And Buffy shivered. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. Slowly, she pulled free of Dru’s grip, surprised to discover that the elder vampiress let her. “I have to try,” she insisted. “Help me?”

Dru’s eyes got a far away look. “Even now, the dust settles…”

“Then we have to hurry,” Buffy insisted vehemently before racing from the room.

And Dru sighed, shook her head at the impetuousness of youth, and followed after…

Spike fell to his knees with a gasp of shock, tensed up and waiting for his body to disintegrate around him. He frowned when it didn’t happen after a minute and pulled the arrow from his chest. Shinning steel glinted in the soft glow from the mansion’s windows.

“Hate to break it to you,” Spike let out a giddy little chuckle, “but some good old-fashioned ash would’ve been more effective.”

“If I wanted to kill you right away,” Wood agreed, circling his prey carefully now.

Spike rose to his feet to keep his eyes on his newfound enemy, and the world seemed to swim. Maybe that wound had taken more out of him than he’d thought…

“But, you see,” Wood continued in a pleasant voice, “a quick arrow to the heart would end things far too soon. Three generations of family anguish deserves a little more vengeance than that, don’t you think?”

Spike growled and then lurched forward, stumbling over his feet. His vision swam before him, and suddenly he felt a nausea he hadn’t experienced in over a century. “W-What did you do to me?” he asked shakily, frightened again now.

Wood smiled. “I’m not foolish enough to think I can take you one-on-one in an even fight,” he said simply. “So I evened things up a bit.”

Spike’s gaze turned to the arrow in his hand. “You poisoned it,” he accused before staggering from another wave of dizziness.

“Don’t worry,” Wood assured him patronizingly. “If you manage to get out of this alive – or, that would be ‘undead’ now, wouldn’t it? – the drugs will wear off in a day or so. Of course, that won’t do you much good if you’re already dust…”

A low growl emitted from Spike’s throat and, fighting off the dizziness and nausea, he lunged at Wood, fangs bared.

The human leapt to the side just in time, pulling a pair of twin daggers from the sheaths at his waist. “Good,” he said with grim determination. “I was hoping you’d still be able to put up a bit of a fight.”

Spike spun, and the world seemed to swirl around him. He could make out the circle of humans that surrounded their little death-match, but they seemed to be spinning blindingly fast so that he had to close his eyes to keep his balance enough to stay on his feet.

Twin glancing pains to his right arm and stomach, and he opened his eyes once more to find two bleeding gashes. The tips of Wood’s blades were stained crimson, and the demon hunter had a self-satisfied smile, like this fight was the culmination of his existence.

“You desperately need another hobby,” Spike informed him, sounding surprisingly steady to his own ears.

“But this one’s just so much fun,” Wood retorted with a grin.

Spike lunged and caught human flesh with his claws this time. A sharp stab to his shoulder that he was sure went all the way through to his back was the response. He howled in pain, slashed out wildly, and his fist luckily glanced across Wood’s cheek.

The two men staggered apart, Spike’s feet growing increasingly shaky from the drugs and the pounding pain in his shoulder, and Wood dropping the dagger in his bleeding left arm and turning to a one-handed attack.

Spike saw Wood coming, but whatever fight was left in him faded then. Another wave of dizziness washed over him, and this one brought weariness to his limbs as well. His legs trembled, then gave way, and he fell to his knees, coughing and gagging on nothing.

“A little bit of fight,” Wood said, the tip of his dagger catching Spike under the chin, “but not too much…”

Chaos had run rampant through the mansion as the humans screamed and fought for their lives…and to kill as many as they could.

Buffy found herself almost instantly blocked by a snarling mess of fists, fangs, and stakes. And the really scary thing was that the humans seemed to be winning. They’d struck at a good time; most of Willow’s minions were out hunting for the night.

Snapping the neck of the nearest human, she pushed her way past the battling throngs. Fortunately, the fights seemed to be fairly set at the moment so no one turned to attack her. One of Willow’s minions crashed into her just before she reached the long worktable by the entrance hallway, however, and she fell to the floor, the other vamp’s weight unintentionally pinning her down.

She felt the vamp atop her explode into a shower of dust, saw the human’s stake rise yet again…

“Stop!” Drusilla’s voice seemed to sound with an eerie echo, a hidden power within its cadences.

The human froze in place, entranced.

