When In Disgrace:
Abandon

His lover. He had waited weeks to win her back into his arms and into his bed, waited to have her come willingly and consciously back to his bed and now that he had, now that she was here and he had experienced the depths of their mutual passion, he had no intention of ever losing her again.

She shifted beside him, stretching with feline-like luxuriousness before she again settled with boneless abandon amongst his crimson sheets.

His lips twitched with silent amusement and he was amazed at just how much space her delicate five foot three body could claim on his king-sized mattress; she lay on her stomach, his red sheets tangled at her waist, revealing the exquisite curve of her spine. Her arms and legs were outstretched and she lay at a diagonal, hogging more space than one would expect a diminutive creature like herself to take.

The Scourge of Europe reached out and gently brushed several strands of her golden hair from her brow; Buffy smiled, turning, even in her sleep, more fully into his caress.

This was the way it should be, he mused. Them. Together. No guilt, no responsibility and no sacred duty to separate them. No Watcher to disapprove of her, no friends to browbeat her, and no mother to censure her. Just them.

Angelus didn’t know what had transpired during the day to break the shackles of righteous nobility that had imprisoned his love, but he was grateful to it and he would ensure that those restraints were never placed upon her again. Chosen or not, she belonged to him; she belonged in the shadows with him, hunting, killing and mating for eternity, and not as some slave to divine destiny.

The dark-eyed vampire stretched out beside the diminutive Slayer and propped his head up on his fist, content to watch her sleep.

She was so beautiful. So fucking beautiful. And now she was his. His. Not the soul’s, but his, Angelus’. His mate. His beautiful, golden, deadly mate. Beautiful…and fragile.

Mortal.

He flinched slightly at the word, but forced himself to face it: mortal.

That precarious state could not be allowed to continue for long. Demons and vampires alike came gunning for Slayers, simply for the bragging rights of having killed one. Hell, he himself had slaughtered a few in his day, as had his idiot grand-childe Spike – although, judging from the beating she had dealt the boy tonight, Spike would not even be attempting to bag this Slayer any time soon.

Mortality.

She needed to be transformed into an immortal soon, before some enterprising demon managed to succeed where all others had as yet failed and before the Powers got her killed in their endless and pointless struggle against evil. The mere thought that her Slayer’s lifespan, because of the inherent dangers of her calling, could only last for a few more years was unbearable. The very thought that the average Slayer’s life ended at 18 or younger was intolerable; going by that math, she had less than a year left to her.

To turn her would be easiest, but she was right, he did not want to replace her with a possessing demon; he wanted her. Only her. No demon, just transformed, immortal Buffy.

So how did one go about turning a mortal into an immortal – aside from the usual?

Immortality spells were uncertain and dangerous, quite often actually killing the individual seeking to be preserved…too risky.

Perhaps infecting her with another species of demon, something that’s transmitted aspect would extend her life...but then the problem with so many demon species was that even if infection by them didn’t contaminate a mortal with a possessing entity, the altered individual was often unable to control the new instincts, hungers and abilities that came along with the aspect. Ultimately many infected mortals went mad, unable to adapt to their new demonic nature.

Which brought him back around to the fact that turning her was probably the only way to successfully save her.

So it was all a matter of maintaining her soul.

But how did one seal a soul into a vampire’s body? A hundred years ago, gypsies had done it to him, but their secrets were long since dead, along with the rest of that damnable clan.

Jenny Calendar had held the secret. She had been ready to use it upon him again before he had snapped her pretty neck; for the briefest of moments, Angelus regretted the death of the gypsy woman and the destruction of the curse. Then again, he reflected, the gypsies’ spell held a loophole that could lead to unwanted repercussions, repercussions he was not interested in repeating with his girl; there would be no happiness clause on her, no surprise demoness showing up to attend his party.

Angelus considered the problem carefully.

There had to be some spell. There had to be a way; where there was a will, there was a way, and he was nothing if not willful. Perhaps a protection spell to prevent demon possession while the vampire virus transformed her body, but then there was still the matter of her soul. Without a soul or a possessing demon, a transformed body was a Revenant: a mindless beast that would attack anything and everything it came across, human, vampire or demon, it knew only the need to feed.

Until he solved the matter of soul, he could not transform her, and if he could not transform her, he ran the risk of losing her. And the thought of losing her caused an uncomfortable ball of tension to clench in his belly as he was assaulted by the vision of her laying broken on the ground, her green eyes filmed with death.

He growled softly, distressed by bloody visions of her possible demise.

Buffy frowned in her sleep, disturbed by his distress and shifted to curl against him. She wrapped her arm securely around him, her fingers stroking his back in a soothing motion. After a moment, his growls were replaced by soft deep-throated purrs and she smiled, falling back into the depths of her dreams.

Her demon watched her pensively.

~

It was the emptiness of her arms that signaled to her that something was wrong and she opened her eyes with a soft gasp. She was alone in her bed. Slowly she rolled to her side and sat up, holding the red sheets that had never before been on her bed tightly in her fists.

Angel? He had been here when she had gone to sleep hadn’t he? Hadn’t they just made love? Hadn’t he told her he loved her? Or had he been holding her…begging her to kill him? She couldn’t remember which.

Confused, and a little frightened, Buffy rolled out of her bed. The long silk nightgown she wore slipped down her legs to brush against the tops of her bare feet in a whispering, ticklish caress. She glanced at the white negligee, momentarily stunned at its elegant beauty and fingered the cool material: it looked like something a bride would wear on her wedding night.

She shrugged, dismissing the beauty of the gown. She had to find Angel before something terrible happened to him. She walked across her bedroom, passing the vase of roses on her vanity.

“I love you,” a bud whispered. “I try not to, but I do.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” another rose murmured in a masculine tone. Blood seeped down the long stem to the slowly rising pool at the bottom of the vase.

Unable to resist their beauty, the young Slayer paused to inhale their intoxicating fragrance before she continued to her bedroom door. She pushed the door open, revealing the dimly lit interior of the Bronze beyond; she stepped into the nightclub, not in the least surprised to find it on the other side of her bedroom door. Buffy walked through the club, pushing into the crowd of coffee purchasing patrons as she searched desperately for a particular familiar and beloved face. Angel.

In the background she could hear two violins being played at a wild tempo and the primal beat of a drum; it was odd music for the Bronze, but compelling and passionate.

The young Slayer weaved through the crowd and headed slowly toward the tables by the dance floor; she halted at a shocking sight.

Willow sat at one of the tables, a monkey in a red jacket again sitting on the table surface next to her, but she wasn’t alone this time; this time Oz sat with her…as did Spike and Drusilla.

Buffy raised her brows uncertainly and approached the table. The monkey might have been unusual, but it was really the two vampires sharing the table that made the young Slayer pause.

Willow and Oz were leaning together in a lover-like fashion, rubbing their noses in what Buffy remembered her mother once calling Eskimo kisses. The monkey appeared to be deeply involved with a box of animal crackers, pulling the little cookies out one at a time and devouring them briskly.

Drusilla sat with a large bowl of fortune cookies in front of her; there was a pile of broken cookies and discarded fortunes on the floor beneath the table. Cookie after cookie was opened and the mad vampiress growled at the slip of paper she had pillaged from within before she dropped both to the floor, obviously displeased with the fortunes revealed.

Spike on the other hand, sat unmoving, with his arms crossed over his chest; he glared at a white cowboy hat that sat in front of him, his loathing for the item clear. He turned abruptly, facing Buffy with a resentful sneer. “I won’t wear it,” he growled. “I don’t care about the whole enemy of my enemy is my friend bullshit, I won’t wear it.”

Drusilla patted him gently, if absently, on the arm. “The Mad Hatter gave it to you, my pet. When the music stops, you will wear it.”

“Buffy,” Willow chirped, with a gay little wave. “Angel veut danser avec toi.”

Buffy raised her brows at the unintelligible babble that came from her best friend’s lips. “Huh?”

Oz jerked his chin, indicating she should look behind her.

Curious, she turned.

The tall handsome man who had captured her heart walked slowly toward her and she smiled radiantly up at him. Her heart thundered in her chest as she allowed her vampire lover to lead her to the dance floor.

She twined her arms around his neck, pressing firmly to the hard length of his body. As they began to sway together, the wild pounding rhythm of the gypsy music slowed to a sad, almost bittersweet melody that made her eyes burn with unshed tears.

Angel wrapped one arm about her waist and clenched his fist in her hair, holding her tightly, almost desperately to him and Buffy rested her cheek against his shoulder as they danced, more content than she had been in months. His arms were the only place in the world where she felt safe, sheltered from the dark storms of judgmental mothers eager to believe the worst of her, friends that demanded she pretended to be happy and fearless for their comfort, and Watchers who watched her with embittered and disappointed eyes. His arms were the only place in the world where she felt truly loved

This was bliss.

She sighed contentedly, turning slowly and following her lover’s movements.

Jenny Calendar and her Uncle, Enyos, watched the Slayer and her vampire lover with shrewd dark eyes, never hesitating over the notes they wrung from the violins they played; the melody had been set over a century before and now waited only for the harmony to give it full dimension. Behind the two sly gypsies, but still sharing the stage with them, Kendra beat a tall narrow drum, tapping her fingers and the heels of her palms against the percussion instrument.

Angel slowly released his grip on her hair, stoking his fingers through the tangled locks before he pulled one of her hands from around his neck and twined his fingers with hers, holding their laced hands against his silent heart. With a soft smile, he guided her into a graceful twirl and then back into the shelter of his embrace.

Buffy smiled dazlingly up at him, her eyes brilliant with love.

“I believe this is my dance.”

The couple paused slightly at the sound of that husky purr, their gazes shifting to the tall man standing next to them, Angel’s expression resigned and Buffy’s shocked.

Angelus smirked as he waited, every line of his features set in a mask of arrogant expectation.

Angel shifted his tender gaze from the woman he loved to stare loathingly at the demon he was ashamed of. His lips tightened with displeasure as he noted the covetous stare of his mirror image, but knowing he was unable to interfere, he gently pulled back from his young lover.

“Angel?” Buffy asked uncertainly.

The ensouled vampire met the demon’s burning gaze and growled threateningly.

The demon bared his teeth in a silent taunt.

The glow of happiness dimmed from Buffy’s eyes as her lover abandoned her to Angelus’ guiding embrace.

The tall demon folded her possessively into his arms and she followed his steps stiffly, awkwardly, the feel of his strong hands upon her making her nervous.

Jenny and her Uncle slowly increased the tempo of the music from the bittersweet lament to a compelling dervish.

Angel stepped back and watched helplessly as his demon held his girl, guiding her gently, but firmly through the dance steps until her movements slowly became more relaxed and more assured. They spun and whirled, a taunting – and teasing – give and take between them and he could see Buffy slowly becoming enraptured by the passionate and demanding movements of the dance. He growled again, watching as his twin guided her into a submissive arch before bending to whisper softly in her ear.

“They say that a demon cannot love," Angelus uttered softly, "that we’re incapable of it, but they’re wrong. Come be my love, mo chroi. Let me prove it to you.”

Buffy’s shocked gaze flew up to meet the burning dark eyes of the demon who held her. Her cheeks flushed, and slowly, her shock faded to bemused wonderment. “Really?”

“Yes,” Angelus answered.

Angel watched grimly and cursed under his unneeded breath as she allowed the demon to capture her tiny hand in his and press it to his silent heart.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” she whispered.

~

Willow hummed happily as she danced in Xander’s arms. The night had held a number of revelations and she would have to say that they had all changed her life.

Revelation number one: Xander didn’t love her as anything more than a friend, but considering his agenda with the girls he did claim to love, namely Cordelia and Buffy, he didn’t really care for them either. So, Xander's love wasn't any prize to have.

Revelation number two: despite her long-standing relationship with dark-haired boy, she most assuredly did not want her first time to be with him. Xander couldn’t seem to control the speed of his ejaculations and he had absolutely no finesse. Very discouraging. He needed a great deal more practice before she would even consider letting him cop a feel, much less have sex with her.

And as for her last realization, it was the one that made her feel the happiest: princesses, for all their innate cruelty and arrogance, were extraordinarily easy to break.

The redhead tilted her head back blissfully to stare at the ceiling when a couple of figures on the catwalk above caught her attention: Oz and Cordelia.

Oz. Perhaps Oz could help her deal with the problem of her virginity. She liked him. He was funny and sweet, and best of all, geek clothes or no, he liked her. Oz thought she was beautiful. Better than beautiful, Oz thought she was wonderful.

