| Mastery by ComedyofErrors |
| Chapter #2 - Chapter 2 |
| Mastery by ComedyofErrors Chapter 2 Rupert Giles sat in his apartment, immobile. A tall scotch at his right glinted in the sunlight that streamed unwelcome through the blinds. Upon his return, he had not bothered with lights. And now, at dawn, he didn't need them. He'd awoken at one o'clock this morning to a frantic pounding on his front door. Xander, Willow, and Cordelia were on the other side. They had gone to the cemetery to help Buffy patrol. She had the flu, apparently, and had decided to go patrolling anyways. They'd found blood in the cemetery, and no ashes nearby. Nor had there been a body. After the incident with Jenny, she'd felt like she needed to be out there every night, to protect the world from Angelus. And now she was gone. "Bloody hell, man, just say it," he murmured to himself. "The bastard killed Jenny, and now he's killed your daughter." There was no doubt that she was dead. He'd gone to the cemetery with the children. Run there, crossbow in hand. He'd even brought his gun along, for good measure, not that they had known. He'd seen the blood. He'd searched with a flashlight, and found a few drops more, several yards away, and a few more farther on after that. The path pointed straight toward the mansion. He'd sent the children home without telling them his suspicions. They must have guessed the truth by now, but hearing it from him would only scare them further. He'd have to tell them soon, though. He would need their help when he went to Joyce Summers. He'd have to tell them about the phone call he had just made. Travers had been sympathetic. That was a first. The man was arrogant and irritating. He was not kind. Giles would have felt better if his superior had been clipped and rude. The man had simply said to his question 'Yes Rupert. Another has been called, in addition to Kendra. She's a young girl in Boston.' Travers had gone on about how devoted Buffy had been, how intelligent, tactfully failing to mention the incident with Angel that transformed him into Angelus. Giles had rung off as quickly as he could. He couldn't bare the sympathy. What he wanted now was vengeance. Buffy had to be considered, however. She was dead, but that didn't mean she had ceased to exist. There were two reasons that Angelus would have taken her body. Either he wanted time to mutilate it artistically, for display to the girl's mother and friends, or he had turned her. Turning her would be the grosser insult, so that had his money. Torture awaited her, no doubt. He wondered if Angelus knew that the Powers allowed Slayers to keep their souls. Probably. That would make it worse. No turned slayer had ever lived for long. They were unruly, and less fun to their masters than anticipated. They were usually staked the first night. Those that were not stood in the sun the next morning, unable to exist as creatures of the night. Angelus would not allow either option. He would break her. Twist her. His last attack on Angelus had been ill-planned. The future one would require great cunning. He was determined that it would be he that ended the wanker's existence, once and for all. No wishes to a demon were required, Giles being quite thorough on his own. He hadn't prayed since Jenny's death, but now he begged the Powers to defend Buffy among the lions. He prayed that her suffering would end quickly, even if it was at his own hand. Ripper glanced at the clock on the wall. Right now, Joyce Summers was waking. Did she go in every morning to check on her daughter? Did she simply call to make sure that the alarm had gone off? Either way, she would soon be standing in a teenager's room, staring at an open window and an unused bed. He stood, straightened his tie, and pulled on a jacket. He called Willow; Xander and Cordelia had stayed with her, rather than going out alone. A wise precaution. He asked them to meet him at the Summers' home. Across the line, he could hear Willow's intake of breath. "Giles. Is she...dead?" "A new slayer has been called." "Do y-you think she's been turned?" It was a sob, not a question. No use lying. As gently as he could, he replied, "Yes, Willow, I believe she has." Giles detected whispers on the other end of the line. When he next heard a voice, it was not Willow, but Xander. The boy could be quite a prat when the occasion came, but right now he was calm. Quiet. Resolved in a way that struck fellowship in Ripper. "Giles, we'll be there as soon as we can. After we get this done with Buffy's mom, I think you and I need to talk battle plans." "I agree. I'll see you shortly." _____________ At the Summers' home five hours later, Giles was not surprised to have another ally. It had been difficult initially, to convince her that he was a watcher, and that Buffy had been a slayer. Not to mention that her daughter was now dead. She had raged at him for lying to her, for involving her daughter in some kind of cult. When Xander and Willow had tearily defended him, Joyce had asked him point blank if he was a pedophile that had trapped these children. She had been moments away from calling the police when Willow stopped her. The best proof the girl could offer that these things were real was a small bit of magic. Nothing major, just the simplest levitation of the phone Joyce had been reaching for. Joyce had paused, shocked by the maneuver. She'd begun to listen as the young woman carefully outlined some details from the past year. The attack at the school was used to prove evidence of vampires. Joyce had gotten a good look at Spike when she hit him with the ax, there was no denying that he wasn't normal. That he had survived being hit, and remained conscious, were certainly telling. Demon eggs and the school basement. The fact that