The Book of Days: The Attack
by WordThief
THE BOOK OF DAYS

‘ Now, this is not gonna be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content...’
Buffy, ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth.’

Part Five: The Attack

###

Three hours before sunset and the heat was still strong enough to bring a slight sheen of perspiration to Oz’s forehead as he whittled away with a pocketknife, the pile of stakes beside him growing larger as he and Cordelia added to it. From their perch on the back porch, they could watch Buffy putting the two F.B.I agents through their self defence paces, only with a stake as backup to the Sig. they both carried. Joyce was watching also, arms folded, leaning against the doorjamb. Every so often she would let out a little gasp as her daughter made a particularly hard hit or high tumble. Scully had declined the padding Giles had offered her and was getting righteously thumped by the small teen until she dropped to a shooter’s crouch and whipped out her Sig. Buffy, halfway through a roundhouse kick to Mulder’s chest, dropped her leg and moved away quickly.

‘If it got to this point.’ Scully panted. ‘I would do this.’

‘That’s what I would recommend.’ Giles said gravely. He had been watching Buffy take on the two adults, smiling briefly every time he saw her execute a textbook manoeuvre. ‘You cannot kill a vampire with a gun, even if you shoot it through the head or the heart, but you can certainly disable it, cause it pain. I would aim for the limbs, try and take it out of the equation. A vampire that cannot move is a vampire that is easily staked.’

‘What was that?’ Xander squinted up at him from his perch beside Cordelia where he was nursing his arm in his lap. ‘Watcher’s ‘Thought of the Day’?’ Giles ignored him.

‘Buffy, I want to go over this again.’ The Slayer sat herself on the lawn, her legs stretched out in front of her and looked at her mother briefly before answering him.

‘Giles, there isn’t much to go over. Oz takes us to Crawford St in the van. I take a look around, find out what’s happening, I go in smash up the demon, all the while trying not to get killed. Xander and Mr Mulder and Dr Scully act as lookouts, and I’m happy because I know that the whole time you, Willow, Cordy and Mom are safe at your place where nothing can come in, even in the dark. Just don’t open the door to Willie the snitch.’

‘Buffy, that really doesn’t constitute a plan.’

‘We can’t make a plan! I might be able to get in and out of there without anyone seeing me, but I doubt it. I’ll probably have to fight. I know how to do that. Look, Giles - at this point we really don’t have much choice.’

He nodded, acknowledging the truth of her words. Buffy looked at the two F.B.I. agents. ‘Are you guys okay?’

‘Fine.’ Scully reholstered her gun. ‘When do we leave?’

###

Buffy pulled herself to a crouch underneath the window, brushing the soil from her knees. She had left the rest of the ‘attack party’ in the van and scouted the perimeter of the Crawford St mansion, keeping low in the undergrowth. Following her ears more than any particular vampire-sense, she had finally arrived outside a room where she could, with a bit of effort, pick out what a pair of voices were saying. And the voices were unmistakably Spike and Drusilla’s.

Spotting a chink at the side of the window where someone had carelessly left a curtain slightly open, a gap maybe two or three inches across, and two inches high, Buffy placed her eye to the space. Inside, Drusilla was pouting and pirouetting, watched by Spike. The male vampire was obviously tense and agitated, Buffy thought maybe even scared, and was visibly unimpressed by Drusilla’s coquettish behaviour. The Slayer listened hard, concentrating on the sights and sounds before her.

‘Spike, my dearest, you know it would be the best thing.’ Drusilla trailed her hand over Spike’s shoulder, caressing the base of his neck. ‘He will not begin now, he is gone. He no longer fills my head....’ Through the dirty window pane Buffy saw Drusilla lean forward and nip at the blonde vampire’s neck playfully.

‘Bloody hell, Dru, cut it out.’ Spike pushed her away and rolled his chair forward a few feet, spinning to face her. Buffy ducked quickly below the window level, afraid that Spike had glimpsed her. He went on, however. ‘The last time we were in Prague you were almost killed, ducks. It’s not like here. These bloody Americans are as thick as two short planks.’