But then there was Cordelia. Cruel, vicious Cordelia who had, with her flunkies, spent the last ten years making Willow’s life miserable.

It was time to return the favor. She would make Cordelia’s life miserable right up until the moment she killed her.

“I’ve found my next toy,” Willow commented to her dance partner.

Xander glanced up to the catwalk, following her gaze to the fashionable brunette and the laid-back guitarist. He grinned as he admired his girlfriend’s sleek figure and thought that the night had finally come when he would get to drink his fill of that figure without Cordelia slapping his hands away. “Glad to see that you’d no longer rather see me dead.”

Willow turned her cool gaze to her childhood friend and considered her actions during the love spell that he had blackmailed a witch into casting so he could get back queen bitch Cordelia who had dumped him prior to Valentine’s Day. “Her dead is good enough,” she drawled. For now, but that axe was starting to look good again. “Let’s play.”

~

Buffy curled against his chest, her head bowed forward and her nose buried against his throat.

The dark-eyed vampire bent a little to inhale the sweet fragrance of her hair and trailed his fingertips wonderingly along the sleek lines of her body. He traced the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her waist and the inviting contours of her hip and butt; she was a veritable feast of cream and gold skin, her flesh nearly as sweet as her honeyed desire, and her feminine dew nearly as intoxicating as her powerful and ambrosial blood. And she was his.

Angelus purred contentedly. He twined a lock of her hair around his finger, bemused at his pleasure in the quietness of the moment. He wanted her…he always wanted her, but holding her pressed against him, as she slept trustingly in his arms, for the moment it was a pleasure in and of itself, and one that he didn’t want to rush.

Love. The infection in him had grown worse as every day passed. His night could not properly begin until he had seen her, it could not properly end until he had, at the very least, heard her voice, and everything between sunset and sunrise was lessened without her presence to share it with. Her lips, her sighs, her kisses, her eyes, they fed his hunger and yet made it worse. Lovesick was what he was, and her his only cure.

Damned gypsies.

He, the Scourge of Europe had been brought low by love and a seventeen-year old girl.

She pressed more snugly against him, a warm, curvy bundle of feminine delight and then pressed a sleepy open-mouthed kiss to his chest.

…Maybe it wasn’t so bad, he grudgingly admitted. It certainly hadn’t felt bad when he’d been buried between her thighs and she’d been screaming his name in ecstasy.

He purred softly and wondered when the hell the delivery boy was going to get there; her stomach was continuing to growl softly. He wanted to refuel her lithe little body and then tire her out again…and again, and maybe again.

The sound of a door opening in the main room caught his attention, as did the scent of blood.

Drusilla had obviously danced her crimson dance and brought home a snack for Spike.

Angelus inhaled again and stiffened as he identified the other smells that accompanied the blood: Willow and Xander.

Perhaps Drusilla hadn’t been pleased with ‘Mummy’s’ disciplinary action and had decided to get herself a little bit of revenge. Not that Angelus had any objections to killing either Willow or Xander – especially Xander – but doing it right under the nose of the Slayer when her temper was so mercurial might not be the best of ideas; if Drusilla wasn’t careful, his minions could be sweeping up her ashes before Angelus was able to stop his golden mate from punishing his childe.

The dark-eyed vampire gently disengaged himself from his warm lover and slid out of bed. He dressed quickly in his leather pants and glanced back at his sleeping beauty; certain that she was still deeply enough asleep for him to deal with the mess before she awoke, the Master Vampire exited his bedroom and went out to deal with his maddened childe.

Drusilla, despite being covered in the scents of the Slayer’s best friends was not carrying the two annoyances under her arms. Instead of the dark-haired boy and the redhead, she carried two half-naked and bloody women.

From the sounds of their heartbeats they were still alive, although they were each somewhat paler than their California tans allowed, doubtless from some blood loss. Both sets of eyes were open and blank, the vacant stares of torture victims that had been pushed too quickly past their limits and who would be unlikely to ever return from wherever it was in their minds they had gone. Most intriguing of all, these tortured broken girls beneath Drusilla’s arms stank of terror, of pain, of sex and of Willow and Xander, most especially Xander.

“Dru,” Angelus purred. “Where did you get the midnight snacks?”

The brunette smiled at her sire. “The Red Queen and the White Knight said I could have the oysters. Their tea cups had already broken and they were done with the party.”

“Really?” Angelus stalked closer to the vampiress and her two captives. He inhaled slightly: definitely Xander and Willow. “That was nice of them.”

So…whatever had happened to free Buffy from her moral inhibitions had also freed the bobsy twins…intriguing.

“Go,” he murmured. “Feed Spike. You’ll both need several kills to heal from the damage you took tonight and you know I hate taking care of you.”

Drusilla whined softly, hanging her head in shame. “Yes, Angel.”

Angelus watched her carry the two women into the bedroom she shared with Spike, her lower lip stuck out in a pout as she cast beseeching glances over her shoulder at him.

Interesting. Buffy not only allowed him to kill in front of her, but she also came to his lair to deliver another kill to him personally. And Willow and Xander were out raping and torturing girls. Just what had occurred today?

A soft knock at the door of the factory caught his attention and Angelus stalked over to open the door. Before the delivery boy could even get out a demand for payment, Angelus closed one hand over the bag of food and the other around the boy’s neck; he pulled both into the Factory, before kicking the door shut.

The boy choked and grasped weakly at the vampire’s hand, digging his short nails into Angelus’ skin, but despite his struggles, he could not break the tall predator’s grasp.

Angelus kicked open the door to Spike and Drusilla’s bedroom, revealing the brunette vampire holding one of the half-naked victims over Spike’s broken jaw; as blood trickled into his open mouth, Drusilla gently stroked his throat, forcing him to swallow.

"There, there, my pet. Mommy has just what you need."

“Here’s another Dru,” Angelus shoved the boy back into the wall, cracking his head loudly against the hard surface; the boy dropped to the floor without another whimper.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

Angelus nodded tersely and began to pull the door shut. He paused. “Drop the bodies in the sewers. I don’t want the police tracking these kills to the Slayer’s friends and from them track the Slayer. I want them all immersed in sewage, understand?”

Drusilla nodded obediently.

“Good.” He closed the door and returned swiftly back to his own room. He had much more pleasant things to be thinking about than bodies and sewers.

Angelus closed his bedroom door and walked over to his sleeping lover. He set the bag down on the floor and sat on the bed, leaning over her. He stroked her long hair gently and then trailed a finger over the pouty bottom of her passion-swollen lips.

“Wakey, wakey, lover,” he purred.

Buffy inhaled deeply and slowly stretched, fluttering her eyes open to look at the angelically featured demon that loomed over her. “I was dreaming about you,” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.

“A good dream?” he asked teasingly.

She smiled and reached out for him, twining her arms around his neck to pull him down to her lips. “We were dancing,” she purred, kissing him hungrily. “To violins and drums. It was…primitive.”

Angelus chuckled softly and kissed her, parting her lips to tangle his tongue with hers for several heated moments. “You know that dancing is just a euphemism for sex, don’t you?”

Buffy stared up at him, her green eyes dancing with amusement as she looked him over, glowing with pleasure. “So dancing means sex, and fighting is foreplay. Is there anything that doesn’t mean sex to you?”

The dark-eyed demon considered her question carefully and then answered her in a serious tone. “Chaos demons. Antlers. Slime. Not pretty.”

She laughed in delight and sat up into his embrace. “Right. Antlers are a turn off. Got it. Horns too? Or just antlers?”

“Antlers and slime. Definitely. And on that note,” he kissed her soft lips lingeringly. “Food has arrived.”

Hearing its demands about to be met, her stomach let out a loud grumble. Buffy poked her belly with annoyance. “You better hurry up and give it to me before my stomach decides to crawl out of me and fend for itself.”

They both paused as a mental image of her stomach doing that very thing filled their minds.

“Gross,” she muttered.

Angelus nodded and scooped up the bag filled with her dinner, setting it on her lap.

Buffy delved greedily into the bag for the food cartons and was pleased to pull out a can of Pepsi along with her dinner. “You think of everything,” she praised. She eyed the food cartons before her, opening them and inhaling the steaming dishes within. “Yum.”

“Your friends have been quite busy this evening,” he informed her, watching in amusement as with little care for her nudity, she tore into the food.

“What do you mean?” she asked curiously.

“I mean that Dru came back a little while ago with a couple of girls who’d clearly been raped and tortured a bit. And whose scents should be all over them but your best friends, Xander and Willow. Amusing isn’t? For all of his sanctimonious ranting about what monsters and murderers vampires are, he’s little better.” Angelus chuckled softly at the irony of it. “But,” he sneered, “he has no finesse…no artistry. He’s a garden variety thug.”

Buffy snorted in derision and quickly devoured an eggroll, licking the crumbs from her fingers. “Did you say thug? Or slug?”

Angelus cocked his head to the side and observed his Slayer carefully. “You don’t seem surprised by this,” he commented musingly.

“Hardly,” the diminutive Slayer sneered. “Let’s just say that Xander Harris having to force someone to have sex with him is no great shocker. In fact it’s probably the only way he could get a woman to touch him.”

“Hmm. You sound very knowledgeable with that opinion.” He leaned forward and dabbed a napkin against the corner of her pink lips. “Did he ever try anything with you?” his tone was very casual.

Although Harris raping two unknown girls was mildly amusing, especially considering the boy’s self-righteous attitude, if the mongrel had ever dared to lay a finger on Buffy, Angelus would have little choice but to make Xander pay for it, in every bloody currency he could devise.

Buffy glanced at him and raised her brows archly. “Are you asking me if I’ve cheated on you with that creep?”

Angelus caught her chin in his hand and rubbed his thumb over her jaw line. “No baby,” he purred. “I’d be able to smell if you had. And I know you’d never betray me – much less with that mongrel. I believe what I asked was if he’d ever tried to force himself on you.”

The golden haired beauty pulled her chin from his grasp. “Yeah,” she drawled. “A couple of times; once last year when he was souped up on uber-hyena mojo and earlier tonight. And I kicked his ass each time. So don’t get all beat your chest, knuckle-dragging primitive with me. I can take care of myself.”

The Master Vampire narrowed his gaze, wondering why he had ever decided that he liked her biting sarcasm. “It is my pleasure to protect you. And kill whatever and whomever threatens you.”

“Protect me? You? Yeah,” she chuckled. “When you’re not trying to kick my ass yourself.”

He eyed the rounded bit of anatomy with some interest. “It is a nice ass. Perhaps in need of some periodic discipline.”

Buffy cast him an arch look. “Don’t even try it. And as for things threatening me, Xander Harris is not one of them. He’s an annoyance. Don’t give him a second thought, lover. I don’t.”

She wiped out the rest of the eggrolls in short order, clearly signaling her preference to close a subject that no longer interested her. After the eggrolls, she devoured the steamed vegeatables just as quickly.

Angelus watched her with a narrowed gaze. In deference to her pride and temper, for the time being, he would not seek out the pup, but if Xander ever came within his line of sight, he would re-explore his earlier notion of slitting him open, eviscerating him and keeping him alive while he skinned him….On the other hand, there were demon brothels that catered to demons with a taste for…human flesh; perhaps turning Xander over to be sodomized by the various and sundry minions of hell on a nightly basis would be apropos as well…

In the mean time, he had a warm and willing woman who loved him in his bed; bloodletting – fun as it was – could wait for later…as could dealing with Harris.

“You were very hungry,” he observed.

Buffy grinned up at him charmingly, pleased that the other subject had been dropped. “Starved. I’ve had a busy night. Built up quite an appetite.”

He stroked his fingers through her hair and caressed the nape of her neck; she shivered. “Better eat it all,” he advised her huskily, watching her pink nipples. “The night’s not over.”

She ate dexterously with the chopsticks, quickly assuaging the hollowness in her belly. She definitely had things she’d rather be doing than eating, but after the Grimlocke, Spike, Drusilla and then the wild exertions with Angelus, she couldn’t pass up any of the delicious dishes her demon had gotten for her.

How could her life have changed from abject despair to perfect bliss so quickly?

Buffy halted mid-bite as realization settled upon her and her appetite fled before her dread that her bliss could be taken away as quickly as it had been granted.

“What is it?” Angelus asked, seeing the frown that had come across her face so suddenly.

“I’m under a spell,” she stated softly, dropping the chopsticks into the box and setting the food aside. “That’s why I’m different tonight. I’m under some sort of spell.”