Buffy’s claws lashed out, tearing his head right off, as she scrambled back up to her feet. “Where’s Spike?” she asked Dru, having to yell to be heard over the fray.

Drusilla rubbed her temples as if hoping for a guiding vision. “Too much disorder,” she shook her head in despair.

“A little help?” A voice intruded on their conversation.

Buffy looked down in surprise to find Dalton hiding under the long table. Apparently, that was his standard reaction whenever he got caught in the middle of a fight. Not a bad way to stay alive, really, as long as his side won in the end…

Drusilla nodded at that. “We will safeguard the Order,” she agreed, backhanding a human who’d decided to try his luck with her. Her next blow shattered the bones in his face, driving them into his brain, and killing him instantly.

Buffy caught the fallen sword from another of Willow’s minions and wielded it with deadly accuracy, decapitating two of their foes in quick succession. She noticed that the remainder of the vamps seemed to be moving their battles towards her and Dru, sensing the dark power there that could aid them.

“We don’t have time to fight them all!” Buffy insisted frantically. “We have to find Spike.”

“H-He went out less than a minute before they attacked,” Dalton provided, cowering behind Dru. “I tried to get out, but there are even more humans outside.”

Buffy’s jaw set in a grim line. “Then, those are the humans we’re fighting,” she concluded, making a dash for the back door.

Drusilla swung a surprised Dalton over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran after her out into the night, and in search of their lost lover…

Xander grinned at the moment of horrified recognition on Willow’s face as the bolt whizzed through the air, memorized every detail to savor for the rest of his existence…

A shriek escaped Cordelia’s lips and, before anyone could react, she leapt in front of her mate, taking the arrow meant for Willow deep into her chest.

A moment of stunned silence as Cordy glanced down at the bolt lodged in her chest. She looked up, dark eyes meeting Xander’s one last time, pleading for his help, before her body exploded into a shower of dust.

Xander froze in horrified silence for a second, unaware that Willow was in just as much stunned shock behind Cordy’s ashes on the bed. And then a ragged scream escaped his lips. “Nooo!” he roared, turning on the humans that were supposed to deliver him from this prison, not condemn him forever.

The demon hunters didn’t even have time to react before their long-time ally attacked with a fury like none they’d ever seen before. Flesh tore, bones snapped, lives bled out on the bedroom floor.

But not one of the deaths could erase from Xander’s mind that one moment of horrified betrayal in Cordelia’s eyes when she’d looked at Xander and known.

All the humans in the immediate vicinity reduced to shredded corpses at his feet, Xander collapsed, hands over his face, body coated with blood, and hoping that some of it would make the images of his sire’s death stop playing over and over again before his eyes.

It was a vain hope.

But then he heard sobs echoing his own. He’d forgotten about Willow in the interval, but he turned to her now. Hopeful for the first time because surely she would end his misery, send him back to hell where he belonged…

Willow’s red head hung in sobs, tears streaming down her face and mingling with the dust of her mate. The gray, sticky paste clung to her cheeks and hands as she tried desperately to find some last substance of comfort in her love’s remains.

Xander rose to his feet before the bed, angry, hopeless tears on his own face, and cleared his throat, catching her attention. Time to end this once and for all.

But, as Willow’s face turned up to meet his, he saw a monster rising that he had never imagined before, and suddenly his blood ran cold again. He had thought there was nothing scarier than the Willow he had once known. He was wrong…

“My family’s waited two lifetimes for this,” Wood hissed, pressing the sharp edge of the blade deeper into Spike’s throat. “I’m gonna—”

Whatever Wood was ‘gonna’ do was lost forever, however, when screams erupted from the circle of demon hunters observing the fight.

Drusilla, Buffy, and Dalton launched themselves upon the attackers, snapping half a dozen necks before their presence was even fully noticed. Crossbows were quickly raised in retaliation, however, and Dalton ducked for the cover of a grove of nearby trees, leaving the two vampiresses on their own.

“Thanks a lot!” Buffy exclaimed in outrage, catching one of the shooters by the feet in a flying tackle. The two of them grappled for the stake in the woman’s belt, before Buffy caught her throat and slowly squeezed the life out of her.

Another barrage of arrows came her way, and Buffy covered herself with the woman’s body, literally forming a human shield.

