Title: Slumber
Author: Kylia
Email: kylia_bug@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Nobody belongs to me, unfortunately. They belong to Joss & Mutant Enemy, and a few other people I don't know.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Nothing Specific; Season 4 BtVS; Season 1 Angel.
Category: Willow/Spike; Willow/Angel
Summary: Willow's attacked, things happen.
Distribution: Fire & Ice, WitchFanFic, Of Sire & Childe, anyone else, ask, and you shall receive
Author's Notes: Something new; Spike has his bite back, but is still in Sunnydale.
Dedication: To my girls; Inell, Miss you already.

Spike walked through the park after draining his evening meal. It felt good to be back, he mused. It had been several weeks since he'd had the implant removed, and he still found himself wandering the streets of Sunnydale. At first he was unsure why he remained on the Hellmouth, but the truth was he couldn't leave, not yet. He still hadn't claimed the witch. He wasn't in a position to make her his when he was at the mercy of the slayer and her pack, but now that he was back, he had every intention of taking the fiery red-head, and making her his for all time.

Willow was exhausted, and walked with a slowness that she knew was unwise. She had stayed late at Giles' researching the latest evil to come to Sunnydale. If she were being perfectly honest, she would admit that she had stayed hoping that she might run into Spike on patrol. He still hadn't left town, even though they'd had the implant removed. She wondered why. A small part of her hoped that it was because he would miss her. But even as she thought it, she knew that it was a ridiculous notion.

So absorbed in her own thoughts, she didn't hear her attacker approach until it was too late. She heard the faint rustle of leaves behind her, but when she turned around, she was met with a blow across her face. Then nothing.

He didn't know what it was that had alerted him to the trouble. He didn't know if it was a knowledge from somewhere deep inside him, or an irrational paranoia, or just a fear that gripped him to the soul he no longer possessed. Whatever it was, the feeling alerted Spike to the danger Willow was in. He ran, as fast as he could to her dorm, knowing all the while she wouldn't be there. After searching the campus and not finding her, Spike headed towards the Watcher's house, hoping that she would be there, but somehow knowing that she wasn't.

Willow awoke in a darkened room. It was cold, unbelievably cold. The silence was almost unbearable. The room radiated fear. She could almost feel the terror the room had born witness to. As she tried to sit up, she realized her hands were bound. Tied behind her back with heavy chain. Her feet were also tied together. She was unable to move, no matter how hard she tried to wriggle free. It was then she heard the deep chuckle. Someone had entered the room. She wasn't sure when they had come, or if they had always been there. She couldn't make out the features, it was too dark.

"My, you are a lively one." The voice spoke as she continued to fight against her binds. "She told us you would be. She also said you had power. We shall see."

Before Willow had a chance to analyze his words he seemed to vanish into a hazy cloud of smoke, burning her already tender eyes.

It had taken Spike nearly twenty minutes to track down the slayer and convince her that Willow was in trouble. They didn't believe him. They thought he was over-reacting. He couldn't explain to them how he knew. He didn't even know how he knew. Buffy had finally conceded that it wouldn't hurt to look. Unfortunately a search hadn't turned up any information. They had given up, convinced that Spike was imagining things and Willow was perfectly safe. Spike wasn't so easily swayed. However it fast approaching daybreak, and he couldn't help her if he was a pile of dust.

Willow strained to open her eyes, although she wasn’t sure why she should bother. The darkness never ceased. She couldn’t even make out the shadows anymore. She didn’t know how long she had been held captive. The days ran together. She figured it must be at least a couple of weeks. She had lost hope of ever being found. She wasn’t even sure if she was in Sunnydale anymore. She didn’t know if her friends had given up looking for. If they had even tried to find her. The darkness weighed on her spirits. In the beginning, she was so certain that Buffy would find her.

Her hope had been squashed when her captor had been revealed. Tara. Her fellow Wiccan. That was a laugh. The girl had power, it was true but she was no Wicca. Her power was derived from the black arts. She drained the power of others. Fed off of it.