A spell? That would certainly explain things. It would, in fact, explain a great many things, but did that mean that the spell could suddenly end? That she could return once more to his reluctant and sad-eyed not-going-out-with-him girlfriend.

“What spell?” Angelus growled softly.

“I’m not sure. Something…not good. I know – Giles told me that the demon you killed for me, the Grimlocke thingies strangle people, good people from a distance.”

“Yes,” the dark-eyed vampire nodded. That was why he’d killed the bald demon when he’d come across it the night before; there was no way his young Slayer could possibly survive an encounter, much less kill one of the Grimlockes herself.

“I killed one tonight,” she whispered softly.

“A Grimlocke?” he asked incredulously.

Buffy nodded. “It bragged about how it was going to kill me slow. Said I was unworthy – riddled with corruption. Then it pointed at me and nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” he repeated.

“Nothing. He looked surprised and frustrated. We fought – he was pretty good, but I ripped his head clean off of his shoulders with my bare hands. I’m not,” she hesitated as she looked at him. “I’m not good anymore. Am I?”

Angelus paused to think over her question carefully. He considered the facts: she had let him kill without even making the slightest attempt to rescue his victim; she had arrived at his lair and beaten his progeny, but made no attempt to stake them; she had slit a man’s throat to give him blood as a token of her affections; and she willingly, even joyfully shared his bed, proclaiming her love for him without hesitation or inhibition. Granted this was what he had wanted, but these were not signs of a good Slayer.

“No,” he replied. “If you were, the Grimlocke would have killed you and there would’ve been nothing you could’ve done to stop it.”

~

Willow staggered slightly, bumping into her brown-haired boyfriend as he returned from fetching a cup of coffee.

“Oz?” she asked in a shaky tone.

“Willow!” he exclaimed, automatically curving a supporting arm around her. “Are you okay? We’ve been so worried.”

The wily redhead leaned heavily against him, playing up her non-existent weakness and resting her head against his shoulder as she tracked Xander’s progress with Cordelia. “I don’t feel so good,” she whined.

“Right. That’s – that’s the toxins. Sit down.” He guided her to an empty chair and helped her into it, pressing the backs of his fingers against her forehead. “Stay right here. I’m going to get you some water to drink. It’ll dilute the poisons and then we’ll go to the hospital.”

Willow nodded weakly, smiling as he headed hurriedly back to the bar. What a sweet guy. So worried about her welfare. Loving the unappreciative and oblivious Xander Harris was like a bad habit and the more she thought of the enigmatic guitarist, the more she realized she wanted to break that habit…and then maybe the boy too.

She could see Xander pulling Cordelia toward the exit. She didn’t know what lie he had told the May Queen, but she’d undoubtedly fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

Willow stood up and quickly followed, leaving Oz and his tender concern behind. It was time to break another princess and she wanted to really get creative with this one: Cordelia had a lot to pay for.

~

Xander tugged Cordelia insistently behind him. “Hurry up,” he urged her. “Giles needs our help.”

“You saw Giles?” the May Queen asked excitedly. “Did he cure you? Are you still possessed?”

“Yes, yes and no,” he lied, opening the door that led out of the club. He stepped forward and halted abruptly, shocked at the sight of the Watcher on the other side of the door, about to open it himself and come in.

Giles recovered before either teen and swiftly blew a handful of baking powder into the dark-haired boy’s face. “Dis-pel-ler-e.”

Xander coughed, his eyes watering as he and Cordelia stepped completely out of the Bronze and into the shadowed street with the Watcher and allowing the door to swing shut behind them.

“Xander?” Giles asked. “Are you alright?”

Xander stared at the Englishman, his mind flashing through everything that had happened since he’d read that card: from attempting to rape Buffy in the bathroom, to the two rapes he had committed in the cemetery and then to what he had planned to do with Cordelia.

Nausea knocked him to his knees and he didn’t know if it was what he had done or something he’d eaten, but he felt more ill than he ever had in his life. He vomited against the building, spilling out everything inside him in painful, gasping heaves.

“Eww,” Cordelia muttered, dancing away from the splash of bile.

“It’s alright, Xander,” Giles comforted him. “Don’t fight it. This is just a side effect of the spell you’ve been under. Once the nausea passes, you should be as good as new.”

Xander closed his eyes and ears against the sound of his own retching, but he couldn’t close his ears against the echoes that screamed in his skull.

Oh, God. What had he done?

Willow pushed open the door and stepped out into the chill night air. She glanced up the street in the direction Xander was supposed to be walking, but saw no sign of her childhood friend or the self-absorbed cheerleader.

With a sigh of impatience, the redheaded hacker turned to check the other way; he had better not be planning to kill Queen C all on his own. She had big plans for that vicious tongued bitch.

She took a step back in surprise as her revolution brought her nose-to-nose with Giles.

“Dis-pel-ler-e,” Giles intoned, blowing the powder into her face.

Willow staggered back and coughed spasmodically.

“Willow, dear,” Giles murmured. “Are you alright?”

She panted for air for a few seconds and then dropped to her knees before him and spilled the contents of her stomach onto his shoes.

~

UPDATE FOR 2/10/04

“Evil,” Buffy murmured thoughtfully. “It doesn’t…feel bad,” she said with an air of wonderment. “Being bad…it actually feels pretty good. Liberating.”

Angelus grinned, pleased with her conclusions. As long as she was happier being wicked than she ever had been being good, she would be amenable to making sure this spell lasted forever; she would be amenable to staying with him forever. He caught hold of her wrists, rubbing his thumbs soothingly over her pulse points. “What else can you tell me about this spell, baby?”

She frowned thoughtfully, tracking her emotional freedom back to the beginning, back to the moment she threw off her divine chains. “I think it was the smoke,” she said thoughtfully.

“Smoke?”

“Xander opened a note for Giles and this yellow smoke exploded in our faces. Smelled terrible, like rotten eggs. Ever since…then…I’ve felt…free.”

The dark-eyed vampire cradled her face in his palms, meeting her gaze intently. “Think carefully. Who was the note from? Did you see?”

“Yeah,” she snorted in disgust. “It was that creep, Ethan Rayne.”

“The one who nearly got you killed by Spike on Halloween and then again with that sleep demon?”

“Got it in one. Yep. Him. And you know something,” she muttered. “I’m getting pretty tired of good old Ethan blowing into town, raising a bit of hell and blowing back out – Not that this experience has been bad,” she added quickly. “Actually, as nefarious evil plots go, this one’s been pretty cool.”

Considering that it had landed her back in his arms and into his bed, he had to agree with that assessment. On the other hand, what magic had in one evening given him, it could, just as swiftly and just as unexpectedly, take away in the next.

Angelus considered things carefully, drawing on his previous experiences with spell-craft. Once magic like this was placed in motion, it typically required a counter-spell or a potion to counteract its effects, otherwise the magicks in motion stayed in motion; the spell would not wear off.

His wicked love would remain with him and he would not lose her to either her guilt or her morality. Relieved that one worry could be dismissed, he clutched his golden girl to his chest and grabbed a fistful of her hair to angle her lips for his kiss.

“It’s alright, my love,” he growled against her lips. “It won’t wear off. It will need an antidote.” He kissed her hungrily, but with a soft tenderness that was very new to him; she was precious, so very precious.

But no sooner had the relief from one problem, namely the wearing off of the spell, set in, than it dissipated as he remembered his other pressing concern: her mortality. He could still lose her. With one fist still clenched in her tangled hair, he cradled her jaw with his left hand and devoured her mouth, sliding his tongue in to tangle with hers.

Buffy arched pliantly beneath his hands, meeting his hunger with her own and when he tipped her backward on to the rumpled sheets, she clutched his shoulders, pulling his weight down on top of her.

“Good,” she sighed blissfully. “I don’t want to go back.”

The diminutive Slayer bared her neck for her vampire lover, gasping slightly at the pleasure of his cool kisses and the gentle nips he trailed over her soft skin. He continued on his sensual journey, over her collarbone and down, tantalizingly close to her already aching breasts; he nipped and suckled, avoiding the stiffened peaks as he teased her.

Buffy gasped arching beneath him, her eyes fluttering shut, then they snapped open abruptly. “Giles,” she gasped.

Angelus reared back, in affront. “What did you say?” he growled.

“Not like that,” she hissed impatiently, pushing him back off of her. “Giles will find the antidote. He’ll find it, if he hasn’t already, and he’ll come for me. He’ll come for me and make me go back.”

“No,” he growled. “That won’t happen.”

“He will,” she insisted. “I want to leave Sunnydale,” she demanded abruptly. “Tonight. And I don’t ever want to come back.”

~

Giles stared down at the children’s miserable faces; they were pale and shaking, their lips moist from the saliva and bile they kept spitting to the side. Silent tears crept like scars down Willow’s face and Xander stared blankly ahead.

They leaned against the side of the building, too weak to stand and seeing no point in moving away from their gastric rejections since it was obvious from their periodic retches that they weren’t finished.

“Are you alright now?” Giles asked softly, concerned about the haunted look in Willow’s eyes.

She nodded jerkily, sniffling. “What happened to us?”

Giles knelt in front of the young hacker, his blue gaze filled with compassion. “You were infected by the Umbra Labes, a magical powder that brings out the evil hidden within.” Willow flinched. That evil…that cruelty was hidden inside of her? She twisted to the side and vomited again, the spasms in her belly making her feel as though she were being turned inside out.

“What do you remember?” the pale-haired Watcher asked compassionately.

Evil within. Everyone has a monster hidden inside. Within. Inside.

“Nothing,” Xander snapped, turning his gaze to his best friend; two girls screamed between them, two additional statistics that a murderous town like Sunnydale would probably not even notice. “We don’t remember anything.”

Giles glanced at the boy in careful consideration. He remembered another time Xander had claimed amnesia in order to avoid dealing with the ramifications of his actions – coerced or no. Then, he had agreed to keep the boy’s secret, giving him his tacit approval of both the lie and the shirking of his responsibility at facing his own inner beast. Evil didn’t create its own agendas, it worked with what was already at hand. Was this yet another incident when Xander would rather sweep it under the rug and pretend nothing had happened rather than deal with the fact that, like every member of the human race, he had an ugly seed of evil within him?

“Willow?”

The red haired hacker swallowed. “I think I’m going to be sick again.”

The staid Watcher dodged nimbly before another gastric deposit was made onto his shoes.

“Maybe we should get them to the hospital,” Oz commented, not liking his girlfriend’s color.

“Yes,” Giles nodded. “Yes. That’s an excellent idea. Oz, you take them. Cordelia and I will search for Buffy.”

Cordelia glanced up from where she knelt at Xander’s side. “Ex-cuse me? Why am I relegated to searching for freak-girl - who’s probably off getting groiny with her psychotic ex-boyfriend - instead of taking Willow and Xander to the hospi – Eeww!”

In the middle of her diatribe, Xander hunched over helplessly and retched weakly.

“You’re right,” Oz said agreeably. “You can drive my van down to the hospital and handle any messes.”

“No. That’s okay,” Cordelia denied quickly, stepping away from her currently disgusting boyfriend. “You can do it. I’d be really uncomfortable with all those blind spots. Giles and I can search for Buffy.”

“Well, if you’re sure?” Oz asked with dry mockery.

Giles hid a smile behind his hand and cleared his throat.

“Quite sure,” the May Queen snapped.

The three of them gathered the two wretchedly ill teens and helped them slowly into Oz’s black and white striped van.

The brown-haired guitarist swung an empty trashcan into the van as well, settling the empty metal container between them. “Here. No offense.”

~

Buffy stroked her fingers over Angelus’ lips and then leaned against him. “We should go now, “ she whispered anxiously. “We can be out of here and long gone before sunrise and he’ll never find us or catch up to us then.”

He cradled her against his chest, stroking the silky skin of her back. “Be easier to just kill him,” he suggested in a soft rumble.

If she thought it would help, if she thought it would protect the new life she was building for herself, she would kill her Watcher in a heartbeat, but she knew that Giles was only the tip, figuratively speaking, of the iceberg.

“Guess it all depends on just what you call easier,” she contradicted, “one Watcher or a council appointed hit squad."

"Hit squad?"

"Yep. I found it in one of Giles' musty old journals when I was looking up," she glanced up at him and flushed, "something. Anyways, when a slayer goes rogue, the Council sends a hit squad after her and takes her out. At least with Giles we've got a devil you know thing.”

“Unless he tells them,” Angelus commented.

