“I have to get to Buffy.” Willow was wringing her hands and pacing along the length of the fence. “If he separated her from William, she must feel desper—oh Goddess, that will only make him stronger!”


~~~~~*~~~~~


The sun was finally setting, painting the horizon with shades of purple that would have made William write poetry any other day. That was the last thing on his mind, however, as he climbed the outer wall of the Immortal’s castle. A fierce grin graced his lips. William the Bloody was back.

Adalberto’s smile was just as fierce as he watched him on the security camera. His plan had been to keep the Slayer and her vampire apart, until William’s demise at Kennedy’s hands, but this presented him with an opportunity.

It seemed he might feed for longer than he’d hoped.




Chapter 20



“Goddess, come on, Buffy. Come on, come on, come on…” Willow’s eyes were shut as she kept alternating between chanting the words of the telepathy spell and pleading with her best friend to hear her, wherever she was.


It had to work, had to, because there was no other option. She had to tell the others, of course, but they would require explanations, and she knew she didn’t have time for that. Not until she’d warned Buffy.


“Come on,” she half growled, and this time she felt a hint of a response, like the blink of an eye, like drawing air for a yawn. “Buffy? Can you hear me?”


Just as she was getting ready to send another, stronger, blast with her mind, the door to her room flew open, and Kennedy burst in.


“What are you doing there?” The Slayer’s face was distorted with rage, and Willow had no doubt that her ex-lover had heard her chanting.


Ignoring her, she tried again, calling for Buffy both in her mind, and with actual words.


Kennedy closed the space between them, using her fingers to put out a few of the scented candles surrounding the redhead. “Stop it, now.” Her voice was high pitched; that of a spoiled brat who didn’t like to share her toys.


Willow didn’t have time for that crap. It was bad enough that the brunette was messing with her focus. And those candles might not have been necessary for her to find Buffy, but they smelled darned good. “Get out of here, Ken,” she said in a low voice.


A smarter person would have recognized that voice for what it was; the calm before the storm. Kennedy, however, had proven time and time again in those last few days that she wasn’t as smart as she believed herself to be. Grabbing Willow’s arm, she yelled, “Stop. That bitch will get what’s coming to her.”


The bitch who got what was coming to her wasn’t Buffy.


Without a word, Willow just raised her right hand, fingers splayed, and Kennedy was flown across the room and into the screen with the little china dolls—that she’d insisted on collecting and Willow had always found creepy.


Proving her lack of brains once more, the Slayer grabbed a shard of glass—bloodying her hand—and walked back to the Wiccan, menacingly. “Don’t make me hurt you, Willow.”


The redhead arched an eyebrow questioningly. “You can’t hurt me, Ken,” she said sadly. “No more than you have already.” With that, she muttered a few words that made it impossible for the other woman to come within three feet of her, then returned to her task.


Kennedy was lividly trying to reach her, uselessly banging against an invisible barrier, when Dawn rushed in, drawn by the sound of the glass breaking. Seeing the opportunity for what it was, Kennedy grabbed the younger woman, pinning her arms against her torso, and held the sharp glass edge against her throat. “Dawnie here will be in deep shit if you don’t leave matters alone,” she barked at Willow, an ugly sneer on her face.


Wiccan and Key saw the next few moments unfold as if in slow motion. Neither could tell exactly what happened, even though they both had their suspicions.


Willow saw a line of blood mar Dawn’s neck where the shard was digging into it, and a drop fall on Ken’s hand.


Dawn thought she saw Willow’s eyes flash black for just a second.


Kennedy started screaming—an inhuman sound—and… deflating. Literally. It looked like she had no bones, as her body became slimmer and slimmer, until it was no more than a line.


Dawn thought it looked like she was being sucked into something through a tiny little opening.


Willow wondered how Kennedy could make all that noise if her lungs had flattened.


Then Kennedy was no more. She disappeared, leaving behind an echo of her anguish that soon faded, too.


Dawn looked at Willow, who was trembling. “What just happened?”


The redhead shook her head. “I—I don’t know.” Seeing the girl she’d come to view as a younger sister cover her throat with a not-so-steady hand, she asked, “Are you ok?”


Nodding, Dawn said, “Just a scratch.” It was odd how she felt no sadness at the thought of never seeing Kennedy again, odder still that Willow seemed fine with it. “Are you?”


“I am, but Buffy isn’t.” She sighed. She’d have to explain things to other people after all. “Short version, she’s been kidnapped by the Immortal and I have to tell her what I found out about him. There may be no time for us to go get her.”


She sighed again, this time in relief, when all Dawn asked was, “How can I help?”