The magiks, which kept Willow bound in this hell, also had changed her somehow. She could feel it weaving it’s way through her body. She no longer knew who or what she was anymore. She felt the power coursing through her veins. She could sense things in the air around her. Life called to her from a distant place. But there was no life where she was. Just an empty void.

Spike snarled menacingly at the small group. He couldn’t believe these people. Willow had been missing for three weeks. Three weeks without hearing her voice, seeing her. Her friends believed she had left with her parents on a trip. That’s what the blond witch had told them. She said that her parents had come home unexpectedly and invited willow to join them on a vacation they were taking. The Slayer and her group believed Tara. Spike didn’t. It just didn’t make any sense. Willow, his Willow, would not have just left like that. Something had happened to her. Someone had taken her. Whoever it was would die a slow and painful death, of that he was sure.

"Spike? Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be out… doing whatever it is you do?" Buffy asked, not really wanting to know what it was he did to occupy his time.

"Bloody hell!" He growled as he stormed out of the watcher’s apartment.

Once the Vampire had gone, Tara looked around the room at each of the five faces, gauging their reactions to Spike’s claims of Willow’s danger. She smiled inwardly when she realized they hadn’t believed him.

"Is he… alright?" She asked timidly.

"Who? Deadboy, Jr.? Yeah, he just likes to growl and snarl a lot." Xander laughed. He turned to Giles. "You don’t think that he might be right, do you?" He asked, not wanting to believe that Willow was in any danger.

"Well, I don’t know. I don’t think so." He looked around the room, letting his eyes stop at Buffy. "When did you speak to her last?"

Buffy thought for a second, "About three days ago. She sounded fine to me. We didn’t talk long, but she seemed happy."

"There we go, Willow’s fine, now can we please move on?" Anya asked rolling her eyes.

"Yes, quite." Giles said as he started filling them in on the latest threat to enter Sunnydale.

Tara suppressed her desire to laugh out loud. This group was stupid. They had been easy to fool. Just by altering her voice, they had believed it was Willow they had spoken too.

It probably helped that it was Buffy who she spoke to most often. She didn’t dare call the vampire. He would have known, she was certain. There was some sort of connection between Willow and Spike. Something she didn’t even really grasp. It wasn’t a bond formed in magic, therefore it was of no interest to her. It only concerned her if he interfered in her plans before she had time to fully drain the young witch.

Spike tore through the streets of Sunnydale in a blind rage, killing anything or anyone that dared to get in his way. His Willow was in danger. He could feel it.

Without realizing it, Spike found himself on the outskirts of the town, near a section of abandoned buildings. The area was so run down and dilapidated, even the vampires stayed away. As he walked closer into the area, a strange feeling came over him. Something was directing him. Guiding him towards something. He followed, not understanding what it was that drove him, but know that somehow it would help him find his witch.

Willow felt the darkness surround her. The power coursing through her body sent a chill through her body. She felt the fever. Her body was on fire, but it was a cold fire. Burning her from the inside out.

She briefly acknowledged noises coming from outside the chamber she was held in. They didn’t matter. Her life was seeping out of her body. Being drained away. She felt her mind start to shut down, and she lost herself to death.

Cordelia sat up straight in bed. Her head still pounding from the force of the vision. Her eyes were blurry from sleep and the memory of what she had seen. She stumbled out of the bed, still clutching her head. Scurrying to dress as quickly as possible, Cordelia tried to clear her head, and think rationally. She failed. The memory of the images would be forever etched into her brain. She ran out of the apartment as fast as she could, hoping that Angel was home by now. It was still early, for him. But they didn’t have any time to waste.

Spike was in a blind rage. The longer he thought about the danger he knew Willow was in, the angrier he got. He wanted nothing more than to gut her so called friends. However, doing that would not please his witch, and he wanted her to come to him willingly. Idly, he realized that they believed her to be safe because they had spoken to her, or so they thought. He wasn’t sure why but he knew that whoever they had spoken to wasn’t Willow. If that was true, then the blond witch who claimed that Willow had told her about her trip before she disappeared was lying.

