” she asked suddenly, catching Spike off guard.
“What?”
“It’s like I’m cursed. I sleep with a guy and he goes all evil. I’m such an idiot.”
“No you’re not,” he said, wondering why he was comforting her then decided that it had to be the alcohol talking. “People make mistakes, Slayer.”
“Parker says it’s okay to make mistakes. It was sweet.”
Spike snorted derisively.
“No, it’s not.”
He sat down next to her. “He said it so you’d take a chance and sleep with him. Forget him, pet, he’s a right git.”
Buffy thought on that for a moment.
“You’re right,” she said fiercely. “He’s shallow and manipulative and why doesn’t he want me? You’d tell me if I was repulsive, right?”
“Slayer, I’d be the first to tell you if you were repulsive.”
Buffy grinned a little. How true was that statement?
“But, maybe Parker and I could work it out?”
“Luv, I think you’re missing something major in the ‘right git’ part of this equation.”
She made a noncommittal noise and slumped back against the bench as Spike lit up a cigarette, lost to her thoughts when the vampire suddenly sat up straighter, a grin curving his full lips, and why had she never noticed them before?
“What?” she asked.
Soon, she too heard the sound of voices then two figures emerged from behind a row of bushes. She recognized Parker right off but took a little longer to place the girl he was with. Katie something. Suddenly Spike grabbed her shoulders and pulled her onto his lap.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Buffy hissed at him.
“We’re sticking it to the prick,” he whispered. As soon as Parker noticed them Spike pressed his lips to Buffy’s, mildly shocked at how nice it was. After an initial resistance Buffy melted into the vampire. Oh my God I’m kissing Spike fading to oh my God he’s a good kisser.
Now for the piece de resistance, thought Spike and discreetly tickled the Slayers side. Buffy pulled back with a squeal and almost fell off his lap. Spike caught her and stood, making it look like he’d intended it to happen, and turned the glowing Slayer to face the dumb struck boy.
“Hey Parker,” Buffy greeted. “You’ve met Spike right?”
The vampire in question wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder.
“This the git from the party then, luv?” he purred. “Thanks for gettin’ me my girl back.”
Parker looked confused.
“I thought you said you didn’t date?”
“I did?” Buffy asked. “I’m such a blonde sometimes. I thought you meant were we dating at the moment. Me and Spike have been seeing each other for years.”
Which was true.
“But I really have to thank you for the other night. For reminding me why I stay with Spike,” Buffy said with a pointed scathing look at Parker’s crotch, then turned to Spike. “Let’s go home, babe. I need a real man tonight.”
The two blondes moved off, Buffy grinning triumphantly and Spike shaking with silent laughter. Once they were out of earshot of the humans Spike let his laughter loose.
“God, luv, did you have to insult his bits like that?”
“There’s not much there to insult,” she said and he dissolved into laughter again.
Then a scream cut through their merriment. Katie passed them on their way to the other side of the bushes.
“It, oh my God! It has him!” the girl screamed.
“What has him?” Buffy grabbed the young woman.
“The, the thing. We thought it was a homeless guy…it has wings.”
Buffy released the woman.
“Go home.”
Then she and Spike raced to the rescue.
Parker was clasped to its chest and the thing glared at them before pulling something from the pocket of the raggedy coat it wore and flung the object at vampire and Slayer. Spike tackled Buffy, taking her to the ground as the weapon embedded itself in a tree, barely missing her neck. Parker struggled in the things embrace, calling for help. Buffy stood and launched herself at the creature but it spread huge bat wings and took to the sky, the figure silhouetted by the moon.
The creature sat in its cave, admiring its handy work with its new eyes. The humans from its first feeding now lined the walls, stitched together. They were all missing something but it was only visible on some; a hand here, a leg there. The skin of the former owner of its new eyes stared back at it morosely; the empty, bloody sockets almost accusing.
That one had screamed for a long time. Screamed for the blonde female, to his god, then just screamed… The creature shook itself from its thoughts. The 23 days were almost done and it still had much to do.
Some of the dialogue between Parker and Buffy and Buffy and Spike is taken from the BtVS episode ‘Harsh Light of Day’ and was transcribed by Joan the English Chick at the site www.buffy-vs-angel.com. Thanx so much Joan, you’re a life saver (hugs and puppies forever ; )
~Ghost Writer
Day 1
“So where’d you guys say you found this again?” Riley Finn asked the small group of soldiers.
“It was in one of the tunnels,” Forrest said, referring to the honeycomb of natural caverns the Initiative base resided in. “What do you make of it Finn?”
“I’m more of a retrieval guy,” the soldier admitted and resumed studying the thing Forrest’s team had brought in.
It had what he assumed to be wings wrapped around its body, hiding it from sight with several flaps of skin covering the head in a similar manner. To him it looked like a giant cocoon, but Riley somehow doubted that a butterfly would hatch out of it. He couldn’t wait to hear what Professor Walsh though of it.
The 23 days were about to begin and the creature slowly came awake, taking stock of organs and its surroundings; inhaling the many scents as its lungs began to function once more. Its sluggish heartbeat slowly increased, pumping blood through its body, feeding the large wings that had cocooned it through its long hibernation. The caul of flesh covering its face rippled and drew back as its wings fell to its sides, tucking against its back as it sat up, effortlessly breaking the flimsy restraints that tied it to the table. It looked around the room with milky eyes. It was not in its resting place and this room was filled with the stench of demons and the sweet scent of its prey. Its lips pulled back in a savage grin, revealing sharp, jagged teeth and its nostrils flared as it scented the air.
Let the hunt begin.
Riley never knew what hit him. One minute he was delivering a report and the next there was an excruciating pain in his back, the sensation of being thrown, then the horrible gulping sounds from somewhere behind him. The soldier struggled to draw a breath as a hot fluid he dimly recognized as blood pooled beneath him.
Then the screams began…
Then nothing at all…
Day 5
Professor Margaret Walsh sat in her office, writing her report. Several nights ago something had happened inside the Initiative…and it was her job to find out what. From what she and others had been able to glean from the handful of survivors she knew that Forrest and several others had discovered something in one of the caves and brought it back for analysis…and the something had woken up. Descriptions were sketchy at best; some said that it looked like a giant cocoon, others that it resembled the Mothman of West Virginia among other places. She’d ask Forrest himself but for the fact that he was missing as was Finn and almost a hundred others.
The floors and walls of the complex were coated in blood with not a body to be found. She and several commanding officers had discovered the twenty-three survivors huddled in one of the holding cells, some terrified to the point of catatonia. What could so petrify so many seasoned soldiers who dealt with hostiles and sub-terrestrials on a nightly basis? Maggie had no idea.
Locking the report in a hidden safe she locked her office and headed home, her mind a whirl of thoughts. She was so preoccupied that she never heard the rustle of wings in the darkness or the steady approach of booted footsteps on the sidewalk behind her until she was grabbed from behind and a clawed hand tore her throat out.
Day 21
Every 23rd fall,
For 23 days,
It gets to eat…
That phrase played over and over in Buffy’s mind as she wandered through the quad. The same phrase that had echoed through her dreams for twenty consecutive nights. The dreams were always the same; those words repeated over and over by a disembodied voice as a bat-winged figure was silhouetted by the moon, and then there was blood, and screams… Giles was researching his heart out but so far hadn’t found anything; add to that Spike being a pain in their collective asses, and the list of missing persons was getting longer.
One of the first to go missing had been a T.A. from her Psych class, she thought his name was Riley, and then Professor Walsh has disappeared…too bad Parker couldn’t do the same. Buffy mentally berated herself for being a bad Slayer but couldn’t stop a small smirk; it wasn’t like the S.O.B. didn’t have it coming. And who did he think he was not calling her?
Just then she caught sight of Parker on a bench, talking to a young blonde Barbie wanna-be.
“You know, it hit me hard,” he was saying. “My dad. Since then I just don’t put stuff off anymore. It’s all about living for the now.”
Buffy’s jaw dropped. He fed me a line? Squaring her shoulders she walked up to them.
“Parker?”
He looked up at her and smiled.
“Buffy,” he greeted, all smiles then turned to his companion. “Buffy Summers, this is Katie Loomis.”
Katie waved at the Slayer who gave her a polite smile before turning back to Parker.
“Parker, what’s going on?”
Picking up a bag from the ground Parker handed it to Katie.
“Hey, Katie, you’re gonna be late for class. I’ll catch up later okay?”
The girl smiled once more at Buffy before leaving.
“Friend of yours?” the Slayer asked.
“Oh yeah, she’s great,” the boy gushed. “You’d really like her. So what’s up?”
“Well, you didn’t call,” Buffy said, trying not to sound meek. “I’d understand if you were busy or sick or something…”
“It’s only been a few days,” Parker defended. “Did you need to talk to me about something?”
Steeling herself Buffy asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Sure it is,” he replied nonchalantly.
“It is?” she sounded skeptical.
“Absolutely.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She nibbled her lower lip as he got ready to leave then suddenly blurted, “What was it to you? Was it just fun or…”
He turned to her and smiled.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you. You know, there aren’t that many girls who view sex like I do. They’re usually all like “oh we had sex now we must be soul mates’ or something. If you wanna get together later sometime?” he continued, not noticing her dark expression.
“Actually I think I’m gonna be busy.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” he said happily. “Just give me a call sometime.”
He winked at her and left. Buffy watched him go, her hands clenched into fists and her nails digging bloody crescents into her palms then whirled as clapping sounded behind her, only mildly surprised to find Spike standing behind the vacated bench.
“Bravo, luv. Nice to see you’ve finally grown a pair.”
“Found the ring?” she asked blandly.
The vampire held his hand up and wiggled the gem at her.
“Official sponsor of my killing you.”
The Slayer didn’t look impressed.
“Why don’t you go bone Harmony and come back later. I’m not in the mood to kick your ass right now.”
She didn’t even try to go for a stake, leaving Spike mildly offended, and actually started to walk off. Thinking fast he called out, “So you let Parker take a poke eh? Didn’t seem like you two knew each other that well, but tell me, what did it take to pry apart the Slayer’s dimpled knees?”
“You’re a pig, Spike,” the departing Slayer called over her shoulder and the bleached vampire hurried to catch up to his (slowly strolling) quarry.
“And then he’s like ‘what are you doin?’ all innocent like and I’m like ‘making a choice’ and I can’t believe I fell for that dead dad crap!” Buffy slurred and downed her latest shot of tequila.
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Guys do that sometimes. Play the coy an’ let the girl “start” it. Power trip makes ‘em hotter.”
“Guys‘re stupid,” she muttered to the table top.
Spike snorted.
