Slayer For Sale Part 1


“Is she awake yet? They’ll be wanting her on the auction block soon. How much of that stuff did you give her, anyway?”

Buffy didn’t want to open her eyes. She heard the growling voices above her head and decided it was best to keep them closed. If they thought she was still out, they might leave her long enough for her to get away.

“Not enough to knock her out for this long.”

She cracked the lid of the eye closest to the ground and found herself in a cage, being observed by two demons. She didn’t recognize what species, other than big and not so pretty looking. Didn’t matter, she supposed. She closed her eye, and allowed herself the peace of the unconscious again.

It could have been hours or days, but she felt herself hauled to her feet by chains around her wrists. She let herself go limp in their grasp, and they were none too gentle as they dragged her to a display stand in the front of the abandoned factory. Her arms were raised over her head, feeling a cool wind blow across her skin, and realizing for the first time that they had stripped her of her clothing and she was displayed naked on the dais.

She moaned aloud and one of the demons grinned. “Looks like she’s waking up, just in time for the show.”

I will not open my eyes. I will not open my eyes. She wondered how she had gotten herself into this. Then she wondered how she would get out of it.

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

She had been patrolling alone, as she had wanted to do. She didn’t want any of the Scoobies involved, so she left them at their respective homes. When it was just her, she didn’t have to worry. It was her heinie on the line and nobody else’s, and she liked it that way.

The only fly in her cake was Spike. It seemed that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the bleach blond vampire to leave her alone. Ever since that little debacle outside of the Bronze when she suspected he was trying to flirt with her, he had been a thorn in her side, no matter what she did to try to stop him.

She thought he was shadowing her now. She felt the familiar tingles at the base of her neck, the clenching of her gut that signaled his presence. She stopped at the edge of the forest that surrounded the cemetery, and looked around.

“Spike, I know you’re there. Come out.” There was no appearance though, nothing slithering from the shadows, only the sound of crickets in the night.

“Spike, I’m not kidding, all right? Come out before I come in and stake you.”

Her threats fell on empty air and she scratched her head with the stake in her hand. She spun on her heels, hearing a sound behind her, and something hit her on the back of the head. It wasn’t enough to knock her out, but the jab of pain at the side of her neck was, and then darkness overtook her.

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

She was completely awake now, and totally pissed.

A couple of demons walked by her, giggling and whispering behind their hands. She heard them mention how scrawny she was, and how disfigured, because she only had two breasts instead of six, and her stomach heaved in fear and disgust. What was she doing here, and how did she get here?

“Slayer, you’re awake. Good. We’ll have you up on the block shortly, and you won’t have to suffer the gawkers much longer.”

She looked up, and if a demon’s face could be considered kind, this one was. “We’re sorry, dear, but you’re the star attraction for the auction, and we had to put you on display. It isn’t often we have celebrities.”

“Where? What?” Her throat was parched like she’d swallowed gallons of sand. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and her jaw felt swollen.

The demon’s face was sympathetic, her grim smile less than comforting. “You’re at the auction house, dear. You’re on the block next.”

Buffy's brain whirled into overdrive. Auction? On the block? What the hell was happening here?

The demon reached up and unlocked her wrists long enough to slide the chain out of the ring overhead, then reattached the chain to the manacle on her wrist. “Now, we can do this the easy way, where you walk on your own speed, or we can do it the hard way, where we drag you and possibly hurt you. What would you prefer?”

“Walk,” she rasped and she was hauled to her feet. She stumbled over the manacles on her feet, almost falling, but quickly regained her balance with her Slayer skills. She followed the demon up a short flight of stairs, and realized she was standing in front of thousands of demons, vampires, and various other assorted supernatural creatures.

The sound of the announcer reverberated through the warehouse, his bass voice thrumming through her skin and shaking her bones. “Tonight…a special presentation on our auction block…a prize of the highest quality…a boon rarely seen in our offerings…one of only two known specimens…the Slayer!”

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

Spike was drinking heavily. He never came to these bloody things, usually. Slave auctions weren’t his cuppa, but a couple of blokes owed him some dosh, and he came to collect before they blew it all on slaves they would only have for one night. They rarely lasted longer than that with the physical differences.

He was heading back to the bar for his last refill when he heard the announcer building the crowd for the ‘special auction’ they’d squawked about all night. He heard the word slayer, and his head swiveled of its own accord.

His eyes sought the dais, and he saw that it actually was the slayer, chained to beams that seemed too weak to hold her. He found himself urging her mentally to break out of there. He knew she couldn’t hear him.

The auctioneer was expounding on her good qualities. “Her skin is perfect and flawless, with nary a scar or mark on it. No birthmarks, other than the one that defines her as a slayer. Healthy arms and legs, strong in the right places. And yes, I realize to some she may seem deformed, but with two breasts and one vagina, she is the epitome of the perfect human.”

Spike shoved his way to the front of the crowd, and tried to catch Buffy's attention. She was studiously ignoring individual faces, looking out over the crowd as a whole, and try as he might, he couldn’t get her to notice him.

He turned to the nearest vamp, and said, “How do I bid?”

The vamp started to laugh in his face, but Spike's growl of superiority quickly stopped it. “You have to go over and get a number. Buddy, this one ain’t going cheap. Bidding starts at five thou.”

“Five thousand dollars?” Spike asked. He didn’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed at the amount quoted.

“Yeah. They thought if this was the real slayer, they might be able to get some real money outta her and go legit—like a demon Ebay or something, I guess.”

He muscled his way to the auctioneer’s assistant and grabbed a number off the table. Then it was back to the front, under the auctioneer’s podium, and he was still willing the Slayer to look him in the eye, just once.

There were catcalls and hoots of laughter when the auctioneer ran his hand up her thigh and Buffy moved away. Spike had to gnash his fangs together to keep from jumping up there and knocking the bloke’s block off. He’d be able to do it in a fair fight, but with this many demons milling around, fair would be the last thing this fight would be. Without backup, weapons, and nothing but his wits, he had to win this auction and get his Slayer out of here before something bad happened.

Then something bad did happen. A Gren'oth demon moved several others out of the way, and began to flash fangs dripping with entrails. “She might make a nice snack. I hear Slayer is real tender meat.”

Another demon Spike didn’t recognize added, “I hear their blood is an aphrodisiac too. May come in handy, what with mating season so close and all.”

If I draw dosh out of my account, I’ll have plenty left over. This isn’t the way she should go, up on the block for anyone to purchase. She should go dancing, doing what she did best—slaying. And if he had anything to say about it, it would be him…. Spike decided then and there that if it took every dime, he would buy the Slayer, if only to keep her from being eaten, or worse.

True to what he’d been told, he heard the bidding start at five thousand dollars. Not an eye blinked. Several demons bid furiously among themselves, then dropped out when the Gren’oth upped the bid to twenty thousand.

At twenty-two, Spike raised his number for the first time, trying to impress how serious he was about this purchase.

The auctioneer chortled at the sight of the vampire bidding on the Slayer. “Awful lot to pay for a meal, isn’t it?”

“M’bid stands,” he replied coolly, in a voice that held no room for argument.

“All right, then, we have twenty-two. Do I hear twenty-two five?”

The demon droned on. Spike kept raising his card, keeping his high bidder status, until he heard a groan from the Gren’oth next to him. It was then the auctioneer finally recognized him and realized his reputation, and wondered if there wasn’t some other reason that Spike wanted the Slayer, especially this one.

“Take her. She probably won’t taste good anyway. Too thin and stringy,” the Gren’oth barked at him with a scowl.

“—Sold! To the Slayer of Slayers down in front for thirty-five thousand dollars!”