All of these thoughts consumed him as we wound his way to an old abandoned building. As soon as he entered, he knew this was where he would find Willow. After a brief run in with several young fledglings, Spike made his way down a long staircase. It was dark. Even with his exceptional eyesight, it was hard to make out much more than shadows.

Once he reached the bottom, he found her. He sensed her more than saw her. She was hanging limply by her wrists from a couple of chains attached to the ceiling. Her body was battered. He could smell her blood. It was dried and stale.

Spike leapt forward, and snapped the chains with little difficulty, causing the young girl to fall into his arms. He cradled her against him, as he checked to see if she was alive. She was still breathing, although barely. Her heartbeat was so slow he almost couldn’t detect it. The thing he noticed first, however was that she seemed to be glowing. A pale purple color. It seemed to surround her body, and the weaker her breathing became the stronger it would glow.

Spike realized that if he didn’t do something soon, she would die. He laid her gently against him as he bent down to her dwindling pulse point. He sunk his fangs into her neck gently, and drained the last bit of life from her. When he withdrew from her, he bit into his own wrist to start the blood flow, and then forced it to her lips. He tilted her backwards slightly, forcing more of the blood to go down her throat. After a couple of moments, Willow began to suckle the puncture marks, taking in as much of the thick liquid as she could.

When she had taken enough blood, Spike pulled his wrist away and lifted her into his arms. He carried her out of the building, and brought her to the apartment he had been living in for the past six months.

As he laid her gently on his bed, Spike marveled at her beauty as he watched her skin pale ever so slightly. She was breathtaking, and she was his. For Eternity.

Tara sat with the small group researching a demon that had recently come to town. She fought the urge to laugh out loud at the ignorance of this group. They had fallen so easily into her trap. She had almost completed the change in Willow, and then she could drain her energy completely. Then she would have her power.

Tara turned her gaze to Anya and smiled softly. She would be next. Even though she was no longer a demon, she still possessed power. Not nearly as much as the redheaded witch, but enough.

Tara was brought out of her thoughts as she felt something tugging at her. She felt something snap, inside of her. It was as if somebody had shut off her connection to the witch. Tara reached out with her mind, and nearly screamed when she realized that Willow was no longer there. She couldn’t feel her anymore. The link had been severed. That could only mean one thing. The witch was dead.

Willow’s mind slowly came out of the fog. She didn’t know where she was, but she could feel Spike. He was with her, somewhere. She opened her eyes carefully, and was startled to find a pair of blues eyes staring at her intently. She broke her gaze from him and looked around the room. She recognized it as Spike’s bedroom. But it looked different somehow. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, then she realized what it was. The room hadn’t changed, she had. She could see things that were never visible before. Hear things that had previously gone unnoticed. Feel things that had gone undetected. She could sense the very essence of life.

"How you feeling, luv?" Spike asked, smiling at her reaction to her new senses.

Willow turned to her sire and smiled. "Hungry."

Cordelia rushed into Angel’s living room from the elevator, without bothering to knock. It wasn’t until she saw him standing just outside of the bathroom door wearing nothing but a pair of pants, and towel drying his wet hair, that she realized she should of knocked. She smiled up at him apologetically.

"Sorry." She turned around slightly, as if to leave, and then remembering her vision started to pace around the floor.

"Cordelia? What’s wrong? Did you have another vision?" He asked walking over to the pacing girl.

"Cordelia nodded. "You bet. And can I tell you again how unpleasant these vision things are? I mean as if the pounding headache weren’t enough, the come complete with three dimensional visual, not to mention the yummy smells."

Angel guided her over to the couch. "Why don’t you sit down. Let me get you some water." Angel walked into his bedroom, and after pulling on a sweater, he went into the kitchen a pulled some bottled water he kept in his refrigerator for just such an occasion.

"What did you see?" He asked after he had sat down in the chair across from her.