“Like you women‘re any differen’? Dru strings me along after that bloody Chaos demon then goes running off with a soddin’ Fungus demon!”
He looked incredulous.
“I mean, have you ever seen one ‘o those things? Looks like a giant rottin’ mushroom, ‘an don’t even get me started on the smell,” he trailed off and downed another shot, then found the bottle empty when he tried to refill his glass. “Oi! Willie! We need another bottle over ‘ere!”
Gathering his minimal courage Willie the Snitch walked up to the table that Spike and the Slayer had claimed several hours earlier. His gaze flicked nervously between the two drunk and commiserating enemies and took a steadying breath.
“Look, Spike…and, uh, Buffy. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your business or anything, ‘cause I do,” he added quickly. “It’s just that you’re kinda scaring off my other clients.”
He gestured to the nearly empty bar, occupied only by the two blondes and a couple Fyarl demons in a booth by the jukebox. Spike puffed up as much as he could without actually getting out of his chair, getting ready for a much needed fight but Buffy grabbed his wrist.
“C’mon Spike, it’s no fun here anymore,” she said solemnly then perked up. “We should go find something to kill.”
Intrigued he turned to her.
“Got somethin’ specific in mind, luv?”
She thought for a moment.
“Well, I’ve been havin’ Slayer dreams for like twenty nights now about the same thing and people are disappearing all over the place.”
He looked skeptical.
“It has wings.”
The vampire grinned.
“Well, all right then. Got ourselves a bit of a challenge.”
He stood and pulled his duster on.
“Lead the way, pet.”
“So have got any idea what this thing looks like, luv?” Spike asked as they wandered aimlessly through the park. Buffy shook her head.
“Not really. It’s human looking but it has wings…”
“So you’ve said. What about this dream of yours?”
“It’s just the thing flying over the moon and some creepy voice saying ‘Every 23rd fall, for 23 days, it gets to eat’. Totally cryptic. Giles has been researching it but so far he hasn’t found anything.”
Dejected she plopped down on a bench and fiddled with her stake.
“Am I repulsive?” she asked suddenly, catching Spike off guard.
“What?”
“It’s like I’m cursed. I sleep with a guy and he goes all evil. I’m such an idiot.”
“No you’re not,” he said, wondering why he was comforting her then decided that it had to be the alcohol talking. “People make mistakes, Slayer.”
“Parker says it’s okay to make mistakes. It was sweet.”
Spike snorted derisively.
“No, it’s not.”
He sat down next to her. “He said it so you’d take a chance and sleep with him. Forget him, pet, he’s a right git.”
Buffy thought on that for a moment.
“You’re right,” she said fiercely. “He’s shallow and manipulative and why doesn’t he want me? You’d tell me if I was repulsive, right?”
“Slayer, I’d be the first to tell you if you were repulsive.”
Buffy grinned a little. How true was that statement?
“But, maybe Parker and I could work it out?”
“Luv, I think you’re missing something major in the ‘right git’ part of this equation.”
She made a noncommittal noise and slumped back against the bench as Spike lit up a cigarette, lost to her thoughts when the vampire suddenly sat up straighter, a grin curving his full lips, and why had she never noticed them before?
“What?” she asked.
Soon, she too heard the sound of voices then two figures emerged from behind a row of bushes. She recognized Parker right off but took a little longer to place the girl he was with. Katie something. Suddenly Spike grabbed her shoulders and pulled her onto his lap.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Buffy hissed at him.
“We’re sticking it to the prick,” he whispered. As soon as Parker noticed them Spike pressed his lips to Buffy’s, mildly shocked at how nice it was. After an initial resistance Buffy melted into the vampire. Oh my God I’m kissing Spike fading to oh my God he’s a good kisser.
Now for the piece de resistance, thought Spike and discreetly tickled the Slayers side. Buffy pulled back with a squeal and almost fell off his lap. Spike caught her and stood, making it look like he’d intended it to happen, and turned the glowing Slayer to face the dumb struck boy.
“Hey Parker,” Buffy greeted. “You’ve met Spike right?”
The vampire in question wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder.
“This the git from the party then, luv?” he purred. “Thanks for gettin’ me my girl back.”
Parker looked confused.
“I thought you said you didn’t date?”
“I did?” Buffy asked. “I’m such a blonde sometimes. I thought you meant were we dating at the moment. Me and Spike have been seeing each other for years.”
Which was true.
“But I really have to thank you for the other night. For reminding me why I stay with Spike,” Buffy said with a pointed scathing look at Parker’s crotch, then turned to Spike. “Let’s go home, babe. I need a real man tonight.”
The two blondes moved off, Buffy grinning triumphantly and Spike shaking with silent laughter. Once they were out of earshot of the humans Spike let his laughter loose.
“God, luv, did you have to insult his bits like that?”
“There’s not much there to insult,” she said and he dissolved into laughter again.
Then a scream cut through their merriment. Katie passed them on their way to the other side of the bushes.
“It, oh my God! It has him!” the girl screamed.
“What has him?” Buffy grabbed the young woman.
“The, the thing. We thought it was a homeless guy…it has wings.”
Buffy released the woman.
“Go home.”
Then she and Spike raced to the rescue.
Parker was clasped to its chest and the thing glared at them before pulling something from the pocket of the raggedy coat it wore and flung the object at vampire and Slayer. Spike tackled Buffy, taking her to the ground as the weapon embedded itself in a tree, barely missing her neck. Parker struggled in the things embrace, calling for help. Buffy stood and launched herself at the creature but it spread huge bat wings and took to the sky, the figure silhouetted by the moon.
The creature sat in its cave, admiring its handy work with its new eyes. The humans from its first feeding now lined the walls, stitched together. They were all missing something but it was only visible on some; a hand here, a leg there. The skin of the former owner of its new eyes stared back at it morosely; the empty, bloody sockets almost accusing.
That one had screamed for a long time. Screamed for the blonde female, to his god, then just screamed… The creature shook itself from its thoughts. The 23 days were almost done and it still had much to do.
Day 22
Day 22
Buffy burst into Giles’ apartment closely followed by Spike which caused Giles and Xander to scramble for weapons.
“Relax, guys, we’ve called a truce.” Buffy told them.
“But, Buffy!” Xander protested. “That’s Spike! You do remember Spike right? Came to town to kill you a few years back, kidnapped me and Willow with the whole broken bottle in the face?”
“And he also helped me with Acathla and how did you get in here anyway?” she asked the vampire.
“Dunno, luv. Might have somethin’ to do with this.”
He held up his ring bearing hand.
“Good Lord,” Giles exclaimed. “The Gem of Amara.”
“Yep. You know, it’s amazing what they leave lyin’ around crypts these days.”
Buffy smacked him.
“Spike, knock it off. Giles, we had a run in with that thing I’ve been dreaming about. It took Parker.”
“And left us a bit of a prezzie,” Spike added, pulling a throwing star from his pocket and dropping it on the coffee table, then claimed a chair and made himself comfortable. Buffy sat down on the couch as Giles picked up the star, studying it intently.
“Hand crafted,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Superb craftsmanship…”
“It’s got a tooth on it,” Buffy said, making an ‘eew’ face. Giles turned the weapon over, nearly dropping it as the aforementioned molar came into view.
“Fascinating.”
“Have you found anything on this thing yet?” the Slayer asked.
“Hmm? Oh, not as of yet, no. I’m afraid we really don’t have much to go on…Whom are you calling?” he asked as his Slayer reached for the phone.
“Angel. He’s like super old, he might have heard of this thing.”
She ignored Spike’s snicker at the ‘super old’ comment and waited for her ex to pick up the phone.
“Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless, how may we help…”
“Cordelia?”
“Buffy?” the brunette asked sneaking a peek at Angel’s closed office door.
“Yeah, can I talk to Angel for a minute? It’s important.”
“Um…sure. Hang on.”
“I’m on hold,” Buffy informed the men.
“Cordy put you on hold?” Xander asked.
“It’s what she jus’ said, innit?” Spike asked, irritated.
Buffy shot him a dirty look.
“What? Alcohol doesn’t go as far with vamps as it does with you lot.”
“Alcohol?” Giles asked.
“You went drinking with Spike?” Xander demanded.
Buffy got a deer in the headlights look.
“Um…I plead the fifth?”
She was saved from further interrogation when Angel picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Angel,” she greeted cheerfully.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah. Look, we’ve got a little problem over here and I was wondering if you could lend a hand?”
“Buffy, I don’t…”
“I’ve been having this dream for awhile and this voice keeps saying that every 23rd fall for 23 days it gets to eat and people are disappearing and Giles can’t find it in his books and…”
“Buffy, I understand that you want to see me but making up stories isn’t the way. We can’t be together. Goodbye.”
“Making up? What? Hello?”
She stared at the phone.
“He hung up on me!”
“He what?” Xander asked.
“That jackass hung up on me!”
“Peaches always was a bit slow on the uptake,” Spike stated.
Buffy scowled at the receiver again then hung it up.
“You know what? If he wants to be Mr. Brood-My-Life-Away that’s fine. We’ve got Willow.”
The Slayer looked around.
“Where is Willow? Is she in the bathroom?”
“Willow isn’t here,” Giles said, leafing through a book, throwing star in hand. “That infernal machine of hers exploded or …”
“Her hard drive crashed,” Xander translated. “She went back to the dorms to see if she could borrow someone else’s computer.”
Buffy jumped to her feet.
“She went alone?”
“Oz is with her.”
Buffy headed toward the door anyway.
“It’s not that I don’t trust Oz. I’ll just feel better if I’m with them.”
“Yes, by all means,” Giles agreed. “You should be out looking for this creature. Send Willow and Oz over here when you’ve found them.”
“Will do Watcher,” Spike said and saluted the two before following Buffy out onto the sidewalk.
“Buffy,” a voice called.
The blonde in question turned to see Anya coming up to her. She’d exchanged pleasantries with her in high school and knew that the girl had, up until last year, been a Vengeance Demon.
“Anya right?”
Anya nodded.
“You’re a friend of Xander’s correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where I can find him? I need to speak with him about some vigorous and satisfying sex we had earlier.”
Buffy just stared at the other woman; ‘Xander’ and ‘sex’ refusing to merge into a cohesive thought in her brain.
“Whelp’s at the Watcher’s,” Spike supplied helpfully, pointing the way.
“Oh, thank you,” Anya said and entered Giles’ apartment without knocking.
“Boy's gonna have his hands full with that one.”
“Xander?” Anya called as she entered the flat and smiled when she spotted him. “The man Buffy was with said that you were in here and we need to finish our talk.”
“Friend of yours?” Giles asked the young man.
