Amara: Part 1
by Barbie Taylor
The moon was a glowing yellow orb that hung high over the streets of Sunnydale. Few stars had come out to keep the moon company that night, it was as if even the stars knew of the trouble that was descending on the town

The creature moved slowly. Coming through the trees, she searched the landscape for the Slayer. Her black shoes made a crunching noise in the grass, and the dew that lay like a thin blanket on top of the dark green blades had caused a damp ring to form on the bottom of her blood-red skirt.

For centuries, the creature had walked the earth, not quite human...not quite dead. She was the only one of her kind that she knew of.

In her long life time, she had felt the pain of loss, the grief of death and the sadness and stupidity of carelessness. She had experienced all these things with an instrument only few regular demons possessed; a soul.

There had been a time when she had known great love for the world that surrounded her, but as the decades wore on and the mortal ones she had loved and cared for had withered and died, she had lost that love and found only magick to fill the void.

It was silent in the cemetery that night. Although the creature knew that the vampires that had been sent to take care of her or the Slayer would be along soon. However, before she had time to think more about that which was coming for her, she heard a noise not far off in the distance. Of course, her hearing was much more sensitive than that of any mortal but she had to hide now as to avoid exposing herself too early. She would get in contact with the Slayer but not until the time was right; besides she wanted to make contact with Angel first. After all he was the only one she could trust.

Just as she ducked behind a cluster of trees, the figure of a young girl cut through the darkness.

Dressed in black pants and a sweater, Buffy Summers wove her way in and out of the grave stones that littered the cemetery. It had been a fairly uneventful night as far as vampires and other creatures of the night went but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, she was on her own tonight and trouble may have been more than she could handle

It was the third night of the full moon, which meant Oz was stuck in Giles's book cage at the library. Willow was also there watching over him and researching some of the current weird events that had plagued Sunnydale.

Xander and Cordelia were out on a date, which meant Cordy probably had her car parked in the most secluded part of Make-Out Point, where no one could see who she was with.

Giles had not been feeling too well that day, so Buffy had told him to stay home.

As for Angel, Buffy hadn't seen him in nights. More than anything she wished he was there to back her up. She couldn't believe how much she missed him when he wasn't around. It was as if him being there right beside her, made her invincible.

As she moved over the graves, Buffy became aware that she was being watched. Her Slayer sense was telling her something bad was waiting just around the corner.

Before she had anymore time to entertain that thought, a pair of vampires jumped out of nowhere and headed straight for her.

She finished one off without a hassle but the other was a little more skilled. They scuffled for nearly five minutes before she had a chance to dust him.

The creature remained silent in the bushes; she didn't want to risk giving herself away. She was surprised though, at the speed and strength of the young Slayer. In all her years fighting the forces of darkness, she had not seen one so young move quite so fast.

Buffy wearily got to her feet and dusted herself off. She always hated it when vampires left dust on her; there was just something about vampire dust that made it so hard to get off

She picked up her black Slayer bag and wandered to the gates of the cemetery. It was still too quiet in the streets for her liking but she guessed that meant she could go home early and watch a bit of TV or maybe even get to bed before the early hours of the morning.

Considering that possibility, she began to walk toward the huge archway that enclosed the graveyard. As she took one last look over her shoulder, she still couldn't quite shake the feeling that she was being watched.

After waiting a couple of minutes, the creature came out of hiding and walked to the spot where the vampires had turned to dust. She didn't know what was more surprising, the fact that the two who had been sent for her were masters, usually, at fighting or the fact that they had died so easily.

She knelt in the grass and ran her long fingers through the foliage that littered it. It took several minutes until her fingers connected with what she had been looking for. She smiled and picked up the object; a ring

Gold, with a ruby encrusted in the band. She remembered the first time she had seen this particular ring, nearly five hundred years ago. She also remembered when it had been stolen from her, by the evil one she had created

It had been given to her by the Romany, a tribe of Gypsies that had taken her in and cared for her when she was still a young woman. It was a gift of appreciation, as she had protected them against the dark forces for many years. Although in the end, she had let them down. For even she wasn't able to protect them from the evil Angels of the night.

Before any more memories could cloud her thoughts, she got up and began to walk, looking through the graves for that which belonged to Jenny Calendar.

She found it on the opposite side of the cemetery and when she read the inscription, fresh tears began to roll down her cheeks. Some of blood... some of salt, like a mixture of the human, vampire and demon that she was.

Laying the ring, along with a single red rose, on top of the grave, she began to whisper a blessing in a long forgotten language. Then she sat there for a long moment, before she turned finally, to leave.

Angel walked through the cemetery; his boots and pants wet from the dew, his black duster waving around his feet. He pulled it tighter around his black shirt, trying to keep out the wind. Not that the wind or water did him any harm but for some reason he felt the need to act as though he were human; perhaps in case he stumbled across a suspicious mortal.

Thoughts of Jenny Calendar had filled his head for weeks. His dreams seemed to echo his guilt and every time he saw a woman in the street she seemed to be wearing Jenny's face.

Finally, he had decided that the only way he was going to be able to forgive himself, or at least forgive himself as much as vampiricly possible, was to go to her grave and confront her spirit; her memory. He would apologise and hopefully all would be mended

This was not the first time he had tried to say good-bye to Jenny Calendar and he suspected it wouldn't be the last. It still seemed that every time he looked into Rupert Giles's face; stared deep into his eyes, he could still see the hatred that brewed deep within his soul. A hatred as black as black, that only further ripped open the wound of guilt that was left as a result of him killing her.

When the grave came into sight, Angel was quite surprised to see that he wasn't the only one who had come to pay their respects that night. At first, he thought the young girl that knelt before the grave was Buffy but as he drew nearer, he realised it wasn't

This girl's dark hair was piled on top of her head, fashioned with some kind of clip. She wore a long black jacket with fur on the collar and it reminded him of Drusilla the last time he had seen her

However, before he could get close enough to confront the girl, she rose from her kneeling position and began to walk away

When he reached the grave, he found a red rose and a ring that brought a shiver down his spine. The last time he had seen that ring, it had been on the finger of the first woman he had ever loved

He remembered meeting her when he was no older than thirteen. He had been in a fight and she had cleaned him up before he went home.

Angel had been smitten with her from that day on, and when he had lost his soul, as well as his mortality, he had done everything in his power to hurt her

Sombrely, he picked up the gold ring and left, without saying his sorries to Jenny...for now she was the farthest thing from his mind.


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