Buffy's tutor had never been seen in daylight. After that, the distraught woman began to ask the right questions. Discussing Angelus proved awkward for all. Buffy had been in love with him. Buffy had slept with him. He had lost his soul. He had killed Jenny. He had killed Willow's fish. He had killed Buffy. Joyce threw them out of the house after two hours. She was angry. Over-whelmed. Denial had arisen again. Giles gave her his phone number, which she promptly destroyed and threw in his face. He had sent Willow, Xander, and Cordelia home to his house. The school wouldn't miss them, not with the epidemic going currently. He gave them express instructions not to leave singly after dark. He had performed the disinvite spell himself after Angelus had left Jenny's body. Stupid of him not to have done it sooner, but then who knew what kind of evil he would have been done with her remains otherwise. He did not leave. Joyce was an active woman. She would try to do something shortly. Perhaps go to the police after all, perhaps go to the cemetery, perhaps go to the mansion if they had convinced her of the death. No one had mentioned turning yet. Maybe she would never have to know what her daughter was now. What torments would be perpetrated on her. It occurred to him that Buffy might survive long enough to make contact. She was a resourceful girl. He would have to mention it to Joyce after all. Hours after he took up residence on the porch, Joyce stormed out the front door. She didn't seem surprised to see him. She marched toward him deliberately, and sat beside him on the porch swing. "I just did something that I swore I would never do. I read my daughter's diary. Everything, absolutely everything you told me is in there. "I dug out the older volumes from the bottom of her closet. I found several bottles marked holy water and two boxes of crossbow bolts in there too. The book from when she was fifteen says that she met a man outside her school that told her she was a Chosen One. He took her to kill a vampire for the first time." Giles didn't interrupt, but he noticed that Joyce was beginning to believe. Her whole bearing bespoke it, as did her firm voice. "I have seen my daughter come home late. I have washed stains out of her clothes that looked remarkably like blood. I have seen her with scratches. I have seen school principles that told me she was a horrible student, always in fights, often tired in class." Joyce paused. It was easier than she expected, speaking like this to a man that was almost a stranger to her. He had loved Buffy, almost as much as she had. However much she wanted to deny it, he was telling her the truth. "Am I blind? Why did I never ask her what was going on? She wrote about how she hated lying to me. About how hard it was to be punished when she was performing her sacred duty." Giles smiled humorlessly. "Buffy was a resourceful young woman. She was adept at...stretching the truth, even in front of me. Parents tend to believe their children. And since Buffy gave you no indication that anything was wrong, it would have been simple to dismiss these things as just teenage angst run amuck. Who believes in vampires, after all? Other than middle aged librarians. She didn't tell you because I'm sure she wanted to spare you the pain it would cause you to know that she risked her life every night." Joyce shook her head violently. Her self-loathing was intense as she spoke. "No. She did tell me. And her father. We thought she was going crazy. We took her to an institution. We had her kept there under observation for a few weeks, until she stopped telling the truth. She lied, said it was all a figment of her imagination, and we took her home. There was no reason for her to tell me the truth ever again. "And now my baby is gone." She had begun to cry. She accepted the handkerchief offered her by the man beside her. The next part was going to be the most difficult. "And this monster killed your friend, Ms. Calendar? Then left her for you to find?" Giles nodded. He wasn't sure what to say just now. Buffy had never told him that she had been in an asylum. He reflected that that was why potentials were found early, whenever possible, and taken to be with watchers who would train and understand them. Parents were unequipped to handle this sort of thing. "What does that mean I have to look forward to? Is he going to leave her body in my house? Or did he make her like him?" Giles looked up sharply. He had not anticipated that she would realize what Angelus was capable of. "Don't look so stunned. I lived in L.A., I know what murders do. Worse, I used to read Anne Rice novels when Buffy was a baby. I'm sure you'll tell me they're horrible sources of information, but it's true isn't it? Angelus could have turned her into a vampire." The watcher looked away from her. "Don't try to spare me now, Rupert." The familiarity of the address seemed only natural now, to both of them. They were going to come to know each other better, it might as well begin now. "He cannot enter your home unless invited. Willow, our aspiring witch, removed his first invitation. As to Buffy's status, I think that yes, even though Anne Rice is horribly flawed, Angelus has chosen to make her his childe. I have books that you can read that will give you a better idea of what that means." Joyce nodded. "I want to know everything. I have two more questions. Will my daughter become a killer like him?" Giles shook his head. "He may try to make her one. But slayers keep their souls when they are turned, so he won't succeed. He will try everything to torment her, you know." Joyce nodded again. She had expected that. "Final question. What comes next?" "Where do we go from here, you mean?" "No, I mean how do we make this bastard vampire pay