| Longer, Then Forever by Demonica Mills |
| Chapter #15 - Chapter 15 |
 Chapter 15 Spike and Buffy stared at the man in the brown robe standing on the porch. “You’re going to repeat that…slowly,” Spike said. The man hesitated. “If I could tell you the whole story…” “Or you could skip to the part about my sister. Dying.” Buffy said. “Are you one of the monks that created Dawn?” Giles asked, peering between Buffy and Spike’s shoulders. “I am. My name is Brother John,” the monk answered. Buffy stepped aside to allow the monk into the house. “I’m warning you though, one wrong move and I’ll make you very sorry you stepped foot in my house.” “Yes,” the monk bowed at her. “Of course.” He sat on the couch and the group gathered around him. “I am part of an order of monks that have protected the Key since the beginning of time. In its natural form, the Key is a-a form of energy often viewed in the color green. It is said that in the beginning, a monk of high ranking would be chosen to house the Key in his body but the practice was disbarred because the essence of the Key would often kill the monk. It is too much energy to be contained in a human shell and the dangers of the human being possessed by darkness…we began to keep the Key in its pure form. When…When the Beast came after us last year, we knew that we could no longer protect the Key. We had to find someone who could help us. For many days, we fasted and prayed until the head of our order had a vision. The Slayer of Vampires could help us. We knew that finding that convincing the Slayer would be hard and we had to hide the Key as well, but how does one hide pure energy? We came up with two ideas, to give the Slayer a sister or a child. The child would have been easier, but we couldn’t risk hurting the Slayer or the Key by making her pregnant. So, we made her a sister.” “Who the HELL gives you the right to play with MY life that way?” Buffy demanded. “You sit there talking about how you were just going to create a child for me like you were going to the grocery store to buy bread. You have no right!” “We had to protect the world. That is our mission, to protect the world from the Key.” Buffy was visibly shaking. Tara got up and ran to the kitchen to grab her a glass of water. “H-h-h-ere, Buffy. D-drink t-this,” Tara nervously placed the glass in Buffy’s hand. Buffy continued staring angrily at the monk, not even noticing the glass in her hand. “Uh, Buffy, could you blink…please? You’re kinda scary right now?” Xander said, then jumped as the glass in Buffy’s hand exploded in a shower of glass. Buffy finally did blink and looked down in surprise at the blood flowing from her hand. Willow grabbed a towel off the table and held it to Buffy’s hand. “Finish your story of how you meddled in my life,” Buffy said, calmly as she watched Willow try to pull a shard of glass from her hand. “Perhaps I should pause a moment?” Brother John started. “Why?” Buffy asked. “Your order had no respect for the matters of my life before. Why should you start now?” “She’s really scary now,” Anya whispered to Giles loudly enough so that the whole room could hear. “I believe,” Spike said slowly. “That the lady gave you an order. Best finish the story, mate before I get hungry and decide you’re dinner.” The monk started a moment. “B-but you are the white vampire, the eternal guardian. It has been written. You would not hurt me.” “I hope by white vampire that you’re referring to his hair color,” Xander muttered. “Wot.are.you.talking.about?” Spike ground out. “It’s just…they said…” the monk seemed flustered for the first time since entering the house. “Perhaps we should let him finish his story?” Giles said. “Yes, yes of course. Please forgive me. We only meant to have the Key in the Slayer’s possession for a short time…until the Beast was killed, then we would have reverted it back to its natural form and you would have never remembered it.” “Again you think you have the right to decided for me and mine,” Buffy said lowly. “What happened?” Giles asked. “The Beast, she killed off too many of the brethren and there weren’t enough of us to perform the ritual. Please, you must understand. The form that we gave the Key, that of the Slayer’s sister, it isn’t strong enough to hold the Key’s essence. We must find a way to revert it back or it could cause unspeakable damage.” “What kind of damage are we talking about here?” Xander asked. “It could bring about the destruction of not just our world, but hundreds of other dimensions as well.” “Isn’t this something you should have thought about before putting the essence of the Key into the body of a human girl?” Willow asked. “We only thought of protecting the world from the Beast. We did not think that far ahead and for this I have prayed greatly for our mistake.” “Yeah, well, praying don’t fix the mistake,” Spike said. “And how, do you propose, do we get the essence out of my sister?” Buffy asked. The monk looked around the room, started to speak, faltered, then tried to speak again. “He has no clue,” Anya announced. “He was hoping that we did.” She took in the startled looks of the group around her. “What? Like I can make a useful comment every so often. I have been alive for over 1000 years you know. I do know things.” “Giles, I do believe we’ve found another researcher for you,” Buffy said. “Spike and I are going to find Dawn.” “You’ve lost the Key?” Brother John asked. “Dawn is not your concern,” Spike said. “Now, I believe the Slayer gave you a job to do. I suggest you get to it.” Buffy stood and the group saw for the first time that she had been clutching Spike’s left hand for the duration of the conversation and the bones in his fingers were clearly broken. They watched as Buffy led Spike out of the house, slamming the door behind her. “Oh my goddess,” Tara murmured. “He never said a word,” Willow finished. “He is the white vampire,” Brother John said. “I think,” Giles said, removing his glasses to clean them. “That you and I are going to have a very, very long discussion about what the white vampire is...” XXX |