~~~~~*~~~~~



William was getting really close to losing it. Buffy’s voice in his head had become weaker since he’d gotten into the bloody building, and was now completely silent. He’d thought he’d heard her yelp when he was jumping down the outer wall, but she’d said she’d just scraped her thigh somewhere, and things had only gone downhill from there. If it weren’t for feeling her heartbeat in his chest—something he’d realized he could do, if he concentrated on blocking out all other sound, he’d think she was lost to him.


She couldn’t be lost to him. *I’m coming, Kitten* he sent out to her, not knowing if she could hear him. *Just a couple of turns up ahead.* Finding the entrance to the catacombs had been easy, he’d noticed the ground being more stepped on, the flowers just a bit more spaced near one wall, but making his way through them was not exactly a piece of cake without Buffy calling out to him.


*William?* Her voice made him jump, then sigh with relief.


*You’re ok.* Yes, he was stating the obvious, but he didn’t mind.


*I think he drugged me. From a distance. An arrow or something.* She sounded tired. *I think I was supposed to still be out of it. And he’s here.* He felt her tense at something the bastard said or did, but she wouldn’t let him see what.


A faint light shone to his right, and he could detect her unique, Buffy, scent coming from that direction. *Found you.*


The moment he rounded that bend in the path, he froze.


Buffy was indeed entirely naked, suspended from the wall, and the Immortal was a bit to the side, facing her, and cupping one of her breasts. There was something in his free hand, that glinted, but William ignored it. All he could see was someone touching his mate, and that someone had to die. Roaring, he made to run closer, but Adalberto’s voice stopped him on his tracks.


“Come closer, vampire, and I will cut her. No Slayer-healing is a bad thing, yes?” He chuckled like what he’d just said was funny. “Humans break so easily,” he added, lisping his Ss. They bleed easily, too.” With that, he pressed the tip of the knife William could now see he was holding, under Buffy’s right breast, just enough for some blood to well up.


“Let her go,” William growled, taking in the other’s face as he turned to him. The Immortal’s eyes were sunken, and it looked like there was only skin covering his skull. Paper-thin skin. “Now.”


The Immortal dragged the flat side of the knife down Buffy’s stomach. “Or what?” It was unsettling hearing the sturdy voice come out of something that looked dead for centuries, and that was a person of the undead persuasion being unsettled.


The vampire could feel the effort his Slayer put up to not flinch away from his touch or the cold metal. “You won’t kill her,” he said, sounding more certain than he felt.


“Are you willing to risk that?” the pillock’s voice boomed. “I will regret not having her. I would love to hear her scream. Then again, I could make her scream now.” The knife reached the apex of Buffy’s thighs, and William took a step forward, before a shake of Adalberto’s head stopped him. “She’s drugged and I have injected her with the potion the Council used. She won’t put up much of a fight as I take her,” the Immortal went on. “You will be dead by then, of course.”


William felt a profound sense of despair twist his insides in a knot. He needed to take Buffy away from there, but he could sense only fear coming from her. She was convinced the Immortal would act on his threat and her mind was racing, grasping at straws as she tried to figure out a way to save him. Trying to buy them both some time, in hope their bond would help her fight the potion off like it’d obviously done with the sedative, he asked, “How are you planning on doing that?”


“Oh, I am not the one who will do it. I was planning on having someone help me, but you walking out into the sunlight will do.”


“The morning is a long time from now,” William mused.


Adalberto grinned. “I can wait. And Buffy will watch you do it, because that will be the only way for her to live.” He scraped her left thigh with the blade, fresh blood tickling William’s nostrils.


A new wave of despair hit him, coming from his mate. *If you die, I die,* came her thoughts. *We will find a way around it,* he thought back to her, knowing she knew he couldn’t guarantee that. More than ten feet separated him from where Buffy and the Immortal stood, and there was no way he could close that distance before the bastard nicked an artery.


*No, we wont.* She sounded resigned, and he thought he’d rather die than hear her like that again.


Then something weird happened. It was like someone cut into their connection, filling his head with static. His panic levels rose dramatically. Talking to her that way had been the only thing keeping him sane, but now he couldn’t even feel her heartbeat, even though he could see her chest rise and fall with it. Sure, he could see her, but something had severed their bond. Maybe what Adalberto had injected her with had done that. “Buffy,” he cried out, making the Immortal look to her for a second to see the reason for his distress.


There was no reply.


“Kill me,” he told the ancient being. If the Immortal distanced himself from Buffy, maybe there was something he could do. Still, there was a little part of him that insisted that if their bond was severed, there was no hope for either of them.