“No,” she shook her head, her mind racing through the possibilities. “If he tells them, it’s back to scenario one, with the Terminator goon squad on the way and I don’t think Giles will give up on me quite so quickly, not if he’s got an antidote.”

“I won’t let him give it to you,” the demon growled.

“And you preventing it all depends on just what the antidote is,” she argued. “If he can cure me in a matter of seconds, next thing you know I’ll be all sweetness and light again, protecting him. And just like that, we’ll have lost.”

“It won’t be like that,” he stated.

“No?” she demanded. “We won’t go back to only seeing each other when I’m supposed to kill you? When I’m supposed to shove a stake through your heart? We won’t go back to me barring you from my house and bed? Not talking, not being with each other. I don’t want it to be like that again. I hated it. I hated every minute of it. I hated everyone telling me to kill you. I hated you being with Dru and Spike again and not with me. I hated my mother making me feel ashamed for being with you. And I hated my so-called friends offering me pity even as they’re trying to get me to date somebody else, cause of course if I’m dating somebody else, I won’t mind shoving a sharp stick into your chest so much.”

“Shh,” he caught hold of her and held her to him, stroking her hair soothingly, trying to calm her.

She listened to the silence of his heart, allowing his stillness to soothe her. “I don’t want to leave you,” she breathed. “And I don’t want to be taken either. Please, we should go. Running is our best option now; Sunnydale is too small to hide in.”

Angelus tugged her hair, tilting her head back to look into the green of her eyes. The fates had smiled upon him and delivered his golden beauty back into his arms; he would not spurn their gift by ignoring the danger the Watcher could pose.

He considered the amount of time it would take to pack up the bare essentials of his household: clothing, the few mementos he’d kept over the centuries and then there were the more cumbersome components of his household. “Dru and Spike aren’t strong enough to travel and they’re too weak to be left here alone.”

The diminutive beauty shoved away from him angrily, rising from the bed. She stalked several paces away and then whirled back to glower at him. “You care more about those damn parasites than you do me!” she accused half-hysterically. “In case you’ve forgotten, just a couple of months ago Spike tried to kill you. He tried to suck you dry of all your power just to cure that pathetic looney he calls his consort.”

The dark-eyed demon growled warningly. “That was Angel that happened to.”

“And what? You weren’t sitting in there as well? Bleeding out? Dying? Just leave them! If they can’t survive on their own, tough! Or put them in the fucking trunk!” She paused to breathe deeply, trying to control her impending dread, after a moment, she continued more calmly. “Giles - and the others - they won’t just leave me with you. Kill or cure, they can’t afford to have a Slayer allied with the Scourge of Europe. We have to go now. Tonight. Any later is too late.” She clenched her small hands into fists, her green gaze intent. “Angelus, I won’t allow myself to love you, if I am cured.”

Angelus stood up and paced to her, catching her shoulders and pulling her roughly to him. “I won’t lose you,” he vowed.

She clutched him tightly, digging her nails into his back and pressed her face hard against his bare chest. Her breaths fell across his cool skin, warming the flesh above his still heart and she rested her forehead momentarily against his skin, before slowly tilting her head back to look up at him.

He cradled her face in his palms and gently stroked the bones of her cheeks with his thumbs. “We’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “Get dressed. I’ll send a few minions to keep Giles occupied; he’ll be so busy with them, he won’t have time to interfere with us. And while he’s busy, we’ll take Spike’s car and blow town.”

The tall vampire rested his forehead against hers for a moment and Buffy drew comfort from his confidence.

After a moment, she drew back and smiled up at her dark lover with a renewed sense of calm. They would be fine. Without her there to protect him, Giles would have a hard time taking on two minions, so there was no need to panic and no need to run from her home with only the clothes on her back.

“Now get dressed,” he ordered with a light smack to her posterior. “I’ll send out a couple of my men to deal with Giles now.” The languid hours of lovemaking were set aside as the predatory duo moved to the more immediate issue of escape. As Angelus exited the bedroom, Buffy quickly slipped into the wrinkled clothes that had somehow managed to survive their passionate encounter of a couple of hours ago. She had barely pulled the black camisole back over her head before her tall lover re-entered the room with a self-satisfied smirk.

“No worries,” he reassured her again, and confident in his abilities and judgment, Buffy had none.

Angelus packed a bag briskly, wincing as his clothes were crushed in his hurry. “We’ll head straight for L.A.,” he informed her. “We’ll be in a hotel before dawn and in a couple of nights, we’ll look for a new lair. We'll disappear in the city while I figure out how to make you immortal.”

“Straight for LA? Hello? Some of us needing a few changes of clothing of our own here.”

The tall vampire smirked at her wrinkled, but still intact clothing. “I’ll buy you a new wardrobe in LA.”

Buffy planted her hands on her hips. “That’s nice, really, but I since Giles is going to be well occupied, I have a few things at home I want to grab.” Several things actually: clothes, weapons, jewelry, and Mr. Gordo.

“Like what?”

“Stuff,” she said indignantly. “Not much, just a couple of things. And if I should happen to grab a couple of changes of clothing until my new wardrobe materializes, more power to me – did you say you’d buy me a new wardrobe?”

Angelus zipped his bag shut. “I did.”

“Buy?” she repeated in bemused shock. “Is this one of those ‘I’ve put a little away for a very long time’ things and all this time you’ve been like frighteningly rich?”

Her dark-eyed demon glanced at her and lifted his brows with ironic amusement. “Quite wealthy, but I wanted to make sure you loved me for myself.”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy commented. “Well, fooled you,” she muttered proudly. “I…knew you were rich all along.”

Angelus chuckled and swept her into his arms to kiss her. “Did you? Fine, you want me for my money, I’ll find some way to live with it,” he conceded mockingly.

“And your body,” she added grudgingly.

“Right,” he drawled indulgently. She loved him; he knew it without a doubt. He had experienced it in her embrace and tasted it in her blood. Love without doubt…what a fascinating concept.

“So, in this new lair, and with my new wardrobe, just how much room am I going to have with a clothes-horse like you?”

Angelus nuzzled her lips, growling softly as his hunger for her lithe, sweet body began to grow again. “I’ll give you a drawer or two,” he promised. He took her lips, sweeping his tongue in to tangle with hers, pressing her tightly against his growing arousal and she arched against him, twining her arms around his neck. He swept his hands down the length of her spine to her bottom and then slid them under her skirt to caress her naked flesh.

Buffy gasped, her insides already turning warm and liquid to accept him within her. She sharply nipped his lip and smiled up into his leering smirk. “We have to go,” she said regretfully. “Sex later,” she promised.

“Damn right later,” Angelus muttered, reluctantly releasing her from his embrace. Leaving his lair now, when there were so many things he would rather be doing with her was annoying to be sure, but it would be more than annoying to have her grim-faced Watcher burst in on them together in bed and hit her with and much undesired antidote.

They would be on the road in less than fifteen minutes and in a little more than two hours, they could disappear into the population of Los Angeles, safe from her enterprising Watcher, her nosy friends and that unwanted antidote.

The tall vampire escorted her out of his bedroom. Buffy walked quickly over to the dining table, to the chair that had contained so many of their earlier amorous activities and she slipped into the socks and boots that he had earlier slipped off of her feet.

“Ready?” Angelus asked.

She glanced up at him with a teasing smirk and stood up. “And willing.”

He growled softly, deeply inhaling the feminine musk that told him that despite her teasing smile, she wasn’t lying about the state of her body. If anything, the sound of his growl increased the scent of her desire.

“Stop that,” she scolded, pressing her thighs tightly together.

The dark-eyed demon smirked. “You started it lover. I’m just playing along.”

“I started it? Who grabbed whose butt here?”

Angelus cocked his head and arched a brow at her as she approached him. “You could have copped a feel baby, I wouldn’t have objected.”

“Yeah, and then we wouldn’t escape but be caught in bed by my Watcher. Thanks but no thanks, sex can wait until we’re safe. Now you want to get your tagalongs or can we leave without them?”

He tapped her nose lightly, a soft rebuke. “Behave.”

“You first,” she purred.

The tall demon growled again, smirking at her body’s response to him and then shoved open the door to Spike and Drusilla’s bedroom, revealing the burnt husk of a chamber. Other than the vampires, the only thing within the darkened chamber that had survived the fire was the steel frame of their four-poster bed, the rest of the furniture had burnt down to blackened sticks and most of the porcelain faces of Drusilla’s dolls had cracked from the heat.

Spike lay motionless on the new lacey coverlet that was spread over the bed, his face still misshapen and his body still obviously broken from his and Buffy’s earlier altercation. Drusilla cuddled against his side and crooned softly to her unconscious mate. She looked up warily as her sire and the Slayer pushed open the door and leaned against the doorframe.

“Daddy,” the dark haired vampiress whined, “my little lamb is broken.”

“He’ll be fine Dru,” Angelus murmured.

“Did you teach her the daddy thing or did she pick that up on her own?” Buffy asked sarcastically.

The dark-eyed vampire shot her an irritated look and the diminutive Slayer raised her palms in mute surrender before looking away from his childer with a moue of silent disgust. She saw no reason to drag the broken vampires with them, but would not push since Angelus seemed to be unwilling to break his familial bonds as yet. She could only hope that his attachment to the annoying pair was based more in familiarity than true affection.

“Dru, get Spike’s chair, no doubt in his current condition he’s going to need it for awhile more.” The tall predator cast another irritated glance at his mate.

“What?” Buffy asked innocently. “I came to beat up Dru. He started it. He could have just stayed in his chair playing possum and I might never have touched him, but oh no, Spikey wanted to fight. So it was his own fault he got his ass kicked.” She glanced at the misshapen and swollen features of his sharp-boned face. “I only broke him a little.”

Angelus grunted and stalked over to the bed; broke him a little? Spike would be lucky if he could walk within the month. Buffy watched as the dark-eyed demon lifted Spike up in his arms, cradling the younger vampire in a way that was almost tender; it didn’t bode well for ditching the moron twins any time soon. Not that she really had any great objection to Spike; aside from trying to kill her a couple of times, the bleach-haired vampire was actually kind of fun. It was Drusilla rubbing all over her lover like a bitch in heat that Buffy objected to.

“Grab your things Dru,” Angelus instructed. “We’re leaving Sunnydale tonight.”

Drusilla shifted her dark blue gaze from her sire to the Slayer and back again. “Is the party over then?”

“It is here.” He turned and walked out of the bedroom and Buffy walked at his side. The brunette vampiress snatched up Spike’s black duster and trailed in her sire’s and his mate’s wake. She grabbed hold of the abandoned wheelchair as she walked, following Angelus outside of their burnt lair and to the beat-up old Desoto she and Spike had arrived in town in so many months ago.

Buffy opened the trunk and watched in silence as Drusilla folded Spike’s wheelchair and slid it into the large compartment.

After putting the wheelchair into the trunk, Drusilla opened a back passenger door and waited for Angelus to slide Spike into the back seat. To her surprise, her sire leaned down and gently tucked Spike into the trunk along with his wheelchair.

“Daddy?”

“Spike’s too broken to risk being seen in public,” the tall vampire informed her.

The brunette vampiress rocked from side to side, her blue gaze focused on her injured mate. “But if my lamb wakes up alone in the trunk he’ll be confused and disoriented.”

Angelus smiled coldly at his maddened offspring. “That’s a good point, Dru. Which is why you’ll both be traveling in the trunk.”

She whined sadly, pitifully even, but wilted beneath her sire’s stern stare and then crawled into the trunk with her broken lover.

Buffy closed the trunk and smiled up at her tall lover. “Alone at last,” she drawled, trailing her fingertips over the hardened muscles of his chest.

Angelus curved his hand around his golden girl’s nape and drew her in for a brief hungry kiss. “Get in the car. You keep teasing me like this and you’re going to find yourself bent over the hood and me pounding away between your pretty thighs.”

She grinned up at him. “You sweet-talker you.”

He chuckled throatily and kissed her again before giving her a shove to the other side of the car.

Moments later, they were settled in the dirty, cigarette smelling car and ready to go; unfortunately, the car was not.

“Fuck,” he growled.

“What is it?”

“Sounds like the battery.” The master vampire swung out of the car and snapped his fingers imperiously, summoning a shrinking minion from the shadows of the building. “You.”

Stewart approached his master with downcast eyes and hunched shoulders. He cast nervous glances at Angelus and then more nervous glances at the golden predator that swung out of the parked vehicle to lounge next to her mate.

“Master?”