‘Mmmmm mmmm. They know..they know in Prague, about us, they are old people, old, they know Drusilla. But they taste so sweet..so sweet. I can see the blood flowing as we walk, flowing under the Charles as we cross into the old town. The Vltava red with sweetness...hmm hmmm. More whispers.....psst psst psst. The charnel house at Nizkov, my love. Spike, he no longer calls me. He is dormant, he is dead. My love Angel, something whispers to him too. Something whispers danger into Angel’s ears....his skin...feels warm...like hers. Like that Slayer. But we killed one, didn’t we Spike..hmmmm? We killed and now we must go for the mob is in my mind and Acathla is silent. His silence drives my Angel to madness, and danger whispers at his throat. He doesn’t want to listen. He won’t let me love him more..tsk tsk...we shall go, my Spike, for something comes.’

‘Shut up Dru! I’m not bloody taking you to Prague! It’s too dangerous. Look, pet, for a start, how would I get there? I’m not exactly in striker form here. If you wait..hell..no, I’m not going to say anything. You’ve got to watch Angel. He’s going to do something stupid and bring the whole sodding mess down on us. That Slayer knows what’s going on. She’s not going to just go away now. Angel almost toasted her Watcher, and we’ve got no bloody sentries after the idiot went mad with the chainsaw.’

‘Hmm..Angel was going to let me change him....her Watcher...let me love him.. When I woke up, Spike, I was so disappointed.’

‘I know you were love. We all were.’

‘But Spike, one day she will come to us, she will be one of us...and to her the blood will be so sweet, so...’ She smiled evilly and Buffy decided she’d seen enough. Muttering ‘Never!’ under her breath, she stealthily dropped to all fours and rounded the corner, staying under the window level until she could use the undergrowth to return to the road. The van was parked in the shadows about three hundred metres from the mansion driveway, and in it she found a very scared Xander who was quietly going over vampire-killing methods with the agents.

Mulder looked up at her entrance. ‘Well?’

‘In a way we’ve lucked out. I managed to get near enough to Spike and Drusilla to hear what they were saying. Spike’s still doing the wheelchair thing.’

‘So Drusilla and Angel don’t know he can walk, hmm.’ Xander looked thoughtful. ‘I can’t see how that’s gonna help us. What else?’

‘I got the impression that Angel’s gone a little....shall we say, psycho?’

‘I thought that happened four months ago.’

She ignored him. ‘It looks like he’s killed all the sentries. I didn’t see anyone else there. Spike said something about a chainsaw.’

‘So did Rupert.’ Scully reminded them. ‘Decapitation?’

‘Yeah. He must have been pissed when he woke up. But the problem is, I don’t know where he is. It’ll be dark in forty-five minutes or so, so I can only assume that he’s inside somewhere. But after sunset - he could be anywhere. There’s no way in without breaking something, which will make a noise. I’d rather take them by surprise and fight than have them hear us coming and take us on their territory. But is it worth the chance?’

No one answered.

‘Okay.’ She appeared to make a decision. ‘Spike and Dru are in a room together with a low covered window entrance. If we can get that curtain open within the next thirty minutes or so it might do enough damage for me to take them both. From there the hall leads down to the main room where Giles says Acathla is. I don’t like, it but.....I do what I have to do. We’ve got to take the chance, even though Angel could turn up at any minute. Shit.’ She placed her hand on her stomach. ‘I just hope I’ve got my head around this. If I lose my focus, we could lose out. We could all die.’

Xander placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘You can do it, Buff. You’re the hero.’

She gave him a weak smile, then snapped back into business mode. ‘Okay. Xander and I will go recon, once round the house on the offchance that we can place Angel. Would you two watch Spike and Dru? Stay out of sight. If they see you, don’t shoot or anything, just go for the van - they can’t follow while it’s still light. If Xand and I aren’t back five minutes after we leave, go for the van, go to Giles’s. No arguments. We will be back, though. We can’t afford not to be.’

Mulder and Scully both nodded.

‘Oz? Can you just stay here, have her ready to go? Anything remotely vampiric, you head to Giles’s as well. We’ll try to be back by sunset. If we’re not back in an hour, go like hell. Got it?’

Another nod, this time from the driver.