Cordelia took a deep breath as she tried to make some sense of her vision. "It was Willow, only it wasn’t." She looked up at her boss as her voice dropped to a whisper. "I think she was a vampire."

"What?" Angel asked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. "Are you sure? Maybe it was the other Willow? The one from your wish?"

Cordelia frowned slightly at the memory of her wish and what it would have meant for Sunnydale. She shook her head. "No. I don’t think so. She was different. Not so… skanky."

Angel chuckled at her use of adjectives. Then he thought about what that could mean. "Did she have a soul?" He asked cautiously, hoping that if Willow were turned, she would still retain some of her inner beauty.

Cordelia thought about the question carefully before answering. "I don’t think so. Not if you’re any indication. Besides I think I saw some sort of fight with… Buffy" She said the last word quietly, unsure how he would react. Then she added, "If she were souled, they wouldn’t be fighting, would they?"

Cordelia watched as his features clouded over in thought. She was surprised when he finally answered. "Was she staked?"

"Huh?" Cordelia asked, confused. She was expecting his question to be about Buffy’s safety, not whether or not she had successfully staked the witch.

Ignoring her confusion, and his earlier question, he asked another. "What exactly did you see?"

Angel watched as the images she had seen played themselves out in her mind before she answered. "The images kept shifting and changing. First it showed Willow tied to the ceiling in some dungeon looking place, and then it showed Willow back at Giles house. She was angry. About what I can only guess. Then it shifted back to the dungeon place. But that time I don’t think it was Willow that was hanging. I couldn’t make out who it was though. And then it shifted again to Willow and some girl I’ve never seen before. And can I just say Eww? The girl was an awful mess. She looked like she had been torn apart, from the inside out." Cordelia made a face. "Does this make any sense to you? Because I’m just getting a general ick factor."

Angel stood up. "No, but the soon I get to Sunnydale, the sooner I can figure out what’s going on, and hopefully stop it."

"You mean we." Cordelia stated at she rose off of the couch.

Tara felt the loss of her victim and screamed inside her mind. She didn’t understand. Willow should have been kept alive for a little while longer. She hadn’t completed the change. Now whatever power the witch had, as well as all the energy and power she had used in changing her would have reverted back to Willow. Not that it would do her any good. At least not if she was dead. And that was the only explanation for the loss she felt. Only death would have severed the connection.

She was running out of time. She didn’t gain some more power soon, she wouldn’t have enough to go back to her own dimension. She smiled as she looked over at Anya.

The group was separating to do a divided patrol. If she could get the ex-demon alone, she could capture her without the other’s knowing. She didn’t think she would need them anymore, but she wanted to cover all her bases.

"Spike?" Willow asked as she changed. Her old clothes had been shredded to near falling off by the time Spike had found her, not that she was interested in dressing in fluffy sweaters and overalls. They were part of the old Willow.

"Yes, luv?" Spike admired his red-haired beauty as she pulled on a pair of burgundy leather pants and a black velvet top. He had gone out and picked out some clothes for her while she slept. He thought he had chosen well. She looked exquisite.

"I feel strange. Different. Powerful. Is it always like this?" She asked as she turned towards her sire.

He chuckled at the awe in her voice. "Yes, and no. I think that whatever was done to you, changed you somehow." He watched her at her mind thought over what he told her.

Willow smiled and reached out for his hand. The sun was setting and she was hungry. "There was powerful magic. I felt it going through my body, changing me somehow. She told me that it was to harness my power. She planned on to absorb it into herself. But I think that my death reversed somehow."

Spike nodded. Magic was not his strong suit, but he had spent enough time around the witch, to know that it was hers. Another thought struck him as he led her out into the night. "Who was it? Who kidnapped you?"

Willow’s eyes glowed gold as she remembered her captivity, and felt her demon surge forth, begging for retribution. "Tara." She hissed.

"The witch? The stuttering one from the college?"

"Yes." Willow turned her golden eyes towards Spike as the headed into the park. "First we feed. Then, she dies."