for what he's done to my daughter?" Ripper smiled menacingly. "I've been contemplating that. Xander and Willow will help, I'm sure, but I will need another adult. May I assume that you are more than willing to assist?" "Yes." "Then I suggest we first call the police, and report a missing person. They will suspect you if you do not do so. They will want to come over and go through her things, so I recommend that right now, we go to her room and remove all evidence of her having been a slayer. We can store it elsewhere in your house, possibly in your room. After they finish, we will go to my apartment, and speak with Xander, Willow, and Cordelia. Our planning will begin then." "Very well. Let's begin." They stood, and reentered the house. _____________ Angelus was a believer in certain traditions. Notably those that caused pain. That was why he had ordered his minions to dig a grave in the gardens behind the house the night he returned with his prize. He had further ordered them to find a casket. Once both tasks were accomplished, he and Dru laid the girl in her coffin, and nailed it shut. The minions buried it. He then took the dark princess inside and screwed her until she bled. ______________ Buffy awoke slowly. It was dark, and her head was throbbing. She reached to her temple to rub it, in hopes of easing the ache. Her hand was blocked by a wall. Impulsively she reached out, and found herself enclosed on all sides. She thrashed frantically. Angelus had buried her alive. Coherent thought fled her mind as she attacked the top of her wooden prison. Slayer strength melded with vampiric fury and she smashed a fist up through the top of the casket. Earth fell in on top of her and she choked on the dust, not stopping to realize that she no longer needed to breathe. Kicks and punches widened the rift, and the dirt sank down over her. She shot upward, swimming to the surface in the fresh-tilled ground. She pulled herself out and lay to the side of her unmarked grave gasping. She heard something behind her. Turning she saw Angelus. She felt a wave of something unknown, all at once devotion, and fear, and desire, well up inside her. She leaped up, disgusted by the feeling, hatred penetrating through her foggy mind. She tried to take a fighting stance. "Bow, childe." She didn't want to. She was compelled. Angelus didn't have thrall. What was happening? She was spared further thought when a low landed on the back of her head. _______________ When next she woke Buffy was inside. She was laying on something soft. She remembered being in the graveyard. She remembered Angelus. Her hand flew to her neck. Where the Master had once bitten her, there was now another, more recent bite. She trembled at the implication. But it was the hunger that confirmed her fears. Giles had said that fledglings needed to feed as soon as they rose, because of the initial draining. And heaven help her, she wanted blood. She needed it. Craved it. She'd die if she didn't get some soon. Her conscious mind warred with demon instincts that were trying to take hold. Shouldn't she be unable to control herself? Shouldn't she be rushing off to kill the innocent? She was just hungry. She opened her eyes for the first time. He was there. Not looking at her. He was by a dresser, closing a drawer full of shirts. She didn't move, hoping that perhaps she could escape when he left. She was scared to death. 'Oh, bad pun Buffy.' "Naughty little sister. Tries to make Daddy think she isn't here yet." Drusilla. On the bed to her side. She hadn't even sensed her. What was wrong with her? 'Other than suddenly being a vampire, Buffy?' She was still in shock over that. If she hadn't been, she'd be thinking about her mom, and her friends, and Giles. She couldn't do that yet. Not until she got out of here. Which was going to be hard with two Masters in the room. Now that she realized there were two of them, her senses started making more, well, sense. As a vampire, she smelled them and their strength. As a slayer she almost always knew when a vampire was around, especially a powerful vampire. Her slayer-spidey sense felt overloaded right now. That was probably why she hadn't immediately noticed Dru. She supposed that fact that she was now a demon was part of it... She reached up to touch her face. She found ridges and fangs. Oh, God, she was a demon. She'd been a Chosen One, standing against the darkness all those years and now she was part of it. She was part of Angel's...no...Angelus's family. What would Giles say? Maybe he'd try to kill her... Buffy began to cry. She was a monster. A hard slap landed on the side of her face. Angelus was standing over her. "Did I tell you that you could cry?" Buffy glared at him angrily, and growled without realizing what she was doing. She was yanked up by the jean jacket she still wore from the night of her death. Angelus slapped her roughly, alternating sides of her face until the cool skin burned from his blows. He dropped her roughly to the ground, then pulled her into a standing position by her hair. Several pieces came loose in his hands. "You will never again show such disrespect to your Sire. If you do, I will break your jaw so that you cannot utter such sounds. Remember this girl: you are my childe. All that you are belongs to me. I have the rights of life, death, and pain over you." He dropped her back down. She missed the sofa and landed on the floor. Secretly, Angelus was delighted. He had feared for a few moments that she would be too overcome to react. In reality, she had just the fight he was looking for. Oh yes, this next would be fun. He strode over to the bed, and sat down at the foot. "Now Buffy, let us have a conversation. What are you?" ****** Please Review! Thank you to everyone who has so far! |