“Battery is dead. Get a new battery. Fix this car. I want you and…Ray to take Spike and Drusilla to LA., to the Cassandrian. We’ll find alternate transportation and meet you there.”

Stewart stared at the dead car and then at the Master Vampire. “Master, all of the auto shops are closed-“

“Are you arguing with me?” Angelus snarled at the string-haired henchman.

“No, of-of-of course not master!”

Buffy watched the altercation with sneering amusement. It was simply amazing how the other vampires in town slunk around her lover, with their figurative tails between their legs, like they were all whipped dogs.

“I suggest,” Angelus rumbled threateningly “that you find a match from a parked car somewhere in this sleepy little town. And you’d best do it quick, because you will be in L.A. before sunrise, is that clear?”

“Yes, Master.”

“You want your bag?” Buffy asked. “We may get in too late for you to grab it from them before bed time.”

“It’ll be fine. Let’s get moving baby.” Angelus held out his hand and laced her fingers with his.

Stewart and Ray watched with fearful and near-worshipful gazes as their Master walked away, hand in hand with his lover, the Slayer. No Slayer had ever been turned to shadow before, but their sire’s sire’s sire had done it. It was only a matter of time before she was one of them. ~

UPDATED 2/13/03

Giles ground his teeth together in an effort not to lose his temper on the drive back to the Sunnydale High library; Cordelia complained non-stop, prattling on and on about Xander’s treatment of her, his earlier attentiveness to Willow and then about each and every physical flaw that she perceived the red-haired girl possessed that made her in every way less than Cordelia Chase and therefore, unworthy.

He rather wished that Oz had accompanied him instead of the shallow and self-absorbed brunette, but Willow and Xander had been too ill from the toxins of the potion to chance Cordelia being unable to drive the guitarist’s van.

“And can you believe that shirt Willow was wearing?” Cordelia continued to complain. “Can we say sluttish?”

Giles paused; truthfully it hadn’t looked any more revealing than any number of the low cut items he’d seen the brunette cheerleader parading around school in.

“I mean, puh-lease. Know your limitations I say.”

In his opinion, Cordelia tended to say too bloody much.

“And that slit in her skirt! Anyone could tell she’d ripped it higher. How trampy can you get?”

The annoyed Watcher prayed for some silence in which to think. He needed to plan their strategy for the upcoming battle; he needed a plan to defeat his Slayer and the three Master Vampires she was most likely holed up with.

He had no doubt that Buffy was with Angel, just as he had no doubt that the Master Vampire would sooner rip him limb from limb than risk losing what he had gained that night with the be-spelled Slayer. Umbra Labes: the ultimate evil in the Slayer’s young life would be to cast aside her sacred duty and run off with her demon lover. Giles would be damned before that happened to his Slayer; she would not go down in the Council’s Chronicles as the whore of Angelus, the Scourge of Europe.

“This is so Buffy’s fault,” the brunette griped, barely taking a breath to separate one speal of complaints from another.

Giles glanced at her in irritation. “What?”

“I’m sure it’s totally her fault that this entire nightmare even happened,” Cordelia stated in annoyance. “It’s always her fault. I mean please, bad things always happen to the people around her. If she wasn’t so selfish, she’d take her jinx-y self off to a cave to live in isolation so innocent bystanders wouldn’t get hurt, but oh no, not Buffy. She’s got to be right here, getting people killed, turning nice guys evil and getting people’s girlfriend’s murdered.

He shook his head in disgust at her venomous conclusions. What Xander saw in the spiteful girl he would never understand.

“You know it just figures that Buffy would completely ruin my weekend like this – not just my Friday night, but my entire weekend. Instead of a nice evening out with my loser boyfriend, he’s on his way to the hospital to get his stomach pumped, I’ve got vomit stains on my two hundred dollar Italian leather pumps and I’m going with you to rescue freak-o girl from her demon boyfriend. Can’t she ever do anything right?”

Giles pressed a little harder on the gas peddle and rolled through a stop sign.

“I mean she totally ruined Angel. I always knew Buffy was a skanky little tramp. I mean puh-lease, the very first opportunity she gets she just spreads ‘em and lets a demon between her legs - turning him evil no less. I mean total gorgeous demigod to bloodsucking homicidal freak in one night. Can we say therapy?”

The confused Watcher frowned in confusion. Was she complaining that Buffy was sleeping with Angel before he was evil or after he was evil? He couldn’t tell.

“She must be one lousy lay. No wonder he went nutso. I mean really, what does Angel see in her? It’s not like she’s attractive or anything. Have you seen her hair? More often than not she’s got that street urchin thing going on. And that thing on her face? She should get that fixed so the rest of us don’t have to look at it. And her skin! I don’t think she even moisturizes anymore. A guy like Angel could do way better. Or he could have before selfish Buffy turned him evil. Nothing ruins a man faster than a bad woman, Buffy just took it to new extremes.”

So was this entire tirade because Buffy was with the demon? Or was it because Cordelia had been jealous before Angel had turned evil? Giles sped around another corner.

“Now my weekend is ruined. I mean, I have a 4:00 with Renaldo tomorrow for a wax and a facial and now I’m simply too traumatized. But does she think of my pain? No. Off she goes on one of her little attention-getting stunts and completely ruins my weekend. And now I’m stuck with you to go off and rescue her. Why are we going to rescue her? She’s probably happy screwing her evil undead ex-honey – you don’t think he has blood under his fingernails when he touches her do you? Cause – eww.”

Perhaps he should have followed Oz and left the brunette at the hospital?

“This type of activity is unhealthy! I mean,” she flipped down the passenger visor and peered into the mirror, “am I getting wrinkles? I’m too young for wrinkles. This kind of trauma can’t give you like premeditated wrinkles can it?”

How did this vapid spiteful and vain girl manage to get boyfriends? What moron of a man or boy couldn’t see the repitillean coldness in her eyes or the utter selfishness of her much-to-be-desired personality?

“You know,” she continued confidingly, “the world would be so much better if Buffy had just never come to Sunnydale. We never had freak monsters, invisible girls, students eating the principal – ye-uck! - or vampires until she came to town. I wonder if it would get better after she left?”

Giles pulled the car into the high school parking lot and slammed on the brakes, halting the vehicle behind Cordelia’s parked car.

Cordelia glowed at the Watcher resentfully. “A little warning would have been nice and why are we stopping here? I thought we were going to look for Buffy.”

He turned to face her, aware as never before that her incessant complaints would only distract him from the things he needed to get done if he was to reclaim Buffy from the Umbra Labes and from Angel. It would not be easy going into the vampire’s lair alone, but with Cordelia and her loud and unstopping mouth, it would be suicide; the vain May Queen would doubtless require rescuing and protection as well as alerting every vampire for miles of their presence, making a sneak attack all but impossible. Why couldn’t Jenny be here when he needed her cool, levelheaded assistance?

“Cordelia,” he said, trying to find a more tactful way to get rid of her rather than simply shoving her out on to the asphalt. “We don’t know precisely where Buffy is and even if we did, we don’t have the strength to overpower her as well as three master vampires. I’m going into the library to gather weapons and other things I’ll need to give me the advantage during a confrontation.”

“You?” she repeated uncertainly. “What – what about me?”

“I’d like you to continue searching for her as you were earlier while I make some necessary preparations.”

“You want me to search for Buffy alone?”

The blond Watcher reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a slim and often forgotten cellphone. “I certainly don’t want you to face her alone, but the longer she’s with Angel – if she indeed is – the more likely the possibility that she’s going to do something she will later regret. If you could, please do a drive by of all the places she normally frequents, the cemeteries, the Bronze, her house, whatever else you can think of and then call me on this,” he raised the high-tech gadget, “if you find her. We would certainly save time if you could locate Buffy while I get some weapons ready.”

“Weapons?” Cordelia repeated skeptically. “Why do you need weapons? All you had to do was blow the baking powder in Willow and Xander’s faces and everything was fine. Why is Buffy different? Why is Buffy always so difficult?”

“Because,” Giles said patiently, “she will undoubtedly not want to be cured, and Angel will not want her cured either. She will be in hiding to avoid my administering an antidote and I’m going to have to give it to her while she’s fighting me. No doubt she, Angel and his childer will try to stop me as well. So I will need spells to allow me to incapacitate the vampires, the tranquilizer gun, to incapacitate Buffy without harming her, holy water to throw on Angel and – “

“Alright, alright,” Cordelia snapped raising her hands in surrender. “And why am I not staying with you?”

“If you could simply drive around and try to locate Buffy and then call me and tell me where she is, we should be able to save time.”

“And that’s it?” the brunette asked curiously. “Just find her?”

“That’s it. Check the Bronze, drive by the cemeteries, and her house wherever. Do not under any circumstances get out of your car and try to face her alone. Call me if you find her, I should be prepared by then.”

“Right,” she nodded, copying down the cell number taped to the back of his phone. “You can count on me.” She slid out the car and slammed the door behind her.

Giles watched her get into her car and then pulled out of the way for her to set off on her search. He didn’t expect too much in the way of results from the self-absorbed May Queen, but her being out of his car and out of his presence was help enough.

Now he could hear himself think again; it had been the longest twenty minutes of his life.

~

It had been the longest twenty minutes of her life.

The bouncing and jouncing of the van as Oz had navigated his way to the hospital, the smell of the french-fries left to go stale and hard on the floor wherever they had dropped and the echoing screams and pleas of the two girls she and Xander had tortured to death – or not quite to death but close – had all served to heighten her sick misery.

Willow groaned and huddled over the metal trashcan Oz had placed between her and Xander and retched miserably into the container. Stomach acid burned in her throat and in her sinuses; she sobbed helplessly.

They were at the hospital, parked outside of the emergency room; when would Oz return for them with help?

Not that she deserved help, Willow thought contemptuously. She didn’t. After what she had done to that girl – Tammy? or had it been Ruth? Oh god! She couldn’t even remember the name of the girl she had tortured with a wine bottle! She deserved to suffer. She deserved to live in agony, deserved to die at the hands of a monster…she deserved to go to hell.

Please don’t hurt me. Please just let us go, we won’t say anything. Please. Please. Oh god! Somebody help us!

One last horrible wrench twisted her stomach and then Willow collapsed weakly on the van bed next to Xander.

Tears burned in her eyes, even as her throat and nose burned with vomit. “God,” she whispered, staring blankly up at the scarred ceiling of the van. “What did we do?”

“Not out fault,” Xander groaned, his face pressed into the mattress. “It’s not our fault. Notourfaultnotourfaultnotourfault. It wasn’t us it was a spell. We didn’t do anything.”

“We hurt them,” the redheaded hacker whispered, tears trickling over her fevered cheeks.

“No.”

“We….we raped them.”

“No.”

“We – “

“No. NO. NO!” he denied, turning to glare at her as he twisted the old coverlet in his fists. “We aren’t responsible. It’s not our fault. It was a spell. It wasn’t us. That wasn’t us. It’s Ethan’s fault this happened. Ethan hurt those girls, not us….That wasn’t us.”

“Xander,” Willow whispered. “We have to – “

“Nothing,” he snarled at her, his brown eyes wild. He moved suddenly, grabbing hold of her wrist in a hard, painful grip. “Nothing happened,” he enunciated carefully. “Nothing. We don’t remember and we didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We killed those girls,” Willow wailed, pulling weakly in her wrist.

“Drusilla killed them. Drusilla. Angel’s crazy bitch of a child. She killed them. Not us. It’s not our fault. We didn’t do anything, Willow. It’s not our fault. Forget it happened. It’s over now and we’ll – we’ll just forget it happened.” The two women shrieked and pleaded in Willow’s mind, begging for mercy, begging for their lives and begging for her to not rape them with a wine bottle.

She lurched forward to vomit again, sobbing into the trashcan brokenly; her heartbreak echoed hollowly back to her, accompanied by the sour stench of her sickness.

The cool air that brushed her fevered flesh when the van’s door slid open was a blessed relief; the underserved compassion and worry in her boyfriend’s concerned gaze was not.

~

Buffy tightened her grip around Angelus’ fingers and glanced up at the tall predator that stalked at her side. Her heart lurched in her chest; it never failed to skip a beat at the sight of him, just as her lungs never failed to seize up as she drank in his masculine beauty; he was a veritable vampire god, this demon with the angelic face, and he was hers. As Angel, he had been breathtaking, the warmth of his soul lighting his dark chocolate eyes and revealing him for the gentle man and the brave hero she knew him to be at his core, but now, as dark and dangerous Angelus, the deadly Scourge of Europe, he had lost none of his allure, his presence still drawing her irresistibly toward him.