Spike grinned at the venom in her voice. His unlife was looking up.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Anya asked. She was slightly annoyed. Tara had convinced Buffy and Giles it would be better to separate her and Xander during their patrols. So she had gotten stuck with the blond witch. There was something about her that was… off. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly. If it was anything. She didn’t really know the girl all that well.

She started to turn towards Tara when she felt something hard hit her on the back of the head. Then everything went black.

Willow giggled as she watched a young woman scream in terror. She had a firm grip on the woman’s wrist. The harder she struggled, the more delighted she became. It wasn’t that she was enjoying her pain so much, it just seemed to far removed from anything she had ever planned, or expecting to do. She found the whole situation highly amusing. On a whim, Willow let her human mask fall back into place, and let her go. It took the girl a second to realize she was no longer being held, and then she ran. Willow laughed and turned to face Spike who had been watching in amusement.

She shrugged. "I’m full."

They had been hunting for the better part of two hours. Willow had chosen difficult targets. She found the blood tasted better when she had to work for it.

Willow took a step closer to Spike, and then she collapsed on the ground. She felt this heavy fog in her mind, and a strange tugging sensation. It wasn’t something she could really explain. It was just there. She opened her eyes, and found herself being cradled in Spike’s arms. He took her over to a nearby bench and set her down.

"Willow, Luv, are you alright?"

Willow took a look at her surroundings. For a moment she was disoriented. She had thought, just for a second she was back in the dark room where she had been held for the last three weeks of her mortal existence.

"The witch. She’s taken someone else." She turned her green eyes towards Spike. "Anya. She has Anya."

"Then we go and kill her." Spike pulled Willow to her feet.

"No, first we find Anya, then we kill the bitch. Painfully."

Anya didn’t know where she was. She had awoken to find herself chained to the ceiling in a dark room. She tried to remember what had happened. The last thing she remembered was patrolling with Tara, and then she had been hit on the back of the head. In an instant, she knew the girl was responsible. She didn’t know why, but there had always been something about the blond witch, which troubled her. With realization, Anya knew that everything that Spike had tried to tell them about Willow’s disappearance had been true. But if she had been kidnapped too, where was she?

Buffy put her arm around Tara, trying to console her. She had found the young witch in the park, crying. She told her that she had been separated from Anya, and now no one could find the ex-demon. She blamed herself. She thought something had happened to her.

Buffy thought it was more likely that Anya had been distracted by something. She figured that before too long she would show up at Giles’ to collect Xander.

A violent pounding brought her out of her thoughts on the door. She gasped when she saw Angel push his way past Giles’ into the living room.

"Where’s Willow?" He asked as his eyes swept over the room.

"Willow? Deadboy get with the program. Willow’s been gone for three weeks." Xander snorted as Angel’s lack of information.

"Where?" Angel ignored Xander’s nickname, trying to process what he had said. If Willow had been gone for three weeks why was she in Cordelia’s vision?

"She went with her parents on some vacation." Buffy told him as she tried to figure out what was going on.

"I don’t think so."

Everyone turned to Cordelia, who had entered the apartments just in time to hear Buffy’s explanation.

"Willow? Visiting her parents for three weeks? Delusional much?" Cordelia snorted. Cordelia looked around the room, finally letting her eyes rest on Tara.

"Angel? That’s the girl." She looked at her boss. "The one from my vision."

Willow wound her way through the darkened streets of Sunnydale. She didn’t know what was directing her, but she could somehow sense Anya. She was in pain. The same kind of pain Willow had endured before she died. Willow ran faster.

Anya tried to stay conscious, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. There was some sort of magical energy engulfing her. It wasn’t really strong, just enough to offset her own energies. She was about to lose the battle with consciousness when she heard someone enter. She tried to open her eyes, but the were too heavy.

She felt someone release her chains, and she was set gently on the ground. Their skin was cool to the touch, she noticed as she slipped into peaceful oblivion.




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