Drusilla fared even better and all without breaking a sweat. Her dark eyes caught each of the demon hunters as they tried to take aim. Captured within her gaze, they each dropped their weapons one by one before walking half-hypnotized to the vampiress in a final eerie death march.

Of course, the technique only worked when someone tried to shoot her from the front.

“Behind you!” Buffy shouted out in alarm, at the same time using her human shield to cover herself as rushed her nearest attacker. She fell to the ground in a brief tussle with the human before efficiently snapping his neck.

Dru spun in time to see the shot fired. The movement was enough that the bolt hit her shoulder instead of her heart. With a roar of pain and anger, she ripped the bolt from her flesh and struck out at the demon hunter so quickly he couldn’t even see it coming.

Yellow, deranged eyes glistened in the night, a brief target for fire, but all too soon Drusilla had moved with that lightning quickness once more, taking out two more of their foes.

The sudden brutal assault to his lines had been enough to distract Wood for a moment, just enough to use his phone to call for back-up. But he didn’t let his men and women’s lives interfere with his sworn purpose. Turning back to his vendetta, he raised his stake against the vampire he’d hunted all these years…

And screamed as Spike pulled the world together long enough to sink his fangs deep into Wood’s leg.

Wood’s leg buckled out from underneath him, and he tried to strike, but then Buffy caught him from behind. Snapped his fingers right out of their sockets as she ripped the stake from his hand.

“This isn’t—” Wood began.

Buffy didn’t let him finish. Her fangs severed his jugular vein, and she took several deep pulls of his powerful blood before tossing him aside.

She spared brief notice for the fact that Drusilla had taken out the rest of Wood’s little crowd before rushing to her sire’s side and kneeling before him. He was curled up on the ground, clutching at his head, and whimpering in pain. Buffy saw multiple wounds, but nothing to account for this much distress.

“Spike?” she whispered carefully, reaching out hesitantly to stroke his hair.

“If you could make the world stop spinnin’, luv?” he managed with a ghost of his usual cockiness. “Would be ‘ppreciated.”

“What are you talking about?” Buffy asked anxiously, pulling the blood-soaked leather off of the wound on his shoulder and checking it. She hastily took off her sweater and ripped the fabric to bind the wound. No sense in letting him lose more blood than was absolutely necessary.

“Shot me with some drug…” Spike mumbled, accepting her hand to sit up. That turned out to be a bad idea, however, and he ended up collapsed against her, dry heaving.

Although it shouldn’t have been possible, Buffy’s face paled. “Oh…god…” she whimpered in horror. “I-It can’t be… You’re not…” He couldn’t be dying in her arms, right? No fate was that cruel…

“Just about to toss my cookies,” he assured her. “If I had any cookies to toss…” The dry heaving began anew.

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief and propped him up against her shoulder, stroking his back gently as he hacked up nothing. She wondered if it was a blessing or a curse that he hadn’t eaten anything yet tonight.

“What has the naughty man done to my beautiful boy?” Drusilla said in horror, finally coming to rest on Spike’s other side. Buffy let Dru take some of the weight, and they held him together.

“It’s just a drug of some sort,” Buffy insisted. “He’ll be all right.” He has to, she added inwardly.

Drusilla cooed and placed a gentle kiss in his hair. He tried to purr at the tender affections suddenly being bestowed upon him, but that just made the sickness worse. “Don’t worry about it, my darling,” Dru soothed him. “Your girls will take care of you.” She met Buffy’s eyes.

“We’ve got everything,” Buffy agreed, a little whimper escaping her lips as she kissed his hair as well. God, so close to losing him…

Although apparently ‘everything’ entailed another fight because, at that moment, the back-up Wood had called arrived from inside the mansion, saw the trio of vampires, and attacked…

Xander took a staggering step back as Willow looked up at him, eyes wide and black as pitch, dark power crackling off her skin like static electricity.

“Uh, yeah,” Xander gulped, “about all this… I didn’t mean for—”

“Shut up, stupid boy!” Willow practically roared, and a lash of energy swept outward from her body, sending Xander flying back into the wall.

He fell to the ground with a whimper, tried to move to get up, and found his body unwilling to respond to his wishes. He was paralyzed where he lay.

Willow’s wrath wasn’t directed at him, however.

Ashes of her dead mate still clinging to her face and arms, she rose to her feet, hovering inches above the ground with the dark magic that had possessed her. A hiss of salty tears as the energy evaporated the water that still clung to her skin.