She walked silently, enjoying his presence at her side. For too many nights she had patrolled alone. For too many nights he had not been there at her side and at her back, supporting her in her battles, protecting her from her enemies…and comforting her in the cold shadows. She had missed him, missed him so bad it was like a knife in her heart, a raw and aching wound that bled and could not heal without him. And now? Now it was gone. The pain, the sorrow, the guilt, it was all gone. There was only the glowing bliss that filled her to near-bursting, bliss because she was no longer alone in the shadows.

Angelus glanced down at his diminutive mate, taking in the small smile that curved her lips and the warm look in her eyes. “What are you thinking?” he murmured softly.

“Tender, maudlin, soulful emotions,” she answered with a teasing grin. “You’d be disgusted.”

“Would I?” he purred, deftly spinning her around so that she was walking backwards in front of him, with one of his hands on her hips, guiding her. “You know how willing I am to indulge you,” he reassured her. “Are you sure I’d be disgusted?”

“Uh-huh. Big bad powerful demon like yourself,” she traced one finger over the muscles of his chest flirtatiously, “it would only sicken you to know just how much I – “

“Well, well, well,” a loud voice interrupted her flirtation. “Take a look boys: a sweet young thing out at night on the arm of her boyfriend.”

Buffy sighed in irritation, displeased to have her teasing interrupted. What the hell was she doing wrong? She saved the world, it interfered with her dates; she let the world go rot and it interfered with her dates; what did she have to do? Destroy it? She glanced to the right, taking in the gang of leather and denim clad men who watched them with leering interest.

The group of ten grungy looking men alternately leaned against the wall outside of Baja’s, the lowest dive – outside of Willie’s – in Sunnydale, or lounged on their parked motorcycles, with beers or cigarettes parked in their meaty fists. They watched the slender blonde with lascivious grins and eyed her tall boyfriend appraisingly, before glancing at each other with comraderic cunning.

The diminutive Slayer wrinkled her nose in disgust as the stench of cigarette smoke, unwashed bodies and alcohol wafted to her. Actually, when she considered it, Willie’s had a better clientele, despite their horns, scales or oozing secretions. She turned her attention back up to her tall dark escort. “Boyfriend,” she drawled. “It just doesn’t carry the same menacing meaning without the cradle-robbing-creature-of-the-night part involved, does it?”

Angelus bared his teeth in dark amusement, keeping his gaze on the group of men that were slowly coming to their feet. “I prefer Scourge of Europe myself. I earned it.”

“Trust me, baby, you earned the other title as well. You are definitely robbing a cradle.”

“Well baby,” he commented dryly, “you can suckle on me for comfort anytime you want to.”

Despite the numerous carnal acts of lovemaking they had shared during the evening, her cheeks flushed slightly at his innuendo. “Maybe later.”

“He don't look man enough for the likes of her,” one of the bikers observed in a loud tone, dismounting his motorcycle and flicking his cigarette to the side.

Buffy glanced up at her deadly predatory boyfriend with grim amusement. Not man enough for her? Him?

The tall demon drew his delicate lover closer to the protection of his body, not liking the stench of lust that was beginning to permeate the air, overpowering the scent of alcohol. He shifted his gaze along the greasy-haired rabble, noting the stiffening of postures, the alert tenseness of a pack of dogs getting ready to attack.

A lanky blond-haired man shoved away from the wall, his face hardening with cruel intent. “Pretty boy like that's got no staying power,” he observed in a sneering tone. “Real waste of her time and those luscious legs. What do you say darling?” he grabbed his crotch lewdly and stroked himself. “Want to feel something real powerful between your thighs?”

The diminutive Slayer rolled her eyes. “Is it me?” she asked her dark eyed lover. “First Xander, then that other biker – Is it the way I’m dressed? My perfume maybe?” She smelled her arm experimentally.

“Oh, baby,” a pockmarked bald man eyed her from the crown of her golden head to the tips of her boots. “You're going to look a whole lot better undressed, with us humping between your pretty legs.” Angelus growled softly, a deep demonic signal of impending carnage. “Get behind me,” he rumbled. “This won’t take long.”

The Master Vampire glowered at the filthy rabble that dared to eye his woman: jackals, the lot of them. Filthy scavengers, who no doubt required their full pack at their backs to feel dangerous – and who no doubt thought that he was just a clean-cut college boy walking his pretty young girlfriend home. Without a doubt, if he and Buffy had indeed been the nice normal guy and his nice normal girlfriend that they appeared, the leering bikers would at best beat the crap out of him and at worst murder him, likely while making him watch as they gang-banged his innocent young lover into an early grave.

He shifted his gaze, noting each member of the group, automatically sizing him up and identifying weaknesses. Granted he and Buffy were in a bit of a hurry to get out of Sunnydale, but they would just have to make the time for him to deal with these vermin.

Nobody looked at his baby like that. Nobody….Well, nobody but him.

Buffy pulled away from Angelus’ protective grasp and shifted to his side stubbornly. She clenched her fists and raised them into an aggressive fighting stance. “I can take them,” she hissed indignantly.

The pockmarked biker grinned, baring his tobacco-stained teeth. “Yeah, pretty boy,” he drawled insolently. “She can take us. All of us.”

Angelus growled louder at the thought of any of these vermin touching Buffy’s smooth golden skin. He didn’t want them near her. He didn’t even want her fists in contact with them; he didn’t want the smell of their blood, tobacco or lust to linger on her knuckles.

Buffy gasped as Angelus spun abruptly to her and forced her back to the dumpster at the opposite side of the alley. He settled his hands on her hips and lifted her; startled at his action, she placed her hands on his shoulders for balance as he settled her easily atop the metal garbage receptacle.

She slid forward immediately, to hop off of the steel bin; he halted her.

The golden Slayer glowered at him.

The dark-eyed demon grasped her ankles and crossed them firmly into a lady-like pose. “You better keep your dainty little ankles crossed and your feet off the ground lover. You're not dressed for this kind of action,” he reminded her with a meaningful glance at her short skirt.

Remembering her state of undress, she flushed brightly and glared at him. “Would be if you hadn’t ripped them off,” she muttered rebelliously.

He held up his index finger imperiously, silencing her objections. “I’m going to be real upset if anyone gets a flash of what's mine,” he growled warningly.

Buffy’s eyes glittered with indignation at his high-handed treatment.

“You hear that?” a gang-member hooted. “He’ll be upset if we get a flash of what’s his.”

Several leering guffaws met this comment.

“You mean there’s nothing beneath that short, short skirt but naked schoolgirl pussy?”

The low vibration of the demon’s growl deepened, as did his rage.

The bald-headed leader of the gang snapped his fingers at the two largest members of the gang; both were six and a half foot giants of lean muscle and identical features. “Rosco, Bull, why don't you entertain the pretty boy while the rest of us keep the lady company.”

The diminutive Slayer glowered down at her mate in affronted pride. “I can handle this.”

Angelus turned away from her; the decision was made as far as he was concerned and the subject was now closed. “You’re just going to have to deal with it while I get – how did you put it earlier? - ‘beat my chest, knuckle-dragging primitive.’ I don't want their smell on you. Now sit out,” he ordered in a hard tone that brooked no further argument from her.

“Fine,” she relented ungraciously, crossing her arms over her chest. “Want me to hold your coat for you?”

The two Viking-like bikers approached the shorter man, cruel expressions on their blunt-featured faces.

Angelus shrugged out of his leather coat, tossed it to his golden lover and stepped toward the two Viking-like men that were closing in on him.

Buffy eyed the combatants while she folded Angelus’ jacket neatly over her lap. She had decided earlier that when it came right down to it, humans were no great challenge to kill, not compared to the demons and other supernatural beasties she fought on a regular basis, but just because she thought it would be like shooting fish in a barrel – wherever the hell that phrase came from – that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t fight her own battles and kill the occasional human that got in her way or threatened her safety. Self-defense was always a perfectly good reason to kill and it offended her independent pride to allow her lover to fight her battles for her.

“Don't take too long,” the irritated blond growled. “We don’t have time for you to indulge your inner artist tonight.”

Angelus glanced back at her mulish scowl and smirked at her. “I wouldn’t waste myself,” he retorted. He knew exactly why she was in a bad mood, but as his mate, she would just have to learn to sit out the occasional battle, leaving the fun – and the showing off – to him. He turned back to the two large thugs that were cracking their knuckles as they eyed him the sadistic intent.

“Don't worry sweet thing,” the pockmarked leader reassured her with an unpleasant smile. “This won't take long at all. And then we'll have all night.”

“Anxious isn’t she pretty boy?” Bull – or was it Rosco? – sneered at him. “You must be starving her”

The Master Vampire snarled softly, his own lips quirking into a cruel smile. Starving her? With the amount of screaming she had done that night? Unlikely.

“Maybe when were done,” the leader taunted him again, “and if there’s anything left of her when Bull’s done we’ll give you a few pointers.”

Buffy glanced at her watch impatiently. “Can you get to the fighting already? It’s nearly midnight.”

Angelus grinned. Bitch, bitch, bitch. His little darling really hated to be benched.

Rosco – or Bull – bared his teeth as he and his twin circled around the lean vampire. “She sure is eager,” he grunted before lunging forward and slamming his large fist towards the demon’s face.

The Master Vampire caught his opponent’s fist easily, halting the blow with little effort; his lips quirked into a half smile at the biker’s surprised expression before he crushed the mortal’s hand into a meaty pulp.

The tall blonde behemoth screamed shrilly.

The other biker rushed forward to punch the predator that held his twin but Angelus deftly twisted his grip on his screaming opponent, using one brother to block the attack on the other.

Buffy cocked her head and watched her lover as he sinuously twisted in the deadly dance of brawling men. He slammed his foot in his uninjured attacker’s chest and even where she sat, she could hear the ribs break beneath the force of that blow; his attacker flew backward, hitting the ground where he skidded to a halt and groaned, gurgling desperately for air.

“Rosco!” the man Angelus held cried out just before her demon lover slammed his elbow into the blonde giant’s face hard enough to snap his head to the side; the sickening crunch of bone signaled the deadliness of the blow and the tall biker sank to the asphalt.

Angelus laughed gleefully, “I never get tired of doing that.”

The Slayer grinned, her green eyes glittering with sadistic pleasure as several of the gang members knelt to check on their fallen comrades. “And I do love those breaking noises,” she purred.

“Bull?”

“Rosco?”

The shocked gang members gingerly touched the fallen giants, shaking their shoulders; one of Angelus’ victims gurgled again and then released a long broken sigh, signaling his death.

The bald leader turned away from his fallen boys to glower at the dark-haired man and his pretty little girlfriend. “You’re dead,” he hissed, jabbing a finger towards them. “And don’t you worry about this taking too long sugar,” he snarled at the lounging blonde. “We’re gonna’ have plenty of time to fuck you until you cum blood.”

Unimpressed with the threat, Buffy raised her brows. “Sorry boys,” she drawled. “But you just won’t do it for me. I like a little monster in my man.”

Angelus glanced back at her, lifting his brows in amusement.

The diminutive blond smiled at her demon lover and leaned forward, offering him – and the others – a glimpse of cleavage. “I love when he's got a bit of bite,” she snapped her teeth together in demonstration, “to him.”

His gaze flickered to the inviting swell of her breasts pushing against the black silk of her camisole and scowled as he realized the bikers had to be staring at the exact same thing. “Baby’s going to get more than bit, she’s going to get her ass tanned if she doesn’t. Sit. Back,” he snarled.

Buffy pouted, but leaned back. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he grunted turning his attention back to the biker that had decided to take advantage of his momentary distraction with his Slayer to try and rush him. The demon snapped his leg forward, planting a solid kick into the man’s solar plexus and when the gasping biker bent over, Angelus kicked him again, this time landing a hard blow to the man’s chin that lifted him clear off the ground and sent him flying back over several parked bikes and into a wall; a loud cracking noise accompanied the blow.

“Two broken necks,” Buffy observed. “Perhaps a little variety?”

“This from the woman who stabs her every enemy through the heart.”

Angelus shifted his gaze back and forth between the two denim-clad thugs that approached him from either side, obviously hoping to divide his attention. They circled him and he let them, knowing that he had the advantage.

“Little else works on you guys,” the diminutive blond complained, watching her lover’s fluid and lethal grace with interest. “And hel-lo, decapitated one guy and slit a throat tonight.”

The two bikers lunged towards him at the same time and Angelus twisted into a series of punches and blocks, allowing his opponents to move closer in on him.

