They ain't mine. The story is. Incidentally-- I love feedback, but this is my first fanfic, so please...be gentle ;)
I'm rappelling through the window with the force roughly equal to that of a hurricane wind, and it's close enough to midnight that I don't care when dawn's coming. The hunt. That's all I need.
I've been chasing her for a lifetime, it seems; every night I wake and emerge from the sewers, eyes sharp and golden as suns, sleeking through the thick black streets of the Hellmouth to find my prey. I've hidden outside her window at night and watched her prepare herself for her own hunt, every night for a lifetime-- watched her sleep, watched her go to school every day, watched her fight, watched her cry over the bodies of friends and the souls of enemies. I've seen her grow from a ditzy, empty-headed girl to a capable woman, all in the space of a few years spent in the right place with the right people.
I'm going to kill her, but I don't have to enjoy it. The hunt is another story.
She's standing before me now, her eyes red-rimmed and filled with a fury I've rarely seen matched in mortals; a perfectly carved wooden stake is poised in her hand, ready to kill at the soonest chance, barely able to contain her rage. That stake is for me. She wants to propel it into my heart where it will destroy what consciousness I have left and leave me a pile of useless dust on the bloody, dirt-covered floor. At least, that's the theory. But she doesn't know what I know-she doesn't know that I'm the sum of all of them, that I have powers none of the others have. It's a secret. My secret. Her beautiful blue eyes begin to tear. Right now she's beginning to wish I didn't look so happy to see her.
She knows perfectly well who I am. Of course she does. I've watched over her constantly, and even though she doesn't know it consciously, she recognizes the subtle taint of darkness she never could place before. And it horrifies her. Because she recognizes me for more than that; I am responsible for the deaths of all those she cares about. I killed her entire life and all that's left of that lovely, lively girl named Buffy Summers is this wide-eyed, trembling shell that wants to kill me, knowing she can't but willing to try. Such a brave girl.
She comes at me first, diving forward as she was taught and going for a disabling kick to my temple. She executes it perfectly, leg arching upward to connect with my skull and sending me flailing backwards against the wall. By the time she has her foot above her knee, I'm behind her with my hands around her throat. I could do it now; snap her neck and destroy her brain stem, killing her instantly. I could...but I won't. I've hunted too long, fought too hard for this to be a hollow victory. Just let me see her face when I do it, that's all I ask.
When they took me, I didn't fight them-not the way I could have. I've seen too much pain and death because of her, seen too much of their potential. The vampires were weak, they had no scope to their visions. Their powers were wasted on a nightly battle for survival. I saw past that, and I laughed as their fangs punctured my throat one by one. They told me I was going to be their savior and, in time, I led them back into the world.
I release my hand and with a devil's strength she twists, her stake skittering across the floor as she scratches desperately at my eyes. I throw her to the ground and let her stay there panting for a moment as I walk across the room and pick up the stake and thrust it into my own heart with a gentle, fatherly smile. And her eyes grow sadder still.
I killed them one at a time, the way you're supposed to. First the computer maven Willow; gentle, innocent, utterly undeserving of having her throat cut from behind. She thanked me as I finally killed her. Buffy had wept at her friend's grave and swore she'd find whoever killed her. I should know, I watched.
I'm whispering to her but she can't hear me. There's blood in her ears, and she's staring at me unblinking, desperate. Her mind races to formulate a plan, like her Watcher would have done. Cowardly bastard. He abandoned his friends at the first sign of trouble and laughed as he died. She's climbing towards the window, slowly-- not waiting to see if I notice, but if I'll try and stop her. I do. She's on the floor coughing, her lung punctured, before she realizes what's happening.
Should I childe her? Some portion of me wants to immortalize her and make her into the hunter she was always meant to be. A memory from another life, perhaps? Or simply a racial impulse that entered my mind by my sires when I was made a vampire and decided to stay? It doesn't matter, it isn't possible. There's no one left to be demoralized by her transformation, and I have nothing directly to gain by it.
She picks up one of the thousands of books lying around and realizes it's a volume on witches-her mind flashes back in a bare instant to when Xander had paged through that book, laughing with Willow about the wood-carvings of naked women. Always grinning, always laughing-- to his death he went laughing; empty eyes staring up forever at people who just didn't get the joke. She throws it at me and I catch it almost without trying. She's beginning to realize this really is the end, that she's not going to get out of this alive.
The tragedy of this is that she would've had a chance if she'd let go of her Slayer instincts and went with her human instincts. She'd never been able to do that, not since her first Watcher died and certainly not since her second one had. She isn't able to understand that there's no single enemy here, no muscle-bound brute to bury her fists into in an adolescent display of power to spare, no justification of her hollow conception of right and wrong. A woman, and yet, in so many ways, she is still a child.
I end it quickly, without undue pain. I owe her that. I slice her cartoid artery open with my fingernail, and the recognition in her eyes finally spills over into agonized tears. She's going to die, more alone than anyone's ever been. And me? I've succeeded for my race. The vampires will eventually overtake the world, we'll live in the paradise of the hunt as we were meant to...and all it cost the universe was a hero from Sunnydale, California. She realizes this as the blood soaks her clothing, and I hold her close to me, whispering for her to stay calm, that it will all be over soon, that she's done all the could.
With the last of her strength she brushes my face with her hand, leaving parallel trails of crimson on my cheek. "Giles," she whispers, and her hand drops to her side again.
I hold her till she's gone.
END
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