‘Okay.’ The Slayer looked fierce. ‘Action stations.’ She gave a ghost grin. ‘I always wanted to say that.’

###

Crouched low at both sides of the window, the F.B.I. agents telegraphed each other a three count. On three, Mulder readied his gun, and Scully sidled up to the chink of open curtain in the corner watching for movement. When her eye accustomed to the gloom inside, she could see two figures faced away from her. Their body language made it obvious that they were arguing, but she could not hear what they were saying. She nodded at Mulder then continued her observation. The sight seemed to suck her in, make her unable to look away.

Even with the outlandish clothes - velvet and leather - the two could have been any young alternative couple seen on the street of any reasonable sized town. The woman was tall, quite beautiful in a mildly exotic way. The man in the wheelchair, with his Billy Idol peroxide blonde hair, was also reassuringly normal looking. As she watched, the woman she guessed was Drusilla, leaned forward and began to nuzzle at his neck. He pushed her away.

They looked normal, but Scully felt a pervasive sense of evil that further watching did not shake, and the feeling that the facade hid a danger not immediately seen. She found herself thinking of a case she and Mulder had taken in Miami, among the riches and beautiful people of Palm Beach. Following a trail of suspects, they had arrived at a beach where every body looked like that of a Mr Universe contestant, each one more cut and pumped than the next. Yet she had gotten the same feeling there - that all was not as it looked, that inside some of the gorgeous physiques, incongruous in themselves, was something waiting to take hold and strike out at their host. Indeed, the witness they had eventually found had a viral load higher than any she had ever seen.

But, unlike the demons walking around in these bodies, the virus practised no purposeful evil. She suddenly felt as she had performing the autopsy the day before.

She watched as Drusilla picked up a rose from the mantelpiece and waved it about under her nose. She said something to Spike - something that made him clench his jaw, and sashayed out of the room. Scully turned to Mulder in concern. ‘Damn!’ she hissed. ‘We’ve lost Drusilla. Where the hell are they?’

As if in answer to her query, Buffy and Xander appeared out of the overgrown garden behind and to the side of them. Moving quickly, they covered the ground to where Mulder and Scully crouched.

‘Nothing. No sentries, no Angel. This is everyone’s last chance to go back.’

No one moved.

‘Okay.’ Buffy was firmly in charge. ‘I heard you say Dru was gone. If she’s out of the room maybe I can take them one at a time, but you guys are going to have to watch the entrance for me, cover me. Plan is this - I go straight through the window, take Spike by surprise. Mr Mulder, you come after me, really close, and rip that curtain away any way you can, then use your gun where you think it might come in handy. Xand, you watch everyone’s backs. Dr Scully?’

The agent nodded, still feeling cold and crawly from her observation of the two vampires.

‘Once we’re in, can you cover the window in case we have something coming after us that way.’

Another nod. Buffy was heartened by the look in the eyes of her helpers. Fear was there, but not a little determination and courage as well. She thought of her baby, and closed her eyes. Scully reached up and clutched her cross briefly.

Opening her eyes, Buffy began to sidle closer to the window. ‘Okay!’ she whispered. ‘On three.’

###

The crash of glass was deafening and Buffy wondered briefly if it would cause every vampire in the lower forty-eight to come running. She had no time to entertain this thought, however, as she found herself halfway across the room. She jumped to her feet and faced Spike, who was quick to react to her grand entrance. He rose out of his chair, obviously quite stiff from sitting, and took a couple of steps backward. Buffy didn’t give him time to find an advantage. Two snap kicks to the gut, and he was thrown back against the wall. She followed with a hard punch to his chin. He managed to block her next two punches, and landed one on her shoulder before she grabbed his arm and swung him around and down to the middle of the room. He landed on his knees and hands, and began to stagger to his feet. It was at this exact moment that Mulder ripped the curtain across, flooding most of the room with light. Spike screamed. Xander and Scully had made it through the window behind Mulder, Xander wincing in pain where he had hit his cast on the frame.