“Um…kind of.”
Anya smiled at Giles and extended a hand.
“Hello. I’m Anya. I need to borrow Xander and finish a conversation about some sex we had earlier,” she said, ignoring how Giles’ eyes bugged out and the choking noise Xander made, then caught sight of the star.
“Oh, a Creeper.”
She picked up the star and began examining it as Giles struggled to form a coherent sentence.
“You, ah, you know what made this?” he finally asked.
“Of course,” she said then recited a painfully familiar verse. “Every 23rd fall for 23 days it gets to eat, right?”
Giles nodded.
“That’s a Creeper. So Xander, about earlier. I thought that the sex would help me get over you but…”
“Um…Anya,” Giles interrupted.
“Yes?” She turned to him.
“Could you possibly tell us more about this, ah, Creeper creature? It is imperative that we learn as much as possible about it.”
She looked torn.
“After that you may speak with Xander,” the Watcher concluded with a meaningful glare at the boy.
“But Giles,” Xander protested.
“If you were man enough to sleep with her then you should be man enough to speak with her about it,” he said in a commanding tone he rarely used with the Scooby’s and Xander slumped in his chair.
“Yes,, sir.”
Giles turned his gaze back to Anya and smiled.
“If you would, please, dear.”
She smiled back and began.
“You know? I’m thinking about writing a very strong-worded letter to that computer guy,” Willow ranted. “He says that nothing can hurt this with that program installed on it and what does it do? It fries…”
Oz listened with half an ear as his girlfriend vented, the other half of his attention focused on their surroundings. Most of the people who disappeared had gone missing on campus and there was a weird vibe in the air that set his teeth on edge. Suddenly he grabbed Willow’s arm and stopped; something wasn’t right. Willow looked at her boyfriend, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need to get back to Giles’,” Oz said. “Now.”
He started toward his van at a fast walk, pulling the Wicca with him, then rounded a row of bushes and stopped again. An old man was walking toward them, his long tattered coat swirling in the breeze, stringy white hair falling from beneath a wide brimmed hat that concealed his face in shadows. The young wolf growled softly; he didn’t like this guy at all. The man paused at the sound, cocked his head to one side like an inquisitive bird, and then smiled, revealing sharp, not-in-any-way-human teeth.
“Oz?” Willow asked from behind him. The wolf could smell her fear but she hid it well and pulled a stake from her bag, pressing it into his hand. Oz closed his fist around the weapon. It was better than nothing but he doubted that it would do much good.
The man started forward again and Oz backed up, Willow did the same.
“Van?” she asked.
He nodded.
“On three.”
He flung the stake end over end and shouted “Three!” as it buried itself in the things chest. It let out an inhuman cry and gripped the wood protruding from its torso as the witch and werewolf took off running. The Creeper flung the stick away before giving chase.
“That’s Oz’s van,” Buffy said, pointing to the vehicle. “And…what?”
Spike was frowning.
“You *do* know this boy’s a werewolf, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
He tapped the side of his nose and Buffy wrinkled her own.
“Okay, first of all eew and secondly…what now?”
His entire demeanor had shifted from almost-normal-guy to predator in a split second.
“It’s here.”
Willow ran, her legs and lungs burning, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest; she wanted to stop, needed to rest, but knew she couldn’t. The parking lot was only a few hundred yards away and Oz was a few feet behind her…and the creature was right in front of her. Willow skidded to a halt and fell back, landing on the grass and letting out a scream. Oz was in front of her in a flash then a dark blur collided with the creature, both hitting the ground as someone called her name.
“Willow!”
“Buffy?”
The Slayer was by her friend’s side in an instant, helping her to her feet. Oz joined them, taking his girlfriends other hand.
“What is that thing?” Willow asked.
“It’s what I’ve been dreaming about,” Buffy explained. “I ran into Spike and he decided to help me fight it.”
Willow’s eyes went huge.
“Spike!?” she squeaked. “Evil with the whole broken bottle in my face Spike?”
“Um…yeah?”
The vampire in question was trading vicious blows with the Creeper, a gleefully savage grin on his face. He managed to get his hands on its head and gave it a vicious twist before the creature rounded on him with a brutal punch which sent the vampire several feet past the small group. Spike stood and made a show of dusting himself off then there was a spray of something wet and warm followed by a startled grunt from behind the girls. They turned and met Oz’s startled gaze a split second before the Creeper tore his heart from his chest.
Buffy burst into Giles’ apartment closely followed by Spike which caused Giles and Xander to scramble for weapons.
“Relax, guys, we’ve called a truce.” Buffy told them.
“But, Buffy!” Xander protested. “That’s Spike! You do remember Spike right? Came to town to kill you a few years back, kidnapped me and Willow with the whole broken bottle in the face?”
“And he also helped me with Acathla and how did you get in here anyway?” she asked the vampire.
“Dunno, luv. Might have somethin’ to do with this.”
He held up his ring bearing hand.
“Good Lord,” Giles exclaimed. “The Gem of Amara.”
“Yep. You know, it’s amazing what they leave lyin’ around crypts these days.”
Buffy smacked him.
“Spike, knock it off. Giles, we had a run in with that thing I’ve been dreaming about. It took Parker.”
“And left us a bit of a prezzie,” Spike added, pulling a throwing star from his pocket and dropping it on the coffee table, then claimed a chair and made himself comfortable. Buffy sat down on the couch as Giles picked up the star, studying it intently.
“Hand crafted,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Superb craftsmanship…”
“It’s got a tooth on it,” Buffy said, making an ‘eew’ face. Giles turned the weapon over, nearly dropping it as the aforementioned molar came into view.
“Fascinating.”
“Have you found anything on this thing yet?” the Slayer asked.
“Hmm? Oh, not as of yet, no. I’m afraid we really don’t have much to go on…Whom are you calling?” he asked as his Slayer reached for the phone.
“Angel. He’s like super old, he might have heard of this thing.”
She ignored Spike’s snicker at the ‘super old’ comment and waited for her ex to pick up the phone.
“Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless, how may we help…”
“Cordelia?”
“Buffy?” the brunette asked sneaking a peek at Angel’s closed office door.
“Yeah, can I talk to Angel for a minute? It’s important.”
“Um…sure. Hang on.”
“I’m on hold,” Buffy informed the men.
“Cordy put you on hold?” Xander asked.
“It’s what she jus’ said, innit?” Spike asked, irritated.
Buffy shot him a dirty look.
“What? Alcohol doesn’t go as far with vamps as it does with you lot.”
“Alcohol?” Giles asked.
“You went drinking with Spike?” Xander demanded.
Buffy got a deer in the headlights look.
“Um…I plead the fifth?”
She was saved from further interrogation when Angel picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Angel,” she greeted cheerfully.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah. Look, we’ve got a little problem over here and I was wondering if you could lend a hand?”
“Buffy, I don’t…”
“I’ve been having this dream for awhile and this voice keeps saying that every 23rd fall for 23 days it gets to eat and people are disappearing and Giles can’t find it in his books and…”
“Buffy, I understand that you want to see me but making up stories isn’t the way. We can’t be together. Goodbye.”
“Making up? What? Hello?”
She stared at the phone.
“He hung up on me!”
“He what?” Xander asked.
“That jackass hung up on me!”
“Peaches always was a bit slow on the uptake,” Spike stated.
Buffy scowled at the receiver again then hung it up.
“You know what? If he wants to be Mr. Brood-My-Life-Away that’s fine. We’ve got Willow.”
The Slayer looked around.
“Where is Willow? Is she in the bathroom?”
“Willow isn’t here,” Giles said, leafing through a book, throwing star in hand. “That infernal machine of hers exploded or …”
“Her hard drive crashed,” Xander translated. “She went back to the dorms to see if she could borrow someone else’s computer.”
Buffy jumped to her feet.
“She went alone?”
“Oz is with her.”
Buffy headed toward the door anyway.
“It’s not that I don’t trust Oz. I’ll just feel better if I’m with them.”
“Yes, by all means,” Giles agreed. “You should be out looking for this creature. Send Willow and Oz over here when you’ve found them.”
“Will do Watcher,” Spike said and saluted the two before following Buffy out onto the sidewalk.
“Buffy,” a voice called.
The blonde in question turned to see Anya coming up to her. She’d exchanged pleasantries with her in high school and knew that the girl had, up until last year, been a Vengeance Demon.
“Anya right?”
Anya nodded.
“You’re a friend of Xander’s correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where I can find him? I need to speak with him about some vigorous and satisfying sex we had earlier.”
Buffy just stared at the other woman; ‘Xander’ and ‘sex’ refusing to merge into a cohesive thought in her brain.
“Whelp’s at the Watcher’s,” Spike supplied helpfully, pointing the way.
“Oh, thank you,” Anya said and entered Giles’ apartment without knocking.
“Boy's gonna have his hands full with that one.”
“Xander?” Anya called as she entered the flat and smiled when she spotted him. “The man Buffy was with said that you were in here and we need to finish our talk.”
“Friend of yours?” Giles asked the young man.
“Um…kind of.”
Anya smiled at Giles and extended a hand.
“Hello. I’m Anya. I need to borrow Xander and finish a conversation about some sex we had earlier,” she said, ignoring how Giles’ eyes bugged out and the choking noise Xander made, then caught sight of the star.
“Oh, a Creeper.”
She picked up the star and began examining it as Giles struggled to form a coherent sentence.
“You, ah, you know what made this?” he finally asked.
“Of course,” she said then recited a painfully familiar verse. “Every 23rd fall for 23 days it gets to eat, right?”
Giles nodded.
“That’s a Creeper. So Xander, about earlier. I thought that the sex would help me get over you but…”
“Um…Anya,” Giles interrupted.
“Yes?” She turned to him.
“Could you possibly tell us more about this, ah, Creeper creature? It is imperative that we learn as much as possible about it.”
She looked torn.
“After that you may speak with Xander,” the Watcher concluded with a meaningful glare at the boy.
“But Giles,” Xander protested.
“If you were man enough to sleep with her then you should be man enough to speak with her about it,” he said in a commanding tone he rarely used with the Scooby’s and Xander slumped in his chair.
“Yes,, sir.”
Giles turned his gaze back to Anya and smiled.
“If you would, please, dear.”
She smiled back and began.
“You know? I’m thinking about writing a very strong-worded letter to that computer guy,” Willow ranted. “He says that nothing can hurt this with that program installed on it and what does it do? It fries…”
Oz listened with half an ear as his girlfriend vented, the other half of his attention focused on their surroundings. Most of the people who disappeared had gone missing on campus and there was a weird vibe in the air that set his teeth on edge. Suddenly he grabbed Willow’s arm and stopped; something wasn’t right. Willow looked at her boyfriend, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need to get back to Giles’,” Oz said. “Now.”
