Chapter Seventeen

Kendra hefted her trusted crossbow and checked for her stake, then nodded swiftly. She didn’t bother to look back to see if her Watcher was behind her. He had been with her since she was a small child and she could sense him as easily as she could sense a vampire.

And she was sensing many of those at the moment.

But this was her calling, and she had no fear as she strode forward and firmly kicked in the door of the old factory, taking a moment to allow the disgust at the creature’s living conditions to curl in her gut. They were animals. Worse than animals. Vile creatures of the night that stained the world with their very presence as much as they stained it with their victims blood.

She was the Slayer. She would destroy them. She would die destroying them. She’d known and understood for as long as she could remember. One dies, the next is Called. She may well die tonight. But that meant nothing. The next would rise.

Secure in this, she stepped through the broken door and into the close air of the factory.

Something was different here, different than usual for a nest of vampires. She paused just inside, feeling the heat of her Watcher’s body just behind her right shoulder, hearing his breath. What was out of place?

There was the sense of vampires, which, of course, was normal. There was the smell of blood and death, also normal... almost, just barely, comforting, because it was what she had been surrounded with all her life. Also, the scent of candles, not unusual in a vampire’s lair.

“Magics,” her Watcher murmured, apparently sensing her disquiet.

She nodded once, just a quick jerk of her head, and moved forward, content now that the strange feeling had a name.

Once she passed the row of crates near the door, she stepped into a clear area that afforded her a view of the entire factory. Down at the end of the cleared space was a long table, on which many candles flickered. Around the sides of the table were several vampires, hanging back, obviously minions. There were five of them: two dark-haired females, a brown-haired male, and a blond-haired male in a wheelchair, which struck her as odd but inconsequential. Standing at the very head of the table, facing her, watching her, was a single male vampire.

She didn’t hesitate, merely lowered her crossbow and fired for the heart.

The bolt made it halfway across the intervening space, then suddenly dropped like a stone, clattering as it hit the cement floor.

The male smiled, and then spoke. She expected a taunt. Vampires were very trivial in that way, always making pointless remarks at odd moments.

But this was no taunt. This was a soft incantation.

She heard her Watcher cry out softly, in surprise more than pain, but when she tried to turn to him, she found herself immobile. Her eyes widened slightly in mild distress, but she soon found her center of calm. She would die. The next would be Called. In that way, truly, she could never die.

When the vampire reached them, it was with this calm knowledge in her mind that she met his eyes.

He smiled at her, reached out and ran just one finger lightly around her cheek.

She had known him. He was the other’s Watcher. All she could bring herself to feel was distaste. The other Slayer had failed. Her Watcher was dead and she still lived. Such was not the way of things. Kendra herself would die a Slayer’s death.

The vampire stepped away, towards her shoulder, and she braced herself for the pain of the bite. But instead, there were words.

“Xavier,” the soft voice of the dead Watcher murmured, just beside her ear. She felt a momentary pulse of hot rage at the unclean beast’s use of her Watcher’s name, but she let it die in her chill.

“I don’t know you,” her Watcher replied.

“Of course you do, dear man. We were at Oxford together. I still recall the lovely young woman you used to fuck there.”

Kendra stiffened again at the audacity of the creature, but what shocked her more was when her Watcher rose to the bait.

“You were as much a lost cause then as you are now, Rupert Giles.”

“Ah, yes. You *are* still so high on your horse you’re no doubt gasping for oxygen.”

The vampire’s voice was lilting, almost seductive. She found herself wishing he would end this, just kill them quickly.

“You. You dare to impugn me?” her Watcher answered, indignant, “You were a blemish on the Council’s good name long before... this... and *this*... this is... unheard of.”

“Yes, a Watcher, turned. It is rather ironic, of course. But not unheard of. In fact, in a moment, I believe it may become quite nearly... common.”

“I would never.”

The steel in her Watcher’s voice rallied Kendra.

“Of course not. But you see, my Sire taught me a trick. Let me show you.”

And Kendra felt the cool body beside her dart forward, and heard her Watcher, the man practically her father, scream in pain, then heard the wet sounds of a vampire feeding, smelled the sharp tang of fresh blood.

She began to shake.

His breath, his warmth, his presence, all things she had taken as eternal, unshakable... they were fading behind her. And she could do nothing.

She felt the vibrations shiver up her legs as his body hit the floor. Then the vampire that wore the body of a man she’d once known stepped back, so she could see him. His mouth ran red with blood, and he grinned, a horrible thing with the demon fully out and visible, and she hated him. She hated him with a passion she had never known could even exist.

He raised his left arm, and very deliberately slit his own wrist. Then he went to his knees beside her.

No. She felt the sentiment rocked through her so strongly, she suspected she may have said it out loud.

Behind her, she heard her Watcher gasp, what was quite possibly his last breath, and then choke around something wet. And then, there was silence, and the vampire stood.

He didn’t even look at her, merely turned back to his minions, who were now gathered around them.