‘Buffy!’ Buffy turned quickly and watched in horror as Drusilla appeared out of nowhere and tackled Mulder around the neck, forcing him to drop the heavy drape which fell back over the window, obscuring most of the light. She ran to the struggling pair and pulled Drusilla off the man. She blocked a left from the vampire only to find herself on the receiving end of a hard punch to the jaw. The stake she held clasped in her hand flew out of her grip towards the window.

‘Slayer!’ Drusilla narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you come to my party? Angel has missed you.’

‘You crazy whore. You’re dust.’ She aimed a scissor kick at the vampire, then as she swing around, was able to drive her elbow hard into her stomach.

Xander had rushed to Mulder’s side and was helping him to his feet, when he saw Spike rising to his feet on the other side of the fighting pair. ‘Buffy! Spike!’

Drusilla and Buffy were blocking each other’s blows when Buffy saw Spike looming towards them like a vulture. She backed away slightly, inviting Drusilla’s attack. The vampire fell for the ruse. As she moved forward, slightly unbalanced, Buffy took her chance, aiming a roundhouse kick at her head. Drusilla hit the ground hard. Spike dived towards the pair, and out of the corner of her eye Buffy saw Mulder drop into a crouch, the sharp report of a gun reaching her ears in the split second after. Spike dropped to the ground scarce metres from where she gathered herself.

‘Mulder!’ Scully’s yell seemed far away to Buffy’s ears as she refocused her attention on Drusilla. The vampire was staggering to her feet, muttering. ‘Not in Prague, my dear, not there, but I’m going...tsk tsk...’ She suddenly snapped to her feet, dug her heels into the ground and launched herself towards the Slayer. Buffy caught her neatly at the throat and hip, using her momentum to roll the vampire over, landing her heavily on her back on the dusty floor. She looked around wildly for her dropped stake before delivering a snap punch to Dru’s face, knocking her head back into the ground.

‘Buffy!’ At the sound of Xander’s voice, Buffy turned slightly and grabbed the stake he had thrown out of the air. Another backhand slap to Drusilla’s face followed, and she leaned over the vampire, stake wielded high.

‘Just for you, Drusilla, from Kendra.’ Her arm rose higher still, and fell. Buffy was able to look up and straight into Spike’s eyes as Drusilla burst into ashes beneath her. What she saw there almost made her lose her composure. In the non-human eyes she saw horror and distress, and blaze of anger and sorrow she would not have thought possible for the soulless being. Mulder had continued pumping bullets into his legs and arms as he crawled with superhuman strength towards where Drusilla and Buffy fought. With the demise of his love, he stopped crawling, unable to move further. Buffy sprang to her feet at Mulder’s yell, suddenly every cell in her body aware of the dark shadow that had loomed in the doorway. Angelus.

The humans all backed away to put their backs against the wall. Buffy heard Scully’s sudden sharp exhalation of breath.

‘Buff...’ Xander’s voice was low, warning.

‘Get them out. Leave this to me.’ Moving forward, holding Angel’s eyes with her own, she gestured behind her to the heavily draped window. ‘Go now.’ Grabbing Scully’s arm, Mulder followed the Slayer’s instructions. Xander grabbed Scully’s gun off her and covered the vampire, who had stepped towards Spike and was studying the form of the vampire groaning on the ground. In his hand was a long ceremonial knife, the blade gleaming in the candlelight. He looked large and powerful, invincible. Buffy felt her hand shake.

‘Spike.’ At the sound of Angel’s voice the injured vampire raised his damaged arm to be helped up. Angel ignored the movement. ‘You know, I really shouldn’t have bothered with you in the beginning. I’m sure you could have stayed His Lordship’s little bum-buddy all those years ago. Who knows, you probably would have come to enjoy it after a while, little altarboy that you were. And now you don’t do anything but interfere. Slowed down my little party with Acathla, tried to work on _my_ Slayer, took a little too much of Dru’s attention. I’m here to tell you, pal, I’m getting a little sick of it. So I’d like you out of the way while I take care of lover-girl.’ He stooped, and the blade glittered cruelly.

Buffy heard Xander drop to the ground on the other side of the window as she watched the scene before her in horror. Angel had laid the knife against Spike’s throat, then straightened up and with a quick, jerky movement, brought his bootheel down hard on the handle, driving the blade completely through Spike’s neck. The decapitation was so swift that her eye carried her from his form to the identical shape of his settled ashes with no flicker of change.