He started toward his van at a fast walk, pulling the Wicca with him, then rounded a row of bushes and stopped again. An old man was walking toward them, his long tattered coat swirling in the breeze, stringy white hair falling from beneath a wide brimmed hat that concealed his face in shadows. The young wolf growled softly; he didn’t like this guy at all. The man paused at the sound, cocked his head to one side like an inquisitive bird, and then smiled, revealing sharp, not-in-any-way-human teeth.
“Oz?” Willow asked from behind him. The wolf could smell her fear but she hid it well and pulled a stake from her bag, pressing it into his hand. Oz closed his fist around the weapon. It was better than nothing but he doubted that it would do much good.
The man started forward again and Oz backed up, Willow did the same.
“Van?” she asked.
He nodded.
“On three.”
He flung the stake end over end and shouted “Three!” as it buried itself in the things chest. It let out an inhuman cry and gripped the wood protruding from its torso as the witch and werewolf took off running. The Creeper flung the stick away before giving chase.
“That’s Oz’s van,” Buffy said, pointing to the vehicle. “And…what?”
Spike was frowning.
“You *do* know this boy’s a werewolf, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
He tapped the side of his nose and Buffy wrinkled her own.
“Okay, first of all eew and secondly…what now?”
His entire demeanor had shifted from almost-normal-guy to predator in a split second.
“It’s here.”
Willow ran, her legs and lungs burning, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest; she wanted to stop, needed to rest, but knew she couldn’t. The parking lot was only a few hundred yards away and Oz was a few feet behind her…and the creature was right in front of her. Willow skidded to a halt and fell back, landing on the grass and letting out a scream. Oz was in front of her in a flash then a dark blur collided with the creature, both hitting the ground as someone called her name.
“Willow!”
“Buffy?”
The Slayer was by her friend’s side in an instant, helping her to her feet. Oz joined them, taking his girlfriends other hand.
“What is that thing?” Willow asked.
“It’s what I’ve been dreaming about,” Buffy explained. “I ran into Spike and he decided to help me fight it.”
Willow’s eyes went huge.
“Spike!?” she squeaked. “Evil with the whole broken bottle in my face Spike?”
“Um…yeah?”
The vampire in question was trading vicious blows with the Creeper, a gleefully savage grin on his face. He managed to get his hands on its head and gave it a vicious twist before the creature rounded on him with a brutal punch which sent the vampire several feet past the small group. Spike stood and made a show of dusting himself off then there was a spray of something wet and warm followed by a startled grunt from behind the girls. They turned and met Oz’s startled gaze a split second before the Creeper tore his heart from his chest.
Day 22 - Part Two
hello all. I'd like to thank you for all the great reviews with special thanks to Diabola and Slaymesoftly for helping me get started.
this was originally a response to a challenge on the Slayer's fanfic archive and one of the requirements was that at least three main characters had to die. I didn't want to get rid of Oz but it does make the story better. *shrug* the things we sacrifice for a good story. oh, well. enjoy this chapter and tell me what you think.
~Ghost Writer
Day 22 - Part Two
The door to Giles’ flat opened revealing Buffy half-carrying, half-dragging a near catatonic Willow. The witch’s glazed green eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing; totally unaware of her surroundings.
“Good Lord!” Giles exclaimed rushing over to the two bloody women. “What’s happened? Where’s Oz?”
Buffy’s warning look came too late. Willow’s eyes flew wide and fixed on the Watcher.
“Gone,” she whispered. “Took his heart and flew away…”
Buffy glared at her Watcher and guided her friend to the couch before pulling the shocked man into the kitchen.
“Oz is dead?” he asked in a whisper, scarcely able to believe it.
Buffy clenched her jaw and nodded stiffly.
“That thing took his heart. Shoved Spike ten feet and punched through Oz’s chest like it was paper *after* Spike had snapped its neck. Giles, how the hell do I kill this thing?”
“You can’t.”
They turned to see Anya in the doorway.
“You can only wait out the twenty-three days and hope it doesn’t like you.”
Buffy looked at the other woman.
“You know what this thing is?”
“Of course,” the ex-demon replied. “It’s a Creeper. I already told Mr. Giles all about it.”
The Slayer turned back to her Watcher.
“You know what it is?”
“Um…yes, Anya has been quite forthcoming with information concerning this creature. It’s quite fascinating really…”
“Giles!” Buffy snapped. “Oz is dead! I need to stop this thing now. Fascinate me later!”
Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“The Creeper was once human,” he said. “He was cursed. He cannot die but must harvest the organs of others. If this Creeper can collect enough pieces of persons of a certain caliber he can pass the curse onto someone else. If he has not completed the ritual by the end of the twenty-three days he returns to a kind of hibernation state until twenty-three years has passed and the cycle begins again.”
Buffy let out a near growl of frustration, how the hell was she supposed to fight something that couldn’t die?
Spike ran swiftly through the woods, dodging trees and rocks, keeping the thing in the sky in sight. After ripping out the wolf-boy’s heart it had spread its wings and flown away. Not even thinking about it Spike had told the Slayer to get the Witch back to the Watchers’ place and followed the thing. He knew that he wasn’t still drunk but refused to reflect on his actions until a much later date. The creature swooped down and disappeared into a cave. Slowing his pace Spike followed, automatically switching to game face to see better in the inky blackness. It was walking now, moving with an intimate knowledge of the network of caverns it had called home for centuries and Spike trailed it, slinking with catlike grace from outcropping to boulder, staying out of sight although he got the distinct impression that it knew that he was there.
The passageway suddenly opened up into a huge cavern lined with bodies. The corpses were sewn together like some sort of macabre quilt, affixed to the walls, and ceiling in some places, by means that Spike couldn’t fathom at the moment. Ducking behind a large boulder he watched the creature place Oz’s heart on a wooden table which held several other objects.
“Innocent Heart of the Beast,” the creature rasped, startling Spike so that he actually jumped. The Creeper gently stroked Oz’s heart then moved to another object.
“Flesh of the Betrayer.”
Even without his bones inside it Spike recognized that Parker git that had tossed aside the Slayer.
“Hand of the False God,” it continued moving on to touch a woman’s severed hand then stopped and seemed to think aloud to itself. “Bone of the Helpful Foe and Body of the Slayer.”
Spike’s blood ran cold. This thing was collecting these parts for a ritual of some sort, he didn’t know what kind but he did know that it didn’t seem good for the Slayer…not that he cared, but now that he thought about it he was being an awfully helpful foe of the Slayers’ at the moment. Maybe it was a good time for him to head back to the Watcher’s.
Spike quickly checked the cavern for the creature but found it empty. He backed up slowly, scanning the room when a voice rasped behind him.
“The Helpful Foe.”
“Oh, bollocks.”
There was a knock on Giles’ front door and he rose to answer it, seeing as how Buffy and Xander were busy comforting Willow.
“Cordelia?”
The ex-cheerleader smiled brilliantly before pushing her way into the apartment, followed by a dark haired man the Watcher didn’t know, and…
“Angel?” Buffy asked. The vampire nodded solemnly.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the Slayer demanded.
“Doyle,” he indicated the dark haired man. “He had a vision, said you were in danger.”
“I called you and said we were in danger!” Buffy said then pointed a finger at the vampire. “And you hung up on me!”
Angel ducked his head.
“I know. I was wrong and I’m sor…”
He was cut off as Spike stumbled through the door and collapsed against it, his left hand cradled against his chest.
“Spike?” Buffy asked, slightly concerned.
“Spike,” Angel growled and reached for his Grandchilde, intent on ridding the world of him but Buffy pushed past her ex and stood beside the bleached vampire.
“Spike, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, luv,” Spike said. “Creepy just decided that he wanted a piece of the Big Bad.”
He held out his hand revealing a missing pinky finger.
“Literally.”
“Oh my God,” Buffy gasped and carefully pulled him toward the couch, intent on bandaging his hand.
“’S okay, luv. I’ll be good as new in a couple of days.”
“What the hell is he doing here?!” Angel demanded.
“Helping me,” Buffy shot back. “Unlike some people.”
“Yeah, about that pet,” Spike began. “I think that thing’s fixin’ to do a spell. ‘An now it’s got most of what it needs.”
“Yeah, Anya said something about a spell," she said.
Spike nodded and continued.
“When I got to its lair it was recitin’ a list. Flesh of the betrayer is that Parker sod you were tellin’ me about, innocent heart of the beast is wolf-boy.”
“Oz,” she corrected.
“Oz,” he said. “It’s got some woman’s hand ‘an it’s the hand of the false god if any of you know what the bloody hell that means, bone of the helpful foe…”
He held up his injured hand. “Is yours truly. All it needs now is…”
“Body of the Slayer,” Anya interrupted, stunned. “Damn!”
“What about the Slayer?” Angel demanded.
“It was meant to be an impossible task,” the ex-demon defended. “There was no way the elders of Arashmahar could have known that a Slayer would know all of those people.”
Said Slayer looked confused.
“Why would it matter that I know, er knew, all of those people?” Buffy asked.
“ ‘Cause it’s gonna transfer the curse to you,” a softly lilting Irish voice said behind her. “Accordin’ to the vision at least.”
...to be continued
this was originally a response to a challenge on the Slayer's fanfic archive and one of the requirements was that at least three main characters had to die. I didn't want to get rid of Oz but it does make the story better. *shrug* the things we sacrifice for a good story. oh, well. enjoy this chapter and tell me what you think.
~Ghost Writer
Day 22 - Part Two
The door to Giles’ flat opened revealing Buffy half-carrying, half-dragging a near catatonic Willow. The witch’s glazed green eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing; totally unaware of her surroundings.
“Good Lord!” Giles exclaimed rushing over to the two bloody women. “What’s happened? Where’s Oz?”
Buffy’s warning look came too late. Willow’s eyes flew wide and fixed on the Watcher.
“Gone,” she whispered. “Took his heart and flew away…”
Buffy glared at her Watcher and guided her friend to the couch before pulling the shocked man into the kitchen.
“Oz is dead?” he asked in a whisper, scarcely able to believe it.
Buffy clenched her jaw and nodded stiffly.
“That thing took his heart. Shoved Spike ten feet and punched through Oz’s chest like it was paper *after* Spike had snapped its neck. Giles, how the hell do I kill this thing?”
“You can’t.”
They turned to see Anya in the doorway.
“You can only wait out the twenty-three days and hope it doesn’t like you.”
Buffy looked at the other woman.
“You know what this thing is?”