“My love wants variety,” he stated cheerfully, “Then variety she shall have.”

He ducked and twisted sharply under another blow and as he did so, ripped out his attacker’s throat.

“Fuck!” several of the bikers muttered. “Kill this fucking freak.”

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest again, unimpressed. “You can do better than that. Necks are hereby off limits.”

Angelus grinned. He had never had so demanding an audience before and while he was certainly showing off for her, he was rather glad she wasn’t easily satisfied. He shot his arm forward and punched through a bare-chested biker’s ribcage, jerking the fist-sized heart back out through the hole.

The golden Slayer applauded wildly as Angelus shoved the still beating heart into its owner’s mouth just before the man realized he was dead and dropped to the ground. “Bravo!” she cheered.

The tall demon laughed gleefully, enjoying himself as he spun to face another two bikers. His newest opponents pulled knives.

“You may think you’re all hot shit with that fucking kung-fu pretty boy, but kung-fu won’t save you from steel.”

The Master Vampire glanced at the gleaming blades being brandished in his face and forced himself not to shift to his true face. If he changed, the last five might run, and he really wanted to kill them all.

“Yeah, pretty boy,” Buffy laughed. “Kung-fu won’t save you from steel,” she mocked, mimicking their low tones. She burst into a wild spate of giggles. “Oh, Angelus,” she chuckled, wiping at the tears that leaked from her eyes, “show them what steel won’t save them from.”

Angelus chuckled, scenting her growing arousal on the air. “You’re really enjoying this aren’t you baby?” he asked, gracefully dodging the knives that whipped at him from both sides.

“Oh lover,” she breathed. “I’ve always loved to watch you move. This is just sound effects.”

He slammed his fist into one of the knife wielder’s faces, the loud crunching of bones emphasizing Buffy’s observation as Angelus’ attacker flew back against a wall, his head cracking open like a splattered melon.

The second knife wielder lunged forward, hoping to use Angelus’ momentary distraction to plant the glinting steel in the vampire’s back; the dark-eyed predator turned and smoothly caught his attacker’s wrist during the downward arc.

~

UPDATE FOR 2/18/04

Giles shoved open the door to his darkened office and slapped on the light. For a moment he hesitated, uncertain of what he should grab first, weapons or spells, but as quickly as his uncertainty had come over him, it just as swiftly fled.

He had hoped to have backup going after Buffy since it was likely that she would be with Angel – Angelus – who, according to lore and his own experience, was formidable enough without adding in a Slayer to back him up.

The blond man set his jaw firmly. There was no hope for it. He was going to have to run this rescue alone, and since Buffy, on even her worst days could put him down, he was going to have to do things a little crassly.

He would need the tranquilizer gun to drop his Slayer. Of the four of them, herself, Angel, Drusilla and Spike, Buffy was the most dangerous; she was stronger, she was faster, she wasn’t inhibited by sunlight, crosses or holy water, and at the moment, she had the most to lose.

Once Buffy was down, drugged to incapacitation, he would be able to administer the antidote without her fighting him, but holding Angel and his hellish progeny back with his crossbow and some judiciously applied holy water was going to be chancy at best.

He was certainly a capable sorcerer and he certainly had any number of books with some fairly effective spells in them, but he was hampered by the issue of spell components, and while he might be a capable sorcerer, he was also a non-practicing one; his stores of herbs and powders were likely to be limited, thus limiting what he’d be capable of doing.

The anxious Watcher lunged forward and unlocked the drawer where he kept his most private collection of magic books. He needed something to hold back Angel, perhaps something to even force him back. A spell of protection, perhaps a charm of invisibility to allow him to sneak up on them…

Giles glanced at his watch: 12:18.

He cursed under his breath. He was running out of time. He sensed it. Every minute he lost was a minute that Buffy became more and more enamored of her newfound freedom. A life without sacrifice, without pain and heartbreak, how could she not become enamored of that?

When Buffy wanted something she took measures to protect it and only an idiot would be unaware of the fact that for good or for ill, she wanted Angel.

He knew she wasn’t as flighty as she portrayed herself. He knew she wasn’t as inattentive or vacuous as she came off. She was the Slayer, and whether she allowed others to see it or not, that meant she was a cunning, dangerous predator.

And under the influence of the Umbra Labes, she was the ultimate consort for a fiend like Angelus: uninhibited, unrestrained, completely abandoned.

…That undead piece of garbage doubtless had his hands all over Buffy at that very moment.

~

The two men vied for control of the steel, the biker’s muscles quivering with strain as he attempted to bear the blade down on his opponent; the vampire held the mortal in check easily.

“I’m going to kill you, you fuck,” the dark-haired biker grunted, struggling against Angelus’ implacable grip.

The demon with the angelic face smiled pleasantly and allowed his eyes to flicker to amber as he forced the man’s wrist and the contested knife back to the biker’s own belly in a quick slashing movement.

The thug squealed in shocked pain but gamely continued to try to regain control of his weapon.

Angelus casually held firm against his struggles and then smiled with cruel amusement. “Is that your entrails slipping out? Or are you just glad to see me?”

The dark-bearded biker glanced down at his slashed belly, his eyes widening in shock and horror as he realized that his intestines were indeed sliding out of his slashed open belly and onto the filthy alley floor. He released his grappling hold on the pretty college boy and cupped his arm over his stomach, trying to hold the shiny pink viscera inside him where it belonged.

Laughing with vicious delight, Angelus brutally shoved the mortally wounded biker away from him, keeping hold of one of the moist ropes of intestine; as the mortal flew backwards, the coils of his internal organs fed out of his body, like a macabre tightrope, anchored by the demon’s fist.

“Woah!” Buffy exclaimed in revulsion, her wide eyes focused in horrified fascination on the rope of bloody intestine. “And may I just say ‘Eww.’ Extra points awarded for shock value and gore.”

The smirking vampire dropped the viscera to the ground with a moist plop. “Creative enough for you baby?” he purred smugly.

“A plus in creativity lover,” she praised, “but you are so not touching me until after you’ve washed your hands.”

Garrick Stone stared at the freak that had murdered more than half his club in shocked horror; to add insult to injury, the crazy fuck seemed to be having a grand time showing off for his girlfriend as he turned the Blood Takers into a red smear on the alley floor.

The pock-marked leader ground his teeth together as his stomach clenched in both rage and fear, but his hatred over rode any instinct he might have to run. He would kill this psycho; he would kill him and mutilate him, maybe even taking some body parts as trophies, and as for the girl, she would pray for death before he was done with her.

“Course I’m going to be touching you after this is done lover,” Angelus rumbled, turning to face the last three stupefied and stupid mortals that had dared to come up against him. “You’re the spoils of war, and to the victor, goes the spoils.”

Buffy snorted in outrage, her gaze tracking his lethal grace with a greedy avidity that would have pleased her demon. “Spoils?” she sneered. “What type of word is that anyways? Who would want something spoilt? Something ruined. Gone bad and rotten?”

The angel-faced demon grinned with dark humor, thoroughly enjoying this opportunity to show off his deadly skills for his beautiful golden goddess. “Technically speaking, my love, you kind of have, but in this context it’s to loot and seize,” he paused to glance at her meaningfully, “by force.”

Her breath caught as his dark chocolate gaze glittered golden for a moment, speaking volumes of his intense hunger for her and his primitive desire to take her lithe body over the cooling corpses of his enemies.

Garrick growled softly. The fuck and his bitch were making jokes while his brothers cooled on the filthy alley asphalt. The pock-marked leader did what he now knew he should have done when the freak had managed to kill Rosco and Bull; he pulled his gun.

“You wanna laugh, mother fucker?” the biker growled furiously. “You think this is a good time?”

Angelus turned his attention back to his last three victims and chuckled with amused condescension as he stared at the snub-nosed hand gun being aimed at him. Now why hadn’t the fool human pulled it earlier?

The two greasy haired, gap-toothed ruffians closed behind their leader, their beady eyes gleaming bright with bloodlust.

Angelus glanced from the six-shooter clenched tightly in the gang leader’s fist to the pock-marked man’s pale eyes and then to the two lanky followers. “Do I think this is a good time?” he repeated softly, lifting one hand up to lick at the blood that coated his fingers. “I know this is a good time.”

Garrick bared his tobacco stained teeth in a snarl. “Enjoy this mother fucker.” He unloaded four bullets in rapid succession into the belly of the psycho-clean-cut college boy.

Angelus grunted at the impact of the four steel-jacketed invaders as they penetrated his body, ripping through flesh, muscle and his own unused intestines. The agony of bullet wounds was just as bad as his souled self remembered and the master vampire crumpled painfully to the ground.

The gang leader watched in sadistic satisfaction as the college boy buckled around his wounds and collapsed in a broken heap on the alley floor.

“You’re gut shot boy,” he hissed gloatingly. “It’s a real slow and real painful way to die, and there ain’t nothing nobody can do to save you.” He stalked over to the boy that had killed so many of his brothers and kicked him hard in the belly, taking pleasure in the grunt of pain he gave. “And while you’re dying, you just think about how I’m gonna make you bitch suffer.”

Garrick snapped his fingers at his two remaining men, signaling for them to help themselves to his downed victim, while he strode over to the little blond beauty who had been the cause of the whole fracas.

“You hear that college boy?” one of the flunkies snarled as he planted a solid kick in Angelus’ ribs. “You died for nothing. Little bitch is still going to get fucked.”

Buffy watched as the two thugs kicked her injured demon, remembering that although bullets weren’t life-threatening to vampires, they were damned painful. She wondered briefly whether he’d mind if she jumped into the fray now, but with a pout came to the conclusion that he probably would. Nothing got a man’s ego all riled up faster than having his girlfriend rescue him, especially when he probably didn’t need to be rescued. One thing was for certain though, he was going to be pissed when he got up.

“What are you smirking at girlie?” Garrick demanded, walking up to the dumpster where she was perched, ankles still demurely crossed. “You’re in for a world of hurt.”

The golden Slayer glanced at the gang leader disinterestedly before turning her attention back to her lover.

The pock-marked man scowled at her and used the barrel of his .38 Special to turn her face back toward him. “Forget him, bitch. I’m what you’ve got to be concerned with now. I’m the one you’ve got to please.”

Buffy’s green gaze flicked back to her handsome boyfriend just as his visage shifted at last to the amber eyed, ridged forehead predator that he was. Her breath caught at the beauty of his lethal countenance. “You think so?” she asked the biker mockingly, watching as Angelus turned a sadistic sharp-toothed grin up to the two men who had thought that they’d had the power over a broken victim.

“Oh I know so,” Garrick growled, eyeing the sleekly toned musculature of her thighs. “You cost me seven men. You better be one spectacular fuck.”

The two men’s gasps of startled shock went unnoticed by their leader.

In a move almost too fast for her to see, Angelus kicked out, knocking both of his assailants onto the ground. He grabbed the closest and brutally snapped his neck before quickly snatching the other and covering his mouth so he couldn’t scream.

Garrick smiled at the pretty little blond and caressed her legs with the barrel of the gun. “Careful boys,” he ordered his men without looking back. “We don’t want to kill him just yet. Pretty boy was so obsessed with protecting this sweet schoolgirl pussy, it’s only fitting he see that he failed.”

The Slayer watched with gleaming green eyes as Angelus sank his fangs into the second biker and gulped him down, using the stolen blood to heal his injuries.

“So, pretty little bitch,” Garrick studied her curves. “Why don’t you part your legs and give me a flash of what’s his.”

She ignored him, instead watching Angelus drop the dead biker to the ground. The pock-marked biker aimed the gun between her pretty green eyes. “You do what you’re told, missy,” he hissed. “You ain’t got a choice here.”

Buffy shifted her attention away from her lover and finally deigned to give the man holding a gun to her face her full attention. She glanced at the gun and then at his pale bloodshot eyes. She smiled coyly and glanced down at her legs.

Garrick’s gaze followed hers and his breaths sped up as she slowly uncrossed her ankles.

Her attack, when it came, was so fast and so shocking, he never had a chance to prevent her from grasping hold of his hand and twisting the gun out of her face. Her grip tightened brutally over his, crushing his fragile finger bones around the barrel of his weapon and Garrick cried out in shock as she abruptly grabbed his neck in her other hand. Bracing her uncrossed heels against the side of the dumpster, Buffy slowly lifted the vermin off of his feet and hoisted him so that he was level with her.

“I always have a choice,” she drawled softly.

