Chapter Six
Dalton’s Point of View

It is ten minutes before sun up and there is a group of us waiting by an open door. It doesn’t feel very smart to me but I’d rather face the sun than Drusilla’s wrath. She had an inkling that Angelus would be making his triumphant return back into our lives. What joy. Yet another vampire to run me ragged and use my brain for menial tasks.

A few weeks ago Drusilla grew antsy waiting for Spike to kill the slayer and help her bring her sire back into the evil fold. She sent me on a search for a spell to speed up the process, and I found something that would do the trick. A simple spell that would make any person give in to their single most deepest desire. All it took were a few generic phrases and a personal belonging to send the desired target spiraling towards a hidden want. When I noticed Spike was taking his time killing the slayer I decided to help speed things up and cast the spell on him also. With the slayer gone, Angelus coming back, and a crazy Drusilla fawning over her sire it would cause a rift among the ranks of vampires looking up to them. It would give me just enough time to rally them behind me for a takeover. I may not have the brawn of the three stooges but I have a brain far more capable of running a nest of vampires to clear-cut victories against those who oppose us.

While we are staring at the impending sunrise Drusilla grows more anxious by the second. With that anxiousness comes anger and she pushes a newly risen vampire out the door, warning him that he will not be let in until Angelus has safely made it home to her. The scared idiot goes running back and forth trying to find someone he has never even met and I can’t help but to smile. Little does she know that if she sent me out there she would have been rid of a threat.

Spike is sitting in a corner farther away from the door just looking on at Drusilla but barely acknowledges her. Surely his mind is somewhere else, perhaps on the slayer that he is having a hard time killing. Shame on him for having any desire towards her other than sucking the life out of her to help heal Drusilla. I would tsk at his behavior if it weren’t working out to my advantage. Rather than wanting her dead he wants to get in her pants.

“Dru, love. I know you want Angelus home, but what good is it really if we’re all bacon-bits by the time he gets here?” Spike questions as he draws something in the dirt at his feet. “Close the door. He’s lived a long time as a vampire and he’ll get here just fine if he truly did lose his soul.”

The younger vampires that had gathered around the doorway are beginning to look extremely nervous, unable to take their eyes off of the dark sky that is giving way to the sunlight. More and more light is seeping into the darkened room. I’ve picked the spot farthest from where any light will reach but even I can feel the itch that vampires get when they are too close for their own good. With a growl Drusilla kicks the door shut, the exertion of the task is enough to push her to the brink of her limits and she is begins to sway. Without missing a beat Spike is behind her leading her to the bedroom.

Buffy’s Point of View

“Does it feel like it worked?” Ten minutes into being at school and I already have a couple sets of eyes staring at me expectantly. Willow looks almost giddy at the thought of a successful spell.

“I don’t know, I haven’t come across Spike again. I didn’t go home until this morning, I tried staying over Angel’s to see if I could catch up on sleep.” Willow grabs my arm and pulls me to the side of the hallway.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” Willow asks. Does it mean that I had sex? No, not that I didn’t try. I tried flat out seducing Angel but he turned me down, he spouted some crap about it not being right and that I didn’t seem like I was completely ready.

“No, it doesn’t. All it means is that we were in the same bed at the same time. He held me, but that was it. Angel said there was something about the night that made him happy, made him forget about all of the drama around us on a daily basis.”

“Aww, Buffy. Just being with you, holding you for a night, can make him happy? That’s sweet!” Her eyes slowly drift over to the other side of the hallway and she smiles. I look over too but I don’t see anything to smile about, just Xander talking to a short guy I’ve never met.

“I suppose it would have been great, when I woke up he was already gone though. I don’t know where he could have gone, he always goes home when the sun comes up. Kind of a rule, you know?” Now sitting in the classroom I let my head rest against my open palm and close my eyes. My mind is swirling with ideas of what Angel could have been up to but everything ended up going back to Spike. While I didn’t get to talk to Angel last night about Spike, I think that the reason Spike showed up had to do with Angel. If I can’t find Angel at his place tonight I need to find Spike. I need answers, and a dead vampire couldn’t hurt.

Slowly drifting off to sleep I hear whispers circulating the room about this morning’s newspaper. Hot celebrities, corrupt politicians, stupid presidential phrases, multiple murders. The last topic catches my attention and I face the girl behind me.

“What were you talking about? Murders?” The girl is one of Cordelia’s friends. If you could call them that. Cordelia is the head cheerleader who has an obvious distaste for me, but an odd and twisted affection for Xander. Not that either of them will admit it to anyone.

The blonde makes a disgusted noise. “Could you not eavesdrop in on my conversation?”