“Of course,” the ex-demon replied. “It’s a Creeper. I already told Mr. Giles all about it.”
The Slayer turned back to her Watcher.
“You know what it is?”
“Um…yes, Anya has been quite forthcoming with information concerning this creature. It’s quite fascinating really…”
“Giles!” Buffy snapped. “Oz is dead! I need to stop this thing now. Fascinate me later!”
Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“The Creeper was once human,” he said. “He was cursed. He cannot die but must harvest the organs of others. If this Creeper can collect enough pieces of persons of a certain caliber he can pass the curse onto someone else. If he has not completed the ritual by the end of the twenty-three days he returns to a kind of hibernation state until twenty-three years has passed and the cycle begins again.”
Buffy let out a near growl of frustration, how the hell was she supposed to fight something that couldn’t die?
Spike ran swiftly through the woods, dodging trees and rocks, keeping the thing in the sky in sight. After ripping out the wolf-boy’s heart it had spread its wings and flown away. Not even thinking about it Spike had told the Slayer to get the Witch back to the Watchers’ place and followed the thing. He knew that he wasn’t still drunk but refused to reflect on his actions until a much later date. The creature swooped down and disappeared into a cave. Slowing his pace Spike followed, automatically switching to game face to see better in the inky blackness. It was walking now, moving with an intimate knowledge of the network of caverns it had called home for centuries and Spike trailed it, slinking with catlike grace from outcropping to boulder, staying out of sight although he got the distinct impression that it knew that he was there.
The passageway suddenly opened up into a huge cavern lined with bodies. The corpses were sewn together like some sort of macabre quilt, affixed to the walls, and ceiling in some places, by means that Spike couldn’t fathom at the moment. Ducking behind a large boulder he watched the creature place Oz’s heart on a wooden table which held several other objects.
“Innocent Heart of the Beast,” the creature rasped, startling Spike so that he actually jumped. The Creeper gently stroked Oz’s heart then moved to another object.
“Flesh of the Betrayer.”
Even without his bones inside it Spike recognized that Parker git that had tossed aside the Slayer.
“Hand of the False God,” it continued moving on to touch a woman’s severed hand then stopped and seemed to think aloud to itself. “Bone of the Helpful Foe and Body of the Slayer.”
Spike’s blood ran cold. This thing was collecting these parts for a ritual of some sort, he didn’t know what kind but he did know that it didn’t seem good for the Slayer…not that he cared, but now that he thought about it he was being an awfully helpful foe of the Slayers’ at the moment. Maybe it was a good time for him to head back to the Watcher’s.
Spike quickly checked the cavern for the creature but found it empty. He backed up slowly, scanning the room when a voice rasped behind him.
“The Helpful Foe.”
“Oh, bollocks.”
There was a knock on Giles’ front door and he rose to answer it, seeing as how Buffy and Xander were busy comforting Willow.
“Cordelia?”
The ex-cheerleader smiled brilliantly before pushing her way into the apartment, followed by a dark haired man the Watcher didn’t know, and…
“Angel?” Buffy asked. The vampire nodded solemnly.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the Slayer demanded.
“Doyle,” he indicated the dark haired man. “He had a vision, said you were in danger.”
“I called you and said we were in danger!” Buffy said then pointed a finger at the vampire. “And you hung up on me!”
Angel ducked his head.
“I know. I was wrong and I’m sor…”
He was cut off as Spike stumbled through the door and collapsed against it, his left hand cradled against his chest.
“Spike?” Buffy asked, slightly concerned.
“Spike,” Angel growled and reached for his Grandchilde, intent on ridding the world of him but Buffy pushed past her ex and stood beside the bleached vampire.
“Spike, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, luv,” Spike said. “Creepy just decided that he wanted a piece of the Big Bad.”
He held out his hand revealing a missing pinky finger.
“Literally.”
“Oh my God,” Buffy gasped and carefully pulled him toward the couch, intent on bandaging his hand.
“’S okay, luv. I’ll be good as new in a couple of days.”
“What the hell is he doing here?!” Angel demanded.
“Helping me,” Buffy shot back. “Unlike some people.”
“Yeah, about that pet,” Spike began. “I think that thing’s fixin’ to do a spell. ‘An now it’s got most of what it needs.”
“Yeah, Anya said something about a spell," she said.
Spike nodded and continued.
“When I got to its lair it was recitin’ a list. Flesh of the betrayer is that Parker sod you were tellin’ me about, innocent heart of the beast is wolf-boy.”
“Oz,” she corrected.
“Oz,” he said. “It’s got some woman’s hand ‘an it’s the hand of the false god if any of you know what the bloody hell that means, bone of the helpful foe…”
He held up his injured hand. “Is yours truly. All it needs now is…”
“Body of the Slayer,” Anya interrupted, stunned. “Damn!”
“What about the Slayer?” Angel demanded.
“It was meant to be an impossible task,” the ex-demon defended. “There was no way the elders of Arashmahar could have known that a Slayer would know all of those people.”
Said Slayer looked confused.
“Why would it matter that I know, er knew, all of those people?” Buffy asked.
“ ‘Cause it’s gonna transfer the curse to you,” a softly lilting Irish voice said behind her. “Accordin’ to the vision at least.”
...to be continued
The End?
Wow, I started this a year and a half ago and it's finally done, yay;) My last two chapters turned into one really long chapter but, oh well, hope you enjoyed the ride.
~Ghost Writer
The End?
Stunned silence marked the occupants of the room at the half-demon’s announcement.
“What?” Xander demanded, rising to his feet. “Why Buffy? Why a Slayer at all? What the hell kind of sense does that make?”
“Why the hell are you yelling?” Cordelia demanded.
Xander stopped and looked around the room before sitting down.
“Sorry,” he said. “Overreaction done.”
Spike rolled his eyes at the boy. How these people managed to foil his every plan was beyond comprehension.
“It’s supposed to be an impossible task,” Anya spoke up then shrugged. “Since when do those need to make sense?”
“And besides,” Buffy added. “Since when do the bad guys need a reason to try to kill me?”
“But it’s not going to kill you,” Anya reminded them. “It’s going to make you what it is.”
“It can try,” Buffy said firmly, arms crossed.
Anya threw her hands up in disgust.
“Don’t be stupid! Don’t you get it? You can’t win this time. The Creeper can not die! You can burn it, boil it, chop it up into tiny little pieces and it will still come for you. The twenty-three days are up at midnight, if you start running now you could probably stay ahead of it until then and…”
“No,” Buffy said.
“Buffy,” Angel began. “Maybe you should…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
“There may be no other alternative,” Giles began but the Slayer cut him off.
“There has to be,” she insisted. “I mean, can’t you look at the books again? Now that we know what this thing is maybe we can find a way to kill it.”
“But there is no way,” Anya insisted.
“There has to be!” the Slayer shouted. She closed her eyes for a moment and composed herself before speaking again.
“Everything that’s alive dies. It’s just a matter of when, where, and how. All we need to do is find it.”
“But,” Cordelia started but Buffy silenced her with a look.
“Find it,” the blonde repeated before turning and walking from the room.
Angel started after her but stopped as Giles sat down with a weary sigh and reached for a book.
“What are you doing?” the souled vampire asked.
“Attempting to ‘find it’,” the Watcher replied.
Xander tried to concentrate on his book, he really did, but the blonde vampire sitting across from him could be very distracting when he put his mind to it. At the moment he was doing an admirable job. Although the Gem hadn’t prevented the loss of his finger, it was making up for it by growing a new one, which he was wiggling for Xander’s benefit, the boy was certain.
Spike grinned at the disgusted look on Harris’ face. As fun as it was annoying the boy, he’d been at it for close to fifteen minutes and it was getting kind of dull. He was about to find someone else to annoy, either the Watcher who was engrossed in an extremely large text, or his grand-sire who kept giving the blonde dark looks over the top of his own book, when Doyle dropped his book with a cry of pain and grabbed his head. Angel and Cordelia were at his side in an instant.
“What is it?” Angel asked. “What do you see?”
Spike arched an eyebrow, so the bloke had visions, did he? Drusilla’s had never seemed as violent as this one’s did but, then again, she probably got off on the pain. Spike frowned, wondering where his Dark Princess was and just what the bleeding hell was he doing mixed up with the Scoobies?
“Is he okay?” Xander asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Angel told them.
“Go check on your friend,” Doyle said, still massaging his temples.
“Buffy?”
“No,” the half-demon said. “The other one, the little red head.”
Soon after Buffy had locked herself in the bathroom Willow had said that she was tired and Giles had offered the witch the use of his bed. Xander started up the stairs as Cordelia knocked on the bathroom door and asked if Buffy could get her some aspirin. Pills in hand, the brunette turned into the kitchen for a glass of water as Xander thundered back down the stairs.
“Willow’s gone,” he said. “And so are some of your books.”
Buffy came out of the bathroom, eyes suspiciously red, and asked, “Willow’s gone?”
“Which books did she take?” Giles asked, rising to his feet.
“I don’t know,” Xander told the older man. “I left my list of your bedroom library at home today.”
“There’s no call for sarcasm,” Giles said as he quickly ascended the stairs.
“I think it’s pretty obvious where she went,” Anya said. “She wants vengeance so bad that even I can sense it and I don’t even have my powers anymore.”
“Powers?” Angel asked, looking lost.
“I was a Vengeance Demon for eleven hundred and twenty years,” the woman told him.
“Oh.”
Giles descended the stairs drawing all eyes to him, looking stricken.
“What did she take?” Buffy asked.
“Mot du Diable.”
The French speakers in the room all stared at him. Buffy looked confused.
“That’s French, right?”
“You have that?” Anya asked.
“I thought it was destroyed in the 1300s,” Angel said.
“Translation for those of us under fifty,” Cordelia commanded.
Giles gave her a mildly offended look.
“I’m forty-five,” he informed her to which she rolled her eyes. “Mot du Diable translates to ‘Word of the Devil’. It contains some of the blackest spells known. Death majicks.”
“Willow’s gonna kill something?” Cordelia asked disbelief evident in her voice.
“No,” Doyle said softly. “Something’s gonna kill her.”
“What?” Xander demanded.
“The Word of the Devil is a book of devil’s bargains,” Spike supplied. “Only the thing you summon collects right away instead of waitin’ for you to pop off on your own.”
“We have to find her,” Buffy declared looking horrified then turned to Giles. “Why would you have a book like that?”
“It was in a box I purchased at a sorcerers estate auction.”
“Did you see where she was?” Cordelia asked Doyle.
“A morgue is all I saw and given the normal state of affairs around here I’m betting there’s more ‘n one.”
Buffy frowned.