“Bring the cage down,” he said, and one of the dark-haired females turned and began working at a chain.

The vampire in the wheelchair, to whom the other female was clinging, was eyeing Kendra, and spoke as the cage on the ceiling lowered.

“You sure you’re sure about this? Because I’m thinking having our very own Slayer for a pet is really a bit like decoratin’ the baby’s room with live electric wires, if you get my drift.”

“As long as she’s here, we know where she is. And we know another won’t be Called.”

No. No, no. The vampire’s plans began to become clear. No. Kendra threw herself against the magic that bound her... but was unable to move so much as a muscle.

The suspended cage hit the floor with a hollow clang, and the alpha vampire stepped up to her, and then reached out and touched her face again. She shuddered hard at his touch. His hands did not stop at her face this time. Cool, dry palms laid flat against her skin and then dragged down... down...

The flush of rage matched pace with a flush of embarrassment as the cold hands passed over her breasts, lingering there for a moment before sliding around to run up and down her back, then down around her ass, and then stopping, briefly, at her waistband to pull out the stake she kept there and toss it aside. Then the hands moved around, running over her stomach, leaving chills in their wake, and the down again, over her crotch, her thighs, then down to the relatively safe territory of her knees and calves and feet.

As he stood up, the vampire hooked one arm around behind her knees and swept her off her feet, catching her in his arms and cradling her immobile form, as she had seen pictures of husbands carrying their brides over the threshold.

Though she’d never been held this way before to know the difference, her body still ached from the wrongness of the cool, still chest she was pressed against as the vampire carried her, almost gently, to the cage and laid her inside on the bars.

He gave her one last smile, human-faced now, but still bloody, and then slammed the cage door shut, and walked away. The female hoisted the cage back up, and with each jolt, Kendra felt the binding spell loosen a bit. When the cage had returned to its previous height, she was free from the magics.

She sat up and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Below her, the female vampire left the chain and dashed out the door, following the alpha vampire and the other female. The blond vampire in the wheelchair left the room as well, off in a different direction. The brunette male remained, staring up at her, with a strange look on his face.

She stared back down. Oddly enough, she didn’t sense him, like she usually sensed vampires.

And then it hit her.

He was human.

***

Buffy crashed through the door of the factory at what Xander would probably refer to as warp factor ten, with her stake raised high.

But there were no vampires. She stopped, just inside the main room.

She was too late. He was sprawled in the middle of the room, a wet circle of blood under his neck, and his suit coat splayed around him. A Watcher. She knew it, somehow, and she slowly lowered the stake.

Dead Watcher. No vampires. No apparent Slayer. No one... no... wait. Movement.

She raised the stake again, moving towards the table, and then, he appeared out of the darkness like an apparition, and as pale as one. Tall, lank, dressed in a long brown duster with his hands in his pockets.

“Ethan Rayne,” she said. “I should have known. You bastard.”

But there was something in his eyes that stopped her. Something empty and sad, and scared. Something like she’d seen in Willow’s eyes, and Xander’s.

“You’re wasting time,” he said. “It’s a trap, you know.”

He was speaking strangly, like a man about to die.

“What?” she said. Trap? She looked around.

“Not a trap for you,” he said.

“Who then? Look, I don’t have time for these stupid riddles--”

Ethan breathed in softly, looked at her, calmly, more calm than she’d ever seen him. Frighteningly calm, really.

“Dear old Ripper has taken his two women to the school to kill all of your little friends. I was supposed to supply a diversion. I’m not supplying said diversion. He’ll probably kill me. If you look up, you’ll notice that the other Slayer isn’t as dead as you probably think she is.”

Buffy was still trying to work the shock out of her system. Kill her friends? Oh. Oh. Oh, *shit.*

Then, a voice came from above.

“Slayer?”

She looked up. A girl was in a cage suspended from the ceiling. Kendra.

“Just a suggestion, you may want to, you know... do something,” Ethan said.

And then, it all finally processed. Kendra was in a cage. Ethan was apparently betraying Giles, no doubt for some selfish reason, but that was unimportant at the moment. And Giles, Dru, and Jenny were on their way to the library to have themselves a merry little massacre.

Or so they thought.

But they were really, really wrong. Not on her watch.

The cage came down first, a little faster than was possibly wise, but Kendra was a Slayer, she could handle it. Buffy kicked the lock off with the full strength of a pissed-off Slayer, and Kendra was out in an instant, and then, with fire in her own eyes, headed straight for the dead man. Her Watcher. Buffy gave Kendra a moment, just a moment. The other Slayer knelt, touched the man gently on the shoulder.

Then she pulled the sword out from the sheath on his back... and cut his head off.

In the sudden stillness, Buffy could hear the vampire dust patter softly to the floor.

And then, there was no time.

“Come on,” she said, heading for the door. “Both of you. That is, if you want me to save your pathetic ass, Ethan.”

By the time she emerged from the factory into the night, she was back up to a full run. She could hear two sets of footsteps behind her.

previous | title page | next