“Look, it was a simple question. Where did the murders happen? Here in Sunnydale?” It’s not anything new to read about a death in the newspaper but multiple is new. Most new vampires think it’s neat that they can create more vampires so they rarely leave a body. Usually they take the body with them until they rise as a vampire or they leave the body not realizing just how much time it takes for the transition to happen.

“Yes, now go pick up a newspaper if you want to know the rest. It might do you some good.” Every time I come across one of these people who think they are so much better than me I want to shake them… violently, and tell them just what I do every night so that this damn town is safer. Night after night I get kicked, punched, slapped, bled and oozed on and I can’t get any glory from it.

Grabbing my books from my desk I make my way up to the teacher and say I’m going to the nurse. I give Willow a nod at her questioning look and she knows I’m heading to the library. It will just be an extra hour in our weekly study sessions that she will have to cover.

Making my way into the library I pause as Giles looks over from his conversation with a teenage girl. With darker skin and brown hair pulled tightly against her head in large braids the girl has a presence about her.

“Ah, Buffy, shouldn’t you be in class?” Giles asks. After hearing my name the girl looks me over.

“This is your slayer? Doesn’t dress very practical does she?” My brow furrows and I look down at my clothes. There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.

“Just how practical do I need to dress in broad daylight? I’d say that if it falls within the school dress code it is just fine. And who are you?”

“Buffy, this is Kendra… sorry, I did not catch your last name.”

“My name is Kendra. I do not have a last name. Do not need one for what I do. My watcher Mr. Samuel Kabuto agrees that a last name will is unnecessary for a Slayer. No demon cares to know your name to begin with.” Watcher? She’s a slayer?

“You said I was alone, Giles. The Slayer. What is going on?” He goes on to explain that when I died ever so briefly Kendra was called to take my place. Only the higher-up’s never bothered to mention anything to him. When the Watcher’s Council learned that Spike had come to the Hellmouth with Drusilla they had her Watcher send her to Sunnydale as back-up.

“So you’re here alone? You just up and leave your family and friends because they tell you to?” I ask her.

“I have no friends or family. My watcher’s health is not good so I am here alone.” After a few more questions and short responses I finally remembered what I came down here for.

“Do you have today’s newspaper?” I ask Giles. He goes searching through a desk that accumulated returned books that had yet to be returned to their shelves.

“There were 5 bodies found in an alley. It looked as if there were a group of teenagers having some sort of meeting. Since no other teenagers have come forward to say anything I’m guessing the vampires got the entire group.”

“We’re assuming it was multiple vampires in order to take on that many people and not have anyone get away or have anyone nearby hear anything.” Kendra pipes in. This begins a conversation of possible techniques that could be used between Kendra and Giles. I skim over the titles of the books on the Giles’ desk in his office and find the two piles. He generally keeps them in these two piles. One for reference of recent events and ones he has yet to read. I nab the book on the top of the unread pile and open it up. It’s a diary kept by a Watcher with a piece of paper stuck between the pages about half way through. The paper has Giles’ handwriting on it, “William the Bloody, Spike”. The watcher describes a vampire terrorizing his slayer, he would kill his victims with railroad spikes only moments before his slayer would show up. There was only one time that the slayer came up against Spike, face to face. He fought her well but he took off as the sun was coming up. Badly beaten, the slayer made it back to her Watcher with a description of the vampire. Her internal injuries were the cause of her death. It seems that even slayer healing couldn’t help her.

It made me think of my own injuries from our fights, would I end up like her? The last page that was filled out in the diary wasn’t technical like the previous pages. It went on to say how painful it is to watch your slayer die after you believe you have trained them for everything. It makes you doubt yourself, if you had taught them one more technique, one more punch, would they have lived?

The bell rings and it startles me, causing me to knock the book on the floor. The clock says 12:20. Time for lunch. I didn’t think I was that into the diary but seeing as I missed my first few classes I rush to get to lunch. I pick up the book and place it back on top of the pile. Gathering my things I make my way out the door, only to slip a little as I reach for the doorknob. The culprit is a piece of paper that must have been stuffed in the book and came loose when I knocked it off of the desk. One side is blank but you can see a faint outline of a picture where the ink from a pen bled through.

Spike. It had to be. The picture was of a man with sharp features, piercing eyes, and dark hair slicked back. Whoever drew the picture was very good at it. To tell the truth, it could have been a picture of just his eyes as far as I’m concerned and I would have known who it was. Now to be able to finish piecing together the face I have a bit of confidence. I know the face of the vampire that has been hounding me, now I know what to look for.

“Time for this to be done.” Not just for my own piece of mind but for the lives of others. While Giles and Kendra may think that the deaths were caused by multiple vampires, I know that it was one. Call it a hunch, if you must. After fighting Spike and reading about him, I am positive he has the strength to take on that many people. I know it, now it’s up to me to stop it.