“Morgue,” she muttered talking mostly to herself. “She’d want to be with Oz…called the cops from campus; they would’ve taken him to the nearest one…”
She trailed off for a moment then suddenly perked up.
“Oh, Oak View Mortuary is only a block and a half from the college!”
Giles looked pleased.
“Very good, Buffy.”
She shrugged.
“I do a sweep by there every night.”
“Most of the spells in the book take a great deal of preparation,” Giles said turning toward the door. “We should be able to stop Willow before she even begins. Xander, Cordelia, and, um, Doyle, would you like to accompany us?”
“I’ll drive,” Cordelia said cheerily. “That way I won’t actually have to go inside.”
“I’m in,” Xander said.
Doyle shrugged. “Why not?”
“Then let’s go,” Buffy announced on her way to the door. Anya grabbed her arm and hung on.
“What are you doing?” the Slayer asked.
“What are *you* doing?” the ex-demon demanded. “All the Creeper needs now is you to finish its spell and you’re going to just go flaunting yourself on the streets?”
“But it’s daylight,” the blonde protested.
Anya sighed and rolled her eyes.
“The Creeper prefers the night to the day but it’s not restricted like a vampire. And since it already has the rest of what it needs and the twenty-three days are up tonight it’s going to be looking for you.”
Buffy looked torn.
“Stay here Slayer,” Spike said, surprising them. “I’ll go get your witch.”
He shrugged.
“About time I got in a decent spot of violence anyway.”
“One problem with that, nimrod,” Angel told him. “It’s daylight outside.”
Spike smirked at the taller man and held up the Gem.
“Guess it’s a good thing I got this, then, innit?”
Angel’s smile faltered.
“Where..? How..? That can’t be…”
Spike just shrugged.
“Figure it’ll come in handy after this whole Creeper business is over. Me and the Slayer have some things to finish.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at the death threat but Angel lunged at Spike, intent on removing the ring from his finger. The younger vampire ducked under his arms and slipped out the door. Bathed in the early morning sunlight he grinned at Angel who glowered back from the safety of the apartment.
“You want it so bad?” Spike taunted, lifting his face to the no-longer-deadly orb in the sky. “Come and get it.”
Angel growled, preparing to launch himself across the brightly lit courtyard, when Buffy laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Angel, stay with me,” she requested softly, then admitted, “I don’t wanna be alone.”
His features softened.
“Go get Willow before she gets hurt,” he told the others. “I’ll stay with Buffy.”
“Me, too,” Anya piped up. “I’m not a fighting person.”
“Nice mid-life crisis-mobile you got, Peaches,” Spike called from the front seat of Angel’s car.
Angel sighed and firmly shut the door, cutting off anything else the bleached blonde might have said.
“Can I kill him when he’s done helping?” he asked Buffy.
Willow walked through the quiet mortuary, her duffel bag of supplies hung over one shoulder and she hugged the large book to her chest. The spell of unease she had cast outside had cleared the building of its living occupants, leaving her alone with Oz to work her spell. Silently, the witch pushed through the heavy wooden door that divided the back room from the chapel and coffin show room, and spotted him almost immediately, lying on a metal gurney toward the middle of the room. A sheet covered the horrible hole of a wound in his chest leaving his head and shoulders exposed.
Willow stood frozen in the doorway. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the bright fluorescent light above him, small specks of blood dotted his face and neck but one in particular grabbed her attention; settled below the corner of one eye like a scarlet teardrop. Book and duffel hit the floor, both going unnoticed by the young woman as she made her way to her boyfriend’s side.
“Oh, Oz,” she choked, and gently stroked his hair as the tears began to fall.
Spike slumped in the passenger seat, drumming his fingers against the side of the door, and sighed. Could the cheerleader drive any slower? He looked up at the blue sky, the faint wisps of white clouds, and tried to remember the last time he’d seen a sky like that, then tensed.
“Speed up, Princess,” he commanded.
“I don’t take orders from you, peroxide boy,” she shot back.
“Rupes,” he called the Watchers’ attention then pointed out the window and Giles, too, caught sight of the creature wining through the sky.
“Cordelia, speed up,” he commanded.
The Creeper flew determinedly toward the place the other humans had taken the werewolf’s body. Humans had attachments to one another, it remembered that. It also knew that the red haired woman’s scent covered the wolf. There were only two women in the group, both smelled of power and Slayer, but which was the one it needed? Very soon, it would know. The wolf’s blood called to it as well as the scent of Power/Slayer.
Pulling its wings around its body the Creeper fell into a dive to make any hawk proud and burst through the heavy double doors of the Oak View Mortuary in a shower of splinters. Following its nose, the creature strode over the remains of the front door and through the dividing door. The red haired woman was crumpled on the floor by a shiny table where the wolf’s body rested, one of his limp hands clutched in her own, and looked up into the Creeper’s face with dull, red-rimmed eyes. Ignoring the screech of tires and raised voices behind it the Creeper quickly made its way to the woman.
“Willow!” Xander shouted.
The Creeper grabbed her head with both hands and brought her to her feet. She gripped it wrists as she quickly found her feet… and her magic.
“Ign…” she began but the Creeper covered her mouth with one large hand. If she was the Slayer she wouldn’t be the first of her line to know spells.
“Get away from my friend!” Xander yelled as he and Doyle charged the man-like creature.
The Creeper shot a wing out and back, flinging the two men into the others, and pulled the struggling woman closer. Closer. It bent its head to her face, its mouth slightly opened to reveal wickedly sharp teeth to the terrified woman, and then it sniffed her. Starting at her cheek and ending buried in her hair, it brought in one great lungful of air and scent after another, then growled. The scents were too confusing; giving up on that avenue it licked her then flung her away in disgust.
“Witch,” it growled.
Willow collided with Giles, knocking the green energy ball he’d been forming toward the ceiling where it created a large hole. The Creeper studied them. The blonde female was the Slayer, and she wasn’t there. Opening its wings once more the Creeper shot through the new hole in the ceiling and Spike ran toward the shattered front doors.
“Spike!” Giles called.
“If anything’s killin’ the Slayer it’s gonna be me,” the vampire called beck, then he was gone.
Angel closed his book with a thump.
“I’m gonna try some of Giles’ bedroom books,” he declared.
Buffy nodded absently but Anya watched him ascend the stairs then moved to the Slayer’s side.
“Buffy, I need to tell you something important,” she said quietly. “The Elders of Arashmahar included a failsafe in the curse.”
The ex-demon darted a quick look toward the stairs then continued quickly.
“In order for the Creeper to transfer the curse, the Slayer has to be alive.”
“What’re you two whispering about?” Angel asked from the stairs.
“Oh, just girl talk, you know,” Anya replied quickly, overly cheerful.
Buffy stared at her with wide eyes, was Anya really suggesting that she..?
Angel continued down the stairs then Giles’ front door imploded.
“Slayer!” the Creeper cried.
Buffy stared uncomprehendingly at the creature in the living room as Anya disappeared into the bathroom and Angel dropped his book and vamped.
“Buffy, run!” he shouted as he launched himself at the Creeper.
Finally snapping out of her daze, Buffy ran.
Angel tackled the creature, taking them both to the ground. He slammed its head into the floor, cracking the hardwood with the force. The Creeper threw a punch at the vampire, sending him flying into the coffee table. Angel felt a rib crack but rose to his feet and rounded on the creature. He would not let it get to Buffy.
-a failsafe in the curse-
-the Slayer has to be alive-
Anya’s words echoed through Buffy’s head as she ran, then she stopped, turning first one way then another, lost not because she didn’t know where she was but because she didn’t know where to go. Not home, that thing would hurt her mom and not to the dorms either, there were too many people there. She was near Restfield Cemetery, maybe she could hide (as much as the thought galled her) in one of the crypts or get into the sewers? Buffy barely recognized the dampness on her cheeks as tears as she tried to make her brain work.
“Spike!” she cried, spying the vampire running toward her.
“Slayer,” he greeted then grabbed her hand and pulled her into the cemetery.
“Where is it?”
“At Giles’,” she said. “Angel’s fighting it but…”
Spike kicked in the door of a crypt and pulled her into it.
-the Slayer has to be alive-
“But?” he prompted, then turned from the doorway and took in her faraway expression, her tear-stained face.
“Buffy?”
She raised her eyes to his.
“Kill me.”
He blinked at her.
“Huh?”
The Creeper spread its wings to follow where the Slayer had run as Cordelia and the others pulled up out front. Angel grabbed one wing with both hands, doing his best to ignore the pain in his side, and hung on. The Creeper rounded on him again.
“If I’m dead it can’t do the spell. I’d rather be dead than what that thing is.”
Spike vamped and pulled her close.
“Why didn’t you say so, luv?” he asked, then sank his fangs into her throat.
Angel stumbled suddenly and the Creeper stopped mid-swing, pausing for a moment before letting out a piercing cry that forced the gathered group to clamp their hands over their ears. The thing began to stiffen up, the webbed caul around its head flared out then down and began to cover its face. It shrieked again, its wings flinging wide before being almost forcibly pulled around its struggling body. Almost completely cocooned in its own flesh the Creeper continued to struggle, the shriek, albeit muffled, still sounded until the creature was suddenly silenced, fell to the floor and was still.
“What the hell was that?” Xander demanded.
“It went back into hibernation,” Anya said, coming out of the bathroom where she’d hidden herself during the fight.
“But the twenty-three days aren’t up until midnight tonight,” Giles said.
Angel held his side, looking dazed as the others came closer to the cocooned creature.
“I didn’t think she’d actually do it,” Anya continued, mostly to herself.
“Do what?” Cordelia asked, standing as far away from the Creeper as she could.
“The Creeper curse has a clause,” Anya began. “To transfer the curse to a Slayer, that Slayer has to be alive. I guess it just gave up for this time around.”
It took a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in, but when they did…
Giles staggered like he’d been struck.
“Buffy?” Willow whispered, incredulous.
Cordelia was silent, shocked and Doyle moved to her side.
Xander was silent, grief and fury warring on his features. Finally, fury won.
“Spike!” he shouted, moving toward Giles’ weapons chest. “I’ll kill him!”
Angel stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“No,” he said softly. “I’ll deal with Spike, but right now we need to make sure that this thing will never hurt anyone ever again.”
Epilogue
The Scoobies, plus Joyce and the L.A. gang, gathered in Restfield Cemetery and watched as Angel lowered the box into the grave.
“I still say we should have gone after Spike,” Xander declared.
“He still has the Gem,” Angel reminded them. “It may take awhile, but I will find him.”
“Angel,” Joyce began. “Did he…Was she…Did it hurt her?”