Garrick kicked futilely, trying to break her grasp on both his neck and on his gun.

With a contemptuous grin, Buffy twisted the gun out of the biker’s grip and released him.

The pock-marked gang leader landed back on the asphalt and stumbled slightly before he straightened to find the pretty blond schoolgirl pointing his own gun in his face.

“Scary,” she informed him with a wicked grin.

“I thought I told you to sit this one out,” Angelus growled, the deep big-cat-like sound raising the hairs on the back of Garrick’s neck.

Not able to believe his ears, the gang leader slowly turned around to look up into the glowing golden eyes of a demon from hell.

“Scarier,” the girl purred behind him.

Angelus cocked his head sternly at his disobedient lover, “What did I say about your ankles?”

“He had a gun,” she replied defensively. “And he was touching me with it. I had to – “

“What,” he snarled, “Did I say about your ankles?”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“Buf-fy.”

With an exaggeratedly innocent look, she demurely crossed her ankles. “Happy now?”

Garrick stumbled to the side and away from the quickly advancing predator.

“I dislike being disobeyed, Buff.”

“Yeah well, I dislike obeying, if you wanted obedience, you should have stuck with Dru - and by the way, your victim is getting away,” she informed him gesturing toward the retreating biker. The Master Vampire snapped his fingers imperiously and with a sexy one shouldered shrug, she tossed him the gun she had taken from the gang leader.

The angelically handsome demon advanced on the mortal that had dared to point a gun to his mate’s face, snarling softly with rage as he closed the distance between them.

Garrick stumbled and tried to dodge away from the fang-toothed monster, but the tall beast caught him up in an unbreakable grip. “What the fuck are you?” he gasped, staring at the glowing gold eyes, the mouthful of fangs and the heavily ridged brow.

“Your worst nightmare,” Angelus growled at the same time Buffy said it with a mockingly deep tone.

The demon glared at his amused lover and with an irritated sigh, and then shoved the revolver into the thug’s mouth and down his throat.

Garrick screamed as his teeth shattered under the unrelenting pressure of the steel firearm and then choked and gagged as the snub nosed barrel was shoved down into his throat blocking his windpipe.

“Don’t ever point a gun at my woman again,” Angelus hissed at the flailing mortal before pulling the trigger and firing the last two shots down Garrick’s esophagus and directly into his chest.

Buffy watched with an admiring smirk as the last of the bikers sank to his knees and then flopped to the side, twitching like a landed fish.

“That,” she praised admiringly, “was an impressive bit of ass-kicking.”

Angelus didn’t respond. The handsome demon stared down at the body of the gang leader for several long moments, grappling with his intense rage and with the sickening churn of fear that clenched in his belly.

The bastard had held a gun to Buffy’s face. The son-of-a-bitch had held a .38 Special, with two bullets still loaded in the chamber and had pointed it directly between Buffy’s green eyes.

A soft growl or residual fury vibrated in his chest and the angelically featured demon forced himself to take several unneeded breaths.

There were more things than vampires and demons that could take his golden queen from his side. Bullets, cars, natural disasters, diseases, there were a thousand mundane things that killed mortals every year…every day.

“Angelus?” Buffy asked softly, her brow furrowing in confusion. What had happened? A minute ago he’d been strutting off his lethal best for her pleasure, thoroughly enjoying himself as he ripped a group of humans apart. Now…now he was practically…brooding.

He released a slow controlled breath, forcing his tensed muscles to relax and turned to face his golden beauty, his stolen sunlight.

“I can see I’m going to need some new lines,” he commented wryly, trying to distract himself from the horrible image of her laying on the ground with half of her beautiful and loving face blown off. He shook himself away from the horrid vision.

“Oh puh-lease,” Buffy muttered. “You guys all figure since your previous audiences are dead, you don’t need new material. It’s always the same. ‘I’ll have you beg, split open like rotted fruit.’; ‘I’ll send you screaming to the pits of hell.’; ‘I’ll kill you slow.’ And of course the ever popular ‘I’m your worst nightmare.’”

Her voice rose and fell with each quote, falling into lower tones as she mimicked the masculine voices that had obviously uttered the various threats to her at one time or another.

Unable to help himself, Angelus grinned at the thought of the various and sundry demons and vampires who had come up against his girl in the past, and now, all that remained of their blustery arrogance and their battles with the slayer, was her mocking rendition of their threats.

Buffy cocked her head to the side and stared at the remnants of Angelus’ once casually elegant black silk shirt; the four gaping holes over his belly completely ruined the fall and look of the silk. “Your shirt’s ruined,” she observed.

The angelically featured demon, who had often prided himself on his fastidious and fashionable attire, pealed the blood-soaked shirt from his itching and still healing wounds. As a vampire, he didn’t mind shedding a little bit – or as the situation called for it, a lot of blood, and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, but he did dislike being covered in blood, especially his own. He debated it briefly before he shrugged out of the soft material of his shirt and then used the remains to wipe his hands and torso clean or the sticky evidence of his bloody battle.

The diminutive blond watched him with a hungry look in her eyes, unconsciously leaning forward and toward the object of her desire. She licked her lips, admiring the pale sculpted beauty of his chest. “Good thing you brought your jacket,” she teased. “Otherwise, you’d be shirtless all the way to L.A. And while I must admit, you shirtless is a pleasure to see, you are a shining beacon of paleness in the night.”

He looked at her chidingly, his golden eyes gleaming beneath his ridged brows.

Buffy grinned, unable to resist needling him a little bit more. “Cause it’s not like you have a fresh shirt handy to change into. Not like you had any reason to carry a bag of clothes with you.”

Angelus growled softly at her, then gave up the stern warning to chuckle softly, allowing his fearsome visage to smooth back into his handsome human countenance. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that, baby?

“Moi?”

“Hmm,” he grunted. He turned to survey the row of parked Harley Davidson motorcycles. “I like that bit about the rotted fruit,”” he commented casually.

Buffy chuckled softly. “Figures. You master vampires are all about high drama and destiny.”

Satisfied for the time being with the cleanliness of his hands, Angelus dropped the ruined shirt to the alley floor. He arched his brows inquiringly. “Destiny?”

The diminutive Slayer shrugged one shoulder negligently. “Yeah. Lothos insisted I was his destiny. He went on and on about how ‘we were one.’”

Angelus’ lips tightened with displeasure at the thought of any vampire even thinking to lay an intimate finger on his girl, much less contemplate calling her his ‘destiny.’ A low growl vibrated in his chest and he stalked over to her and gripped her masterfully by the nape of her neck. He pulled her down off of the steel dumpster, into the hard, unyielding line of his powerful body.

Buffy gasped as she fell against him, sliding down the hard contours of his body until her toes touched the ground. She inhaled shakily and looked up to stare into his angry dark eyes. “’One what?’” he snarled. “Cute couple? You’re mine.”

He kissed her passionately, claiming her petal soft lips with a desperation that was as much about his jealousy as it was about his earlier fear for her safety and his ever burning desire for her perfumed flesh.

Buffy moaned softly and twined her arms around his neck, allowing him to maintain his aggressive and dominant hold on her nape; a primitive part of her gloried in his physical dominance, just as she knew that that part of her gloried in it because she allowed it. She yielded in his embrace, accepting the thrust of his tongue and the sharp nips of his teeth, the drugging pleasure of his kisses quickly intoxicating her.

Several minutes passed, the silence broken only by her soft moans and by his hungry growls. At last mollified by her unstinting generosity, Angelus released her lips to rest his forehead against hers, staring down intently into her jewel bright eyes. “You’re mine,” he repeated throatily. “Mine alone. Nobody sees you, nobody touches you, and nobody smells you but me. Ever.”

She searched his heated gaze, her lips curving into a teasing smile. “So, ‘we’re one’?”

The tall vampire grinned and traced his thumb over her swollen lower lip. “Cute couple? Definitely.” He turned and strode through the pooled blood and over the collapsed bodies, pulling her along behind him. “Come on, let’s get a move on, you’ve delayed us long enough.”

“I’ve delayed us?” she asked indignantly, settling herself behind him after he’d picked one of the large machines.

“Of course you,” he muttered. “They weren’t interested in what’s between my legs.”

He started the loud engine of the motorcycle, and shifted, kicking up the kickstand, before he put the bike in gear and started off.

Buffy laid his leather jacket across her lap and settled her arms around his lean waist. “Don’t know why not,” she purred softly, knowing that with his acute hearing he could still hear her, even over the loud rumble of the Harley. She shifted her hands lower over his hips, scraping her nails along his thighs as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the flesh between his shoulder blades. She kissed and nipped at him, making love to his back with her mouth even as she sensuously cupped her hands over the hardened flesh beneath his leather pants; she was well aware that the combination of her, blood and an enjoyable fight had all put him in an amorous mood. “I know I’m always interested in what’s between your legs.”

Angelus bit back a groan as she teasingly caressed him, stroking him through the confines of his pants. “Buffy – baby, we still gotta blow town here.”

“Okay,” she murmured. “So drive.” The mischievous blond smiled as she felt his back vibrate against her breasts, and whether it was a growl or a purr, she knew in either case that he didn’t necessarily want her to stop doing what she was doing, so she didn’t.

~

Spell ingredients…Spell ingredients…

Surely he must have something on hand.

Giles glanced around the cluttered workspace of his office, finding papers, books and pencils, but nothing organic beyond an old apple and a half eaten bag of nuts.

“Well that’s just bloody perfect,” he snarled in frustration. “And if I needed to perform some sort of fertility rite, things would be just dandy!” He picked up the bag of nuts and hurled it across the office; the cashews spilled out as they arced into the bookshelf, clattering to the floor.

Nothing. Nothing but himself, a tranquilizer gun and a crossbow; he’d never get close enough to give her the antidote.

No. No there must be something here. There had to be something.

The lean Watcher ripped open the drawers to his desk and fumbled through the contents: paperclips, pencils, staples, erasers, nothing. Files, journals, notes, paper, nothing!

As each drawer offered him nothing that could be useful as spell components, Giles slammed it shut, the force of his movement shaking the desk and rattling the sphere shaped glass paperweight on his desk out of position and sent it rolling toward the edge.

Before the orb could roll off of the desk and crash to the floor, Giles closed his fist over it. He held it in his hand, his frustration beating painfully in his skull and his anxiety twisting nauseatingly in his stomach. He needed something, anything he could use.

He ripped open the last drawer: tea bags, crackers, gum, Jenny’s little velvet clutch purse. Nothing.

Giles drew back his arm to hurl the fragile Orb of Thesullah away and then halted mid swing, his fingers tightening reflexively on the sphere.

The tea bags. Of course, the tea bags. He set the delicate paperweight back onto it’s small brass stand and reached into the drawer to pull the tea bags out. Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Orange Pekoe, which Buffy had given to him.

They were generic protection at best, but still better than nothing.

He paused for a moment, his hand hovering over the black velvet clutch purse he had appropriated from Jenny’s desk drawer as a memento. Well what the hell? She had been a witch.

He opened the feminine purse and spilled out its contents onto his desk. Small plastic baggies of neatly labeled herbs fell into a jumble and as Giles read the labels he knew someone had heard his unspoken prayer. Anise, rose petals and lavender were all for protection, calamus was for healing, as were the rose petals…Nothing much in the way of anything useful for offensive magic…but perhaps the yew, which could assist in raising the spirits of the dead could be useful.

Yes. Perhaps a mobile protection circle, so that once he got Buffy he could simply walk her and himself to safety.

~

He could smell it on them. He could smell it on her.

He’d only been a werewolf for a couple of months, but during that time his senses – especially his sense of smell had all heightened.

His Willow, his innocent, sweet and kind Willow stank of fear, of pain – and not her own. His gentle, thoughtful and compassionate Willow reeked of the terror and agony of another person – two other persons, and beneath the stink of pain and below the stench of terror was the rank fetor of unwilling sex.

Oz calmly waited for the doctors to give him an update as to Willow’s and Xander’s condition as he allowed the disquieting and disgusting knowledge that they had raped two girls to sink into his mind.

Whatever the hell had happened tonight with that spell, he, Giles and Cordelia had been too late to stop Willow and Xander from doing something horrible and with lasting harm. He briefly wondered whether or not they’d be too late for Buffy as well.

Potion or no, magical corruption or freewill, the night’s events would have repercussions. It remained to be seen just how far-reaching the magical poison’s reach would extend, but extend it would.

The brown-haired guitarist glanced up at the white-coated doctor that approached him, bracing himself by the grim expression on the doctor’s face to hear the worst.