‘Not, perhaps, my most worthy child.’ Angel snarled down at the knife, then kicked at the pile of ash. He turned to Buffy. ‘Then again, that can be said for so many of the bastards I’ve sired. Oblivion is probably the best thing for all of them.’

The Slayer felt her throat go dry, her mind suddenly spin. Surely he couldn’t know? She felt that strange ferocity well up in her again, her blood racing, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Angel advanced toward her slowly, and she stood her ground. She could sense Xander covering her through the corner of the window where the curtain fell open, the gun aimed square in the centre of his forehead, where the vampiric ridges were appearing like magic. Buffy mentally checked her grip on her stake.

‘Buff, I’ve really wanted to ask you how you are. It’s just that you seem a little pale, and you haven’t been fighting up to scratch lately. Two nights ago - well, that wasn’t the Slayer I know and love. And I’m sensing a little weakness here. Just something buzzing in the corner of my mind. Maybe you’ve been casting a few too many spells, depriving a guy of his fun.’ He took another step closer.

‘Buffy!’ came Xander’s urgent whisper through the window.

‘Truly, Angel, I’m sorry for ruining your day. I guess we can call it evens.’ She reached out her hand, as if to shake on it. He snarled, and grabbed the proffered hand, yanking the Slayer towards him with extreme force. Buffy was expecting this and sprang towards him, adding her own energy to the movement. The combined momentum sent her into a controlled tumble over the vampire’s head, landing on both feet halfway between Angelus and the doorway.

‘XANDER! GET THEM OUT OF HERE! NOW!’ She grabbed the knife from the dust and sprinted from the room with the enraged vampire after her.

Through the doorway, brushing past heavy drapes and slaloming between dusty packing cases, Buffy raced down the passageway and burst into the main hall where Acathla stood dormant and bound. With Angel at her heels she started across the room. He made a flying grab for her, catching her foot and she fell heavily onto her hip and stomach, a sudden pain shooting up her spine. The knife clattered away to the far side off the hall.

‘Right. That’s it. No one fucks with my health at the moment, thank you very much.’ She felt the rage build up quickly within her, letting it rise to her mouth and swallowing it back down again to fill her whole body with trembling fury. Then she kicked. Her free foot found Angel’s jaw and sent him sprawling backwards. On the downstroke she gathered her legs underneath her and sprang to her feet. Looking around wildly, she ran towards the stone statue and in a feat of athleticism she would not have felt possible for her previously, sprung, and, hands on the demons head, vaulted it. It was a running jump perhaps fourteen feet high and the same in length. When she landed she felt a sudden pain run again through her back and side, and a sharp cramp in her abdomen, enough to make her suck in a quick, pained breath. ‘Sorry, baby.’ she whispered, and, seeing Angel on his feet and advancing towards her, she placed her hands on the stone demon’s back. Summoning all her strength, she pushed.

The monolith tottered slightly on the edge of balance, then fell. Angelus, caught in the momentum of moving forward, could only glance up in horror as the statue loomed over him. He threw himself sideways, but it was too late. The statue caught him a heavy blow on the way down, then hit the floor, breaking into small chunks of sandstone. The sword fell loose from its prison, and all of a sudden it was gone, as if it had never been.

Angelus lay unconscious on the floor, a head wound bleeding freely forming a crimson puddle on the ground, like an art room mishap. Buffy pulled a stake and began to move towards him, but was stopped by a sudden dizzy rush to her head and the knowledge that she was bleeding, not much, but enough to make her head buzz still further with fear.

‘Angel?’ The unconscious vampire made no move. ‘Angel. We’re going to curse you. We are going to get it right this time and you are going to live. So when you wake up, don’t think that I didn’t kill you because I couldn’t. I didn’t kill you because I chose not to. I have my reasons. Angelus will die, believe me. It’s only a matter of time.’

She staggered to the corner of the hall and retrieved the ceremonial knife. Clutching it tightly, she made her way to the mansion entrance, swaying at the feel of another rush of warm blood.

###

End of Part Five.


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