The souled vampire regarded Buffy’s mother with gentle brown eyes, then shook his head.
“No,” he assured her. “The only pain she felt would have been from the bite and that doesn’t hurt too much.”
Joyce took a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay, let’s get this over with.”
Agreeing whole-heartedly Angel dropped the Creeper’s body into the steel box in the ground then strode over to the cement mixer and pulled a lever. The group stood back and watched the slimy grey mixture fill the box and cover the Creeper, then Angel dropped the lid into place.
“You guys go on ahead,’ he said and picked up a shovel. “I’ll finish up here.”
After the others had gone, and the hole was filled, Angel remained, looking down on the Creeper’s grave. Then, he spoke.
“I know you’re there.”
Spike and Buffy melted out of the shadows of the trees and came to stand by the grave, the soft rectangle of earth between the blondes and their souled family member.
“Thank you,” Buffy said. “For what you told my mom.”
“I just told her the truth,” Angel replied.
Buffy touched the healing wound on her throat and smiled softly.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Spike was silent as they spoke, scanning the dark sky, hands shoved into his duster pockets.
“It’s gonna be light soon, kitten,” he said. “We’d better get goin’.”
Buffy nodded then walked across the grave to Angel and wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Good luck in L.A.”
He hugged her back, missing the normally intense heat that used to surround her, and then released the small blonde.
“I told them that I buried you where nothing could find you,” he said.
Buffy nodded.
“Thanks. Goodbye, Angel.”
Angel watched her walk back to Spike before he spoke again.
“I want you to be happy, Buffy,” he said. “But if I ever see either of you again, I’ll kill you.”
Spike snorted in amusement but Buffy smiled back at her ex, her great grand-sire.
“I’d expect nothing less,” she said before melting into the shadows.
“Take care of her,” he told Spike.
“Always,” the blonde replied before disappearing after his childe.
Angel stared into the dark for some time after they’d gone and wasn’t surprised when Giles’ voice sounded behind him.
“I assume you knew,” the Watcher said.
Angel nodded.
“At least now she has a chance to be happy,” Angel said softly.
The man was quiet for a minute.
“Would you really kill her?” he asked. “Could you?”
The vampire turned to the Watcher.
“Yes, I could and I will, if I have to. She *is* evil, Giles. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise.”
He paused.
“The Slayer is dead, that’s all the others need to know.”
Giles nodded wordlessly, eyes lingering on the last place he’d seen his Slayer, then turned and walked away. Angel watched him go before he, too, turned to the last place he’d seen Buffy.
“Goodbye,” he whispered, then followed Giles out of the cemetery.
The End
I love writing those words and just so you know, there may be a sequel in the works. I have plot bunnies running around my brain ;)
~Ghost Writer
~Ghost Writer
The End?
Stunned silence marked the occupants of the room at the half-demon’s announcement.
“What?” Xander demanded, rising to his feet. “Why Buffy? Why a Slayer at all? What the hell kind of sense does that make?”
“Why the hell are you yelling?” Cordelia demanded.
Xander stopped and looked around the room before sitting down.
“Sorry,” he said. “Overreaction done.”
Spike rolled his eyes at the boy. How these people managed to foil his every plan was beyond comprehension.
“It’s supposed to be an impossible task,” Anya spoke up then shrugged. “Since when do those need to make sense?”
“And besides,” Buffy added. “Since when do the bad guys need a reason to try to kill me?”
“But it’s not going to kill you,” Anya reminded them. “It’s going to make you what it is.”
“It can try,” Buffy said firmly, arms crossed.
Anya threw her hands up in disgust.
“Don’t be stupid! Don’t you get it? You can’t win this time. The Creeper can not die! You can burn it, boil it, chop it up into tiny little pieces and it will still come for you. The twenty-three days are up at midnight, if you start running now you could probably stay ahead of it until then and…”
“No,” Buffy said.
“Buffy,” Angel began. “Maybe you should…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
“There may be no other alternative,” Giles began but the Slayer cut him off.
“There has to be,” she insisted. “I mean, can’t you look at the books again? Now that we know what this thing is maybe we can find a way to kill it.”
“But there is no way,” Anya insisted.
“There has to be!” the Slayer shouted. She closed her eyes for a moment and composed herself before speaking again.
“Everything that’s alive dies. It’s just a matter of when, where, and how. All we need to do is find it.”
“But,” Cordelia started but Buffy silenced her with a look.
“Find it,” the blonde repeated before turning and walking from the room.
Angel started after her but stopped as Giles sat down with a weary sigh and reached for a book.
“What are you doing?” the souled vampire asked.
“Attempting to ‘find it’,” the Watcher replied.
Xander tried to concentrate on his book, he really did, but the blonde vampire sitting across from him could be very distracting when he put his mind to it. At the moment he was doing an admirable job. Although the Gem hadn’t prevented the loss of his finger, it was making up for it by growing a new one, which he was wiggling for Xander’s benefit, the boy was certain.
Spike grinned at the disgusted look on Harris’ face. As fun as it was annoying the boy, he’d been at it for close to fifteen minutes and it was getting kind of dull. He was about to find someone else to annoy, either the Watcher who was engrossed in an extremely large text, or his grand-sire who kept giving the blonde dark looks over the top of his own book, when Doyle dropped his book with a cry of pain and grabbed his head. Angel and Cordelia were at his side in an instant.
“What is it?” Angel asked. “What do you see?”
Spike arched an eyebrow, so the bloke had visions, did he? Drusilla’s had never seemed as violent as this one’s did but, then again, she probably got off on the pain. Spike frowned, wondering where his Dark Princess was and just what the bleeding hell was he doing mixed up with the Scoobies?
“Is he okay?” Xander asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Angel told them.
“Go check on your friend,” Doyle said, still massaging his temples.
“Buffy?”
“No,” the half-demon said. “The other one, the little red head.”
Soon after Buffy had locked herself in the bathroom Willow had said that she was tired and Giles had offered the witch the use of his bed. Xander started up the stairs as Cordelia knocked on the bathroom door and asked if Buffy could get her some aspirin. Pills in hand, the brunette turned into the kitchen for a glass of water as Xander thundered back down the stairs.
“Willow’s gone,” he said. “And so are some of your books.”
Buffy came out of the bathroom, eyes suspiciously red, and asked, “Willow’s gone?”
“Which books did she take?” Giles asked, rising to his feet.
“I don’t know,” Xander told the older man. “I left my list of your bedroom library at home today.”
“There’s no call for sarcasm,” Giles said as he quickly ascended the stairs.
“I think it’s pretty obvious where she went,” Anya said. “She wants vengeance so bad that even I can sense it and I don’t even have my powers anymore.”
“Powers?” Angel asked, looking lost.
“I was a Vengeance Demon for eleven hundred and twenty years,” the woman told him.
“Oh.”
Giles descended the stairs drawing all eyes to him, looking stricken.
“What did she take?” Buffy asked.
“Mot du Diable.”
The French speakers in the room all stared at him. Buffy looked confused.
“That’s French, right?”
“You have that?” Anya asked.
“I thought it was destroyed in the 1300s,” Angel said.
“Translation for those of us under fifty,” Cordelia commanded.
Giles gave her a mildly offended look.
“I’m forty-five,” he informed her to which she rolled her eyes. “Mot du Diable translates to ‘Word of the Devil’. It contains some of the blackest spells known. Death majicks.”
“Willow’s gonna kill something?” Cordelia asked disbelief evident in her voice.
“No,” Doyle said softly. “Something’s gonna kill her.”
“What?” Xander demanded.
“The Word of the Devil is a book of devil’s bargains,” Spike supplied. “Only the thing you summon collects right away instead of waitin’ for you to pop off on your own.”
“We have to find her,” Buffy declared looking horrified then turned to Giles. “Why would you have a book like that?”
“It was in a box I purchased at a sorcerers estate auction.”
“Did you see where she was?” Cordelia asked Doyle.
“A morgue is all I saw and given the normal state of affairs around here I’m betting there’s more ‘n one.”
Buffy frowned.
“Morgue,” she muttered talking mostly to herself. “She’d want to be with Oz…called the cops from campus; they would’ve taken him to the nearest one…”
She trailed off for a moment then suddenly perked up.
“Oh, Oak View Mortuary is only a block and a half from the college!”
Giles looked pleased.
“Very good, Buffy.”
She shrugged.
“I do a sweep by there every night.”
“Most of the spells in the book take a great deal of preparation,” Giles said turning toward the door. “We should be able to stop Willow before she even begins. Xander, Cordelia, and, um, Doyle, would you like to accompany us?”
“I’ll drive,” Cordelia said cheerily. “That way I won’t actually have to go inside.”
“I’m in,” Xander said.
Doyle shrugged. “Why not?”
“Then let’s go,” Buffy announced on her way to the door. Anya grabbed her arm and hung on.
“What are you doing?” the Slayer asked.
“What are *you* doing?” the ex-demon demanded. “All the Creeper needs now is you to finish its spell and you’re going to just go flaunting yourself on the streets?”
“But it’s daylight,” the blonde protested.
Anya sighed and rolled her eyes.
“The Creeper prefers the night to the day but it’s not restricted like a vampire. And since it already has the rest of what it needs and the twenty-three days are up tonight it’s going to be looking for you.”
Buffy looked torn.
“Stay here Slayer,” Spike said, surprising them. “I’ll go get your witch.”
He shrugged.
“About time I got in a decent spot of violence anyway.”
“One problem with that, nimrod,” Angel told him. “It’s daylight outside.”
Spike smirked at the taller man and held up the Gem.
“Guess it’s a good thing I got this, then, innit?”
Angel’s smile faltered.
“Where..? How..? That can’t be…”
Spike just shrugged.
“Figure it’ll come in handy after this whole Creeper business is over. Me and the Slayer have some things to finish.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at the death threat but Angel lunged at Spike, intent on removing the ring from his finger. The younger vampire ducked under his arms and slipped out the door. Bathed in the early morning sunlight he grinned at Angel who glowered back from the safety of the apartment.
“You want it so bad?” Spike taunted, lifting his face to the no-longer-deadly orb in the sky. “Come and get it.”
Angel growled, preparing to launch himself across the brightly lit courtyard, when Buffy laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Angel, stay with me,” she requested softly, then admitted, “I don’t wanna be alone.”
His features softened.
“Go get Willow before she gets hurt,” he told the others. “I’ll stay with Buffy.”
“Me, too,” Anya piped up. “I’m not a fighting person.”
“Nice mid-life crisis-mobile you got, Peaches,” Spike called from the front seat of Angel’s car.
Angel sighed and firmly shut the door, cutting off anything else the bleached blonde might have said.