Adalberto looked from one blond to the other, his shark-like grin splitting his face in two. He could feel his strength increasing by the second. Just for the fun of it, he carved a line on the weakened Slayer’s stomach.



~~~~~*~~~~~



Willow felt Buffy’s worry flood her, clogging her throat, and making her eyes water, as soon as their connection was established. “Buffy? Buffy, it’s me.” She didn’t know why she spoke aloud, but it made Dawn bounce, so she decided to keep it up.


*Willow? How—*


“Never mind that. I can help you.”


*Are you close? Are you coming?*


Feeling guilt for squashing the glimmer of hope in her friend’s thoughts, the redhead said, “No. But I know how to kill him.”


It was like she saw the blonde’s shoulders sag when the next thought came. *I know that too, but he’s got a knife, and I’m weak. Cruciamentum-weak.* And after a second, *There’s little hope, Wills. Take care of Dawnie and Xan, if something happens.*


“No, Buffy, don’t say there’s no—don’t feel there’s no hope. That’s what makes him strong.” Sensing her friend’s confusion, she explained, “He feeds on negative emotions. Stay calm, happy, and you’ll manage to—”


*Willow, I’m chained!* Buffy’s mind-voice sounded irritated, which was definitely better than desperate. *And he’s cutting me.*


It was Eureka time again. “What are the chains made of?”



~~~~~*~~~~~



Opening her eyes, Buffy gave William the sweetest smile he’d ever seen, before turning to Adalberto. “Yes, kill him.”


Both men gaped at her, before William tried to touch at her thoughts again. *Can you hear me? Thank God.*


*I can, and I know how to get us out of here. All you have to do is believe it.*


Thinking, *This isn’t Neverland,* he shook his head ruefully, and received a mental slap for his transgression.


*He feeds off your pain and despair. All bad feelings,* she sent him, before turning to Adalberto again. “Kill him,” she said again. “If you can.”


The Immortal sneered, or it seemed like a sneer, but she couldn’t be sure, with his lips missing from the mummified face. “Oh, I can.”


“Show me,” she challenged, biting back a disgusted sound as she forced herself to smile seductively. “Without this.”


It seemed that no matter how ancient, males were always driven by their ego. “I will show you,” he promised, giving her a glimpse of a black, snake-like tongue when he said the letter L.


The moment he let his knife drop to the ground, Buffy looped the steel chain that constrained one of her arms around his neck. “Show me how you die.”


He tried to shake her off, but she managed to lock a leg around his shin, too. “William,” she called her vampire. “Now would be a good time. And think happy thoughts.”


He did just as she commanded, but a kick to the groin stalled him just long enough for Adalberto to lean back with all his force, banging Buffy against the wall with a crack that made William’s heart constrict.


Her body went limp instantly, her weight having the opposite effect than what the Immortal had hoped for, as it held the chains taut around his neck. He tried to break free, William’s new loss of hope strengthening him, but he’d had those chains made to be Slayer-strength-resistant and they were worth their money. His only hope was to get his knife, and that was what he tried to do, the metal noose keeping it just out of his reach.


Folded in half, William had managed to do nothing but cry out Buffy’s name ever since she’d passed out, barely aware that he was wasting his only chance to save them both, over the mind-numbing pain. He had forgotten all about how his feeling hopeless was feeding his enemy, and wasn’t even registering said enemy going for his knife.


Until he heard Buffy whisper, “Cuddles, and sex, and… blowjobs. Get him.”


An all consuming sense of glee surged through him as he leaped in front of the Immortal, kicked the knife further out of his reach, and grasped both ends of the chain. “Game over, asshole.” Pulling for all he was worth, he managed to straighten the chain and send the not-so-Immortal’s head rolling to the floor, as the man’s dried up body collapsed. Neither blond noticed the thin, slightly glowing mist that left his remains.


Buffy raised her head and snorted. “The immortal. Pfft.” She rolled her eyes, wincing at the pain that sent jolts through her skull. “I’ll start calling myself The Supermodel. See if it takes.” William’s laughter, just this side of hysterics, made her pout. “What? People obviously name themselves whatever they feel like.”


He had knelt down to search through Adalberto’s pockets for the keys to her shackles, and was holding said keys firmly, as he rose to his feet to give her a kiss. “Let’s get you out of here.”



~~~~~~*~~~~~~



By the time Sofia entered the catacombs, no living or undead being was there. She took the opportunity to give the withered body of her one-time Master a hard kick, and rushed to where she knew he’d kept the last of his captured souls. Hers.


The piece of wall gave way easily, revealing what was hidden behind it. It only took a hard twist, and the vial was open.


And for the first time since she was sixteen, she was free.




Tbc.