Disclaimer: Only the story line is mine.
Chapter 13
Days passed and Buffy settled comfortably into her new life. Xander was fast becoming one of her closest friends, Willow often came out on patrol and Giles was beginning to mean a lot more to Buffy than she’d ever thought he would.
Angel called her almost every night, wanting to hear how her day had been and how she was coping. She’d told him about the demon she’d encountered on her first night in Sunnydale. He’d wanted to come to Sunnydale right away but she’d refused. Albeit she knew she was in love with the souled vampire, the relationship still weirded her out.
Even though Buffy suspected it, she was blown away by the amount of vampire and demon activity in Sunnydale. She knew it was because they were drawn here by the Hellmouth the feeling of overwhelming remained. Nightly, she fought for her life against the seemingly never ending parade of idiotic vampires and skin diseased demons. Giles had told her she was merely culling the excess but to Buffy the demonic population hadn’t seem to be shrinking. Until tonight.
Buffy sat on top of a mausoleum, swinging her boot clad feet back and forth and whistling the theme from The Sound of Music. She’d been on patrol for over two hours and she’d staked only three vamps. Something was up. Her nightly average was nine. She’d never staked less than seven.
Buffy had moved on to Restfield cemetery after meeting up with Willow and Xander at the bronze. They’d partied, ingested enough caffeine to keep them going for a month, then Buffy had left. Willow had taken Xander home. They were meeting at the mansion later for a briefing. Xanderless of course.
Deciding nothing was going to happen tonight, Buffy jumped down from the roof and brushed imaginary dust from the front of her leather jacket. The outfit she’d worn tonight had been both functional and stylish. The dark blue jeans accentuated her tiny waist and made her look taller- a very big plus- and the sparkly silver halter-neck top matched the little jewellery she wore.
Giles would probably cluck his tongue in annoyance at her choice of clothes but she couldn’t care less. She wore what she wanted, when she wanted. She’d fought in halter-necks many times before. Unscheduled slayage tended to catch a girl off guard.
As she left the cemetery, Buffy thought over the nights patrol. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. The vamps had been all, kill, kill, like they usually were, no problem there. The only problem had been the lack of things that went bump in the night. Either Giles was right- scary thought- and she was culling the masses or maybe something was brewing under the surface of the doomed town.
What unnerved Buffy the most, however, was the fact that she had been here for almost two weeks and had seen neither hide nor hair of Spike nor his floozy. She kept watch for them every patrol but there was never any hint of them being here. Giles’ intelligence could have been wrong but Buffy highly doubted it. They were here, biding their time.
The streets were deserted and only a few houses had lights on, Buffy noticed. It wasn’t that unusual for one o’clock in the morning. People tended to stay indoors after dark, though if you asked them, they had no idea why. It completely baffled Buffy how they sensed the need to stay indoors to keep from becoming dinner, yet to them, there was no reason to do so. The townspeople kept themselves blissfully ignorant and Buffy wondered how long it would last. Something would come along eventually and they have no choice but to sit up and take notice.
A growl from the shadows had the Slayer falling into a fighters stance. A vampire pounced at her and she ducked, leaving the vampire to sail over her head. She shook her head in disappointment as it lie in confusion. She stood and walked over to it. This is so pathetic. The stake she’d been carrying came down and she staked him from behind.
He was too stupid to even make a sound. She brushed the dust from the bottom of her jeans and resolved to tell Giles about how dumb the vampires were becoming.
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The mansion was dark when Buffy finally arrived. Willow, as expected, was already there and deep in conversation with the Watcher. The conversation cut off as Buffy entered and they both looked to her expectantly. The Slayer ignored them and reached over to pick up a biscuit from the tray sitting on the small coffee table.
Giles cleared his throat and Buffy looked up at him, feigning ignorance. ‘How did tonight’s patrol go?’ he asked her.
Buffy shrugged. ‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’ Giles asked her politely clucking his tongue.
Buffy grinned. ‘Yeah. Staked three vamps on patrol then one on the way here. None were even a challenge.’
Giles’ eyebrows rose and Buffy knew he shared her concern. ‘Only four?’ at Buffy’s nod he continued. ‘How long were you out there?’
‘Over two hours,’ said seriously, dropping her earlier façade. ‘I’m worried Giles. Only four vampires? I’ve been dusting at least twice that a night ever since we came here.’
He nodded slowly, then he took off his glasses and began to polish them. ‘I fear you may be right. That seems a mighty drop in numbers to happen instantly. How many did you stake last night?’
‘Eleven last night. Three of those were a group.’
Giles stood and purposefully strode over to his bookcase. He pulled a book out form the second shelf and opened it, hiding the title form the two girls. Buffy saw a flash of it before he covered it. Codex.
She opened her mouth to ask what it was but he cut her off. ‘It is probably best you two went home. I will continue to research. We shouldn’t begin to panic until we see how many you stake tomorrow night.’
Buffy nodded unenthusiastically. Glad to be out of the research, but unhappy about not getting any answers to the questions plaguing her, she walked Willow home then returned to the mansion.
The Watcher still sat close to the fire, reading intently from one of his musty old books. Not wanting to interrupt him, she silently walked to the kitchen to fix herself a strong coffee. Instead of drinking it there, she took it up to her room and sat it on the small table beside the bed.