“Can I kill him when he’s done helping?” he asked Buffy.
Willow walked through the quiet mortuary, her duffel bag of supplies hung over one shoulder and she hugged the large book to her chest. The spell of unease she had cast outside had cleared the building of its living occupants, leaving her alone with Oz to work her spell. Silently, the witch pushed through the heavy wooden door that divided the back room from the chapel and coffin show room, and spotted him almost immediately, lying on a metal gurney toward the middle of the room. A sheet covered the horrible hole of a wound in his chest leaving his head and shoulders exposed.
Willow stood frozen in the doorway. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the bright fluorescent light above him, small specks of blood dotted his face and neck but one in particular grabbed her attention; settled below the corner of one eye like a scarlet teardrop. Book and duffel hit the floor, both going unnoticed by the young woman as she made her way to her boyfriend’s side.
“Oh, Oz,” she choked, and gently stroked his hair as the tears began to fall.
Spike slumped in the passenger seat, drumming his fingers against the side of the door, and sighed. Could the cheerleader drive any slower? He looked up at the blue sky, the faint wisps of white clouds, and tried to remember the last time he’d seen a sky like that, then tensed.
“Speed up, Princess,” he commanded.
“I don’t take orders from you, peroxide boy,” she shot back.
“Rupes,” he called the Watchers’ attention then pointed out the window and Giles, too, caught sight of the creature wining through the sky.
“Cordelia, speed up,” he commanded.
The Creeper flew determinedly toward the place the other humans had taken the werewolf’s body. Humans had attachments to one another, it remembered that. It also knew that the red haired woman’s scent covered the wolf. There were only two women in the group, both smelled of power and Slayer, but which was the one it needed? Very soon, it would know. The wolf’s blood called to it as well as the scent of Power/Slayer.
Pulling its wings around its body the Creeper fell into a dive to make any hawk proud and burst through the heavy double doors of the Oak View Mortuary in a shower of splinters. Following its nose, the creature strode over the remains of the front door and through the dividing door. The red haired woman was crumpled on the floor by a shiny table where the wolf’s body rested, one of his limp hands clutched in her own, and looked up into the Creeper’s face with dull, red-rimmed eyes. Ignoring the screech of tires and raised voices behind it the Creeper quickly made its way to the woman.
“Willow!” Xander shouted.
The Creeper grabbed her head with both hands and brought her to her feet. She gripped it wrists as she quickly found her feet… and her magic.
“Ign…” she began but the Creeper covered her mouth with one large hand. If she was the Slayer she wouldn’t be the first of her line to know spells.
“Get away from my friend!” Xander yelled as he and Doyle charged the man-like creature.
The Creeper shot a wing out and back, flinging the two men into the others, and pulled the struggling woman closer. Closer. It bent its head to her face, its mouth slightly opened to reveal wickedly sharp teeth to the terrified woman, and then it sniffed her. Starting at her cheek and ending buried in her hair, it brought in one great lungful of air and scent after another, then growled. The scents were too confusing; giving up on that avenue it licked her then flung her away in disgust.
“Witch,” it growled.
Willow collided with Giles, knocking the green energy ball he’d been forming toward the ceiling where it created a large hole. The Creeper studied them. The blonde female was the Slayer, and she wasn’t there. Opening its wings once more the Creeper shot through the new hole in the ceiling and Spike ran toward the shattered front doors.
“Spike!” Giles called.
“If anything’s killin’ the Slayer it’s gonna be me,” the vampire called beck, then he was gone.
Angel closed his book with a thump.
“I’m gonna try some of Giles’ bedroom books,” he declared.
Buffy nodded absently but Anya watched him ascend the stairs then moved to the Slayer’s side.
“Buffy, I need to tell you something important,” she said quietly. “The Elders of Arashmahar included a failsafe in the curse.”
The ex-demon darted a quick look toward the stairs then continued quickly.
“In order for the Creeper to transfer the curse, the Slayer has to be alive.”
“What’re you two whispering about?” Angel asked from the stairs.
“Oh, just girl talk, you know,” Anya replied quickly, overly cheerful.
Buffy stared at her with wide eyes, was Anya really suggesting that she..?
Angel continued down the stairs then Giles’ front door imploded.
“Slayer!” the Creeper cried.
Buffy stared uncomprehendingly at the creature in the living room as Anya disappeared into the bathroom and Angel dropped his book and vamped.
“Buffy, run!” he shouted as he launched himself at the Creeper.
Finally snapping out of her daze, Buffy ran.
Angel tackled the creature, taking them both to the ground. He slammed its head into the floor, cracking the hardwood with the force. The Creeper threw a punch at the vampire, sending him flying into the coffee table. Angel felt a rib crack but rose to his feet and rounded on the creature. He would not let it get to Buffy.
-a failsafe in the curse-
-the Slayer has to be alive-
Anya’s words echoed through Buffy’s head as she ran, then she stopped, turning first one way then another, lost not because she didn’t know where she was but because she didn’t know where to go. Not home, that thing would hurt her mom and not to the dorms either, there were too many people there. She was near Restfield Cemetery, maybe she could hide (as much as the thought galled her) in one of the crypts or get into the sewers? Buffy barely recognized the dampness on her cheeks as tears as she tried to make her brain work.
“Spike!” she cried, spying the vampire running toward her.
“Slayer,” he greeted then grabbed her hand and pulled her into the cemetery.
“Where is it?”
“At Giles’,” she said. “Angel’s fighting it but…”
Spike kicked in the door of a crypt and pulled her into it.
-the Slayer has to be alive-
“But?” he prompted, then turned from the doorway and took in her faraway expression, her tear-stained face.
“Buffy?”
She raised her eyes to his.
“Kill me.”
He blinked at her.
“Huh?”
The Creeper spread its wings to follow where the Slayer had run as Cordelia and the others pulled up out front. Angel grabbed one wing with both hands, doing his best to ignore the pain in his side, and hung on. The Creeper rounded on him again.
“If I’m dead it can’t do the spell. I’d rather be dead than what that thing is.”
Spike vamped and pulled her close.
“Why didn’t you say so, luv?” he asked, then sank his fangs into her throat.
Angel stumbled suddenly and the Creeper stopped mid-swing, pausing for a moment before letting out a piercing cry that forced the gathered group to clamp their hands over their ears. The thing began to stiffen up, the webbed caul around its head flared out then down and began to cover its face. It shrieked again, its wings flinging wide before being almost forcibly pulled around its struggling body. Almost completely cocooned in its own flesh the Creeper continued to struggle, the shriek, albeit muffled, still sounded until the creature was suddenly silenced, fell to the floor and was still.
“What the hell was that?” Xander demanded.
“It went back into hibernation,” Anya said, coming out of the bathroom where she’d hidden herself during the fight.
“But the twenty-three days aren’t up until midnight tonight,” Giles said.
Angel held his side, looking dazed as the others came closer to the cocooned creature.
“I didn’t think she’d actually do it,” Anya continued, mostly to herself.
“Do what?” Cordelia asked, standing as far away from the Creeper as she could.
“The Creeper curse has a clause,” Anya began. “To transfer the curse to a Slayer, that Slayer has to be alive. I guess it just gave up for this time around.”
It took a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in, but when they did…
Giles staggered like he’d been struck.
“Buffy?” Willow whispered, incredulous.
Cordelia was silent, shocked and Doyle moved to her side.
Xander was silent, grief and fury warring on his features. Finally, fury won.
“Spike!” he shouted, moving toward Giles’ weapons chest. “I’ll kill him!”
Angel stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“No,” he said softly. “I’ll deal with Spike, but right now we need to make sure that this thing will never hurt anyone ever again.”
Epilogue
The Scoobies, plus Joyce and the L.A. gang, gathered in Restfield Cemetery and watched as Angel lowered the box into the grave.
“I still say we should have gone after Spike,” Xander declared.
“He still has the Gem,” Angel reminded them. “It may take awhile, but I will find him.”
“Angel,” Joyce began. “Did he…Was she…Did it hurt her?”
The souled vampire regarded Buffy’s mother with gentle brown eyes, then shook his head.
“No,” he assured her. “The only pain she felt would have been from the bite and that doesn’t hurt too much.”
Joyce took a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay, let’s get this over with.”
Agreeing whole-heartedly Angel dropped the Creeper’s body into the steel box in the ground then strode over to the cement mixer and pulled a lever. The group stood back and watched the slimy grey mixture fill the box and cover the Creeper, then Angel dropped the lid into place.
“You guys go on ahead,’ he said and picked up a shovel. “I’ll finish up here.”
After the others had gone, and the hole was filled, Angel remained, looking down on the Creeper’s grave. Then, he spoke.
“I know you’re there.”
Spike and Buffy melted out of the shadows of the trees and came to stand by the grave, the soft rectangle of earth between the blondes and their souled family member.
“Thank you,” Buffy said. “For what you told my mom.”
“I just told her the truth,” Angel replied.
Buffy touched the healing wound on her throat and smiled softly.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Spike was silent as they spoke, scanning the dark sky, hands shoved into his duster pockets.
“It’s gonna be light soon, kitten,” he said. “We’d better get goin’.”
Buffy nodded then walked across the grave to Angel and wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Good luck in L.A.”
He hugged her back, missing the normally intense heat that used to surround her, and then released the small blonde.
“I told them that I buried you where nothing could find you,” he said.
Buffy nodded.
“Thanks. Goodbye, Angel.”
Angel watched her walk back to Spike before he spoke again.
“I want you to be happy, Buffy,” he said. “But if I ever see either of you again, I’ll kill you.”
Spike snorted in amusement but Buffy smiled back at her ex, her great grand-sire.
“I’d expect nothing less,” she said before melting into the shadows.
“Take care of her,” he told Spike.
“Always,” the blonde replied before disappearing after his childe.
Angel stared into the dark for some time after they’d gone and wasn’t surprised when Giles’ voice sounded behind him.
“I assume you knew,” the Watcher said.
Angel nodded.
“At least now she has a chance to be happy,” Angel said softly.
The man was quiet for a minute.
“Would you really kill her?” he asked. “Could you?”
The vampire turned to the Watcher.
“Yes, I could and I will, if I have to. She *is* evil, Giles. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise.”
He paused.
“The Slayer is dead, that’s all the others need to know.”
Giles nodded wordlessly, eyes lingering on the last place he’d seen his Slayer, then turned and walked away. Angel watched him go before he, too, turned to the last place he’d seen Buffy.
“Goodbye,” he whispered, then followed Giles out of the cemetery.
The End
I love writing those words and just so you know, there may be a sequel in the works. I have plot bunnies running around my brain ;)
~Ghost Writer
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