She took a deep breath, and the entire room seemed to breathe with her, vibrating with that alien power…

And, when she closed her eyes, she could see them all. Pathetic, insignificant little humans swarming through her home, attacking her guards, closing in on her mommy and daddy and Buffy. 

With a scream and a bright white explosion, the magic erupted from her body in midnight arcs, striking the attackers, jolting them painfully until their bodies exploded into ash. A fitting punishment for her own lover’s final end…

She could see her vampires regrouping, then, saw Buffy and Dru’s looks of relief when their battle was well and truly over. She paid them no mind, however. She had only one traitor left to deal with…

Her blackened eyes opened and stared directly at Xander.

Suddenly, he found himself able to move once again. He didn’t take comfort from that fact, however. The wicked smile on Willow’s face reminded him of a cat that’d just let the mouse think it had once last chance of escape. That look promised death and torture and…

Xander ran for the door anyway.

He was halted right in the frame by another jolt of energy that froze him in place. He tried to struggle against it, but it just pulled him back faster, ever closer to his demise. “I didn’t mean for this to happen!” he sobbed, pleading with her. “I loved Cordelia as much as you did!”

“Silence!” Willow screeched. “How dare you speak her name?!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Xander whimpered. “I…”

“You will suffer and die,” Willow informed him, “and nothing more.” Her hand clenched into a fist, and the energy spun him around, lifted him up off of the ground in a series of bright flashes. “You will pay for your treachery, boy…” she hissed.

A soft-spoken cough cut her off. “I’m afraid we would object if you did so.”

Willow frowned and looked up to the doorway, startled when she saw Dalton there, looking quite apologetic. “I don’t care who objects!” she snapped, striking out at him with another wave of power.

Dalton staggered back, and she turned back to her prey, intent on death and destruction once more.

“Oh dear…”

Willow looked up in surprise to see Dalton on his feet once more. “H-How did you…?”

And then a dark energy easily equal to Willow’s own flew into him, making him look stronger and more powerful than he ever would on his own. “I repeat,” his mouth moved, but echoes of hundreds of voices – each more terrifying than any being Willow had met personally – sounded from his throat, “we strongly object.”

Willow shivered at the collective power that possessed Dalton. “I do not answer to you,” she insisted, “yet.”

He/it/they considered that for a moment. “True,” they agreed in that strange stereo sound. “You may have a choice: Your power…or the boy.”

Willow faltered at that. She knew that they could take the Hellmouth from her if they wanted to. She’d been fortunate that they hadn’t so far. It had been everything she worked for, dreamed of… But always, in her mind’s eye, Cordelia had been there beside her. Xander deserved to suffer for taking that away from her, but if she gave into her vengeance, she lost everything…

“The boy is yours,” she spat reluctantly, the power flowing from her body in a weary rush. She collapsed onto the bed, just plain old sadistic vampiric Willow once more.

Xander fell to the floor with a thud and gulped at the power that still radiated from Dalton. What was that old saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire?

“We thank you,” the Order said politely before Dalton’s body spasmed with power rushing out. He let out a little strangled cry before he, too, was back to normal. Meek and bookish as ever. He held out one hand to Xander and led the younger vampire with him, only to pause in the doorway for one last moment. “Oh, and my sincerest condolences,” he said apologetically.

Leaving Willow alone, stripped of her revenge, and sobbing in anguish at love lost…

“Big baby passed out,” Buffy joked lightly as Drusilla lay Spike down on their bed.

Dru smiled softly at that and climbed in beside him, pulling the covers up over their bodies. A series of chills was raking through his body now, and she held him close in an effort to ward them off.

Buffy watched the pair in bed, half-wistful, half-happy. They were so beautiful like this. Her sire deserved to be loved and, honestly, what had she ever been thinking trying to divide him from half that love? She only wished she’d seen it sooner…

“I can only warm one side, you know,” Dru tisked, cutting off Buffy’s pity party.

Wide hazel eyes regarded her for a second before, with an uncharacteristic blush, Buffy crawled into bed on Spike’s other side, cradling him between them.

Drusilla smiled lazily at Buffy, and her fingers twined with the blonde’s. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

Buffy smiled at that as well and yawned. “Tell me it’s over now,” she pleaded.

“It’s over,” Dru agreed, “for now. Now, let’s make our boy better.”

Buffy couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do.