Not bothering to go for a shower, she changed into her pj’s and sat cross-legged on the bed. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the diary she’d kept since she was ten. She wrote everything in that diary, absolutely everything. If anyone were to ever get their hands on it, it would be disastrous.
She filled out today’s entry, noting all her concerns about the less than eventful patrol and what that could possibly mean. With her luck, she had a feeling it was probably apocalyptic. Merrick warned her once that the decline in activity was due to something more happening behind the scenes. She was inclined to believe him. With all his words of wisdom, he’d never steered her wrong as of yet.
The phone on her bedside table rang, startling her out of her reminiscing. She reached to pick it up and in the process knocked over the cup of cooling coffee. Cursing, she picked up the phone and held it to her ear while at the same time trying to wipe up the rapidly spreading liquid. ‘Hello,’ she said distractedly.
‘Is everything okay?’ Angel’s concerned voice came down the line.
‘Yeah,’ Buffy frowned as she finished wiping up the spill with her discarded t-shirt. ‘I just spilled my coffee, like, everywhere.’
‘It didn’t burn you did it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she replied dryly. ‘Just wet my desk and watered my carpet.’
Angel chucked and Buffy felt warmth spread through her. She loved making him laugh. It was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.
‘So, what’s up?’ she asked as she settled back on the bed.
‘Does something need to be up for me to call you?’ he countered and Buffy could hear the smile in his voice.
‘No, but nothing’s happening here, so I thought maybe something was happening there. Anything?’ she asked hopefully.
Again Angel chuckled and a bright smile graced Buffy’s face.
‘No, sorry, but nothing’s happening around here. Speaking of which, we’re all coming down to visit Sunnydale on the weekend,’ he announced and Buffy almost squealed in delight. She settled for a choking sound.
‘Are you serious?’ she asked him, praying it was true.
‘Yes. Me and the gang will be there Friday night. Can’t travel until the sunsets, you know?’ he told her wryly.
The grin that had not yet left her face widened impossibly more. This time she did squeal. ‘Oh my god. That is awesome. Willow’s gonna be so thrilled. Hey,‘ she thought with sudden inspiration. ‘You guys can help Giles with the research.’
‘Why? What’s gong on? I thought you said nothing was happening,’ he said slowly.
‘Yeah, well I forgot. The thing is, since I came to this hell hole, I’ve been staking, on average, nine vamps a night. Tonight I staked three in the cemetery and one on the way home. Way below my normal quota. I’m feeling a little inadequate.’
‘What does Giles think?’
‘At first he thought I was knocking down the vamp population but I think that now he thinks it’s a sign of something bigger,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘I kinda agree.’
‘You kinda,’ he repeated sceptically.
‘Yeah. I don’t think this is a simple as me running out of vamps. Not possible, really. I think they’re lying low because something new and bigger has come to town.’
‘Fair assumption,’ he agreed. ‘I’d be partial to the apocalypse theory myself. I’ll have Wesley do some research and bring whatever he finds down to you. Whatever it is, we’ll all be there to face it.’
‘Thanks,’ she replied, touched. It’s not everyday a vampire wants to help fight an apocalypse. Okay, vampires never want to fight an apocalypse. They're more of the help cause it kind of demons.
*******************
Buffy went to bed that night with a huge smile on her face. Angel was coming to Sunnydale. After being here for two weeks, she would be thrilled to see him. Hopefully more smoochies would be involved. Kissing him was like ingesting a whole lot of pixie sticks at once; a total rush that you only came down from hours later.
She fell asleep right away. Almost instantly after that the dreams began.
Buffy huddled behind the crates, head swivelling back and forth, searching for a way out. Blood covered the floor and ran in small streams towards the open manhole. The sight turned Buffy’s stomach and she retched violently. Where was her back up? Angel was supposed to be here.
Sunnydale lay I ruins. Half still burned while the other remained demolished. Those who hadn’t fled Sunnydale and still survived, had been killed later on. The monsters had seen to that.
Giles, Willow and Xander were long gone. They’d left before all this started, furious at Buffy’s order to leave. They’d wanted to stay behind, to fight, to do anything they could but it was no use. They wouldn’t have survived long.
A sound from the dark corner of the deserted building had Buffy scrambling out of sight. Blood matted her blonde hair and covered her face, mixing with the dirt and dust. The cuts on her arms and torso were oozing the thick red liquid, calling out to any predator who knew what it was. Slayer blood was a powerful thing, she knew. The demons were attracted to it, vampires craved it, and it was the only thing that had kept the Slayer alive thus far. Only god knew how much longer it would continue to do so. At the rate she was losing it, not long.
The sound came again and she timidly peeked around the corner of the crates. Oh my god.
Buffy jolted awake and almost screamed. Her heart thundered in her chest as she panted heavily. Oh god, she wiped the hair from her sweat soaked forehead. Chest still heaving, she threw back the blankets and swung her legs out of the bed. Pulling on her slippers, she walked over to the closet and picked up her robe. She put it on as she left the room. Giles needed to know what she saw.
Buffy hadn’t had a Slayer dream in over a year, but she still knew when to take notice and when not to. That dream was a definite take notice of suffer the consequences type of thing. Though Buffy could tell from the chain of events, that the dream wouldn’t take place for a long time yet, she needed to tell Giles now, to be better prepared for when that time did come.
For when it did, it meant their victory… or the fall of mankind.
Hey guys. Sorry about the scattered updates. Work and school are still being a bitch. School holidays starts in two days so expect more updates.
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