As the training session wound down, Buffy had to admit that Dawn was good. Really good. Her aim was as good -- maybe even a bit better -- as Buffy's had been when Giles had introduced her to the crossbow. Her reflexes were also good, and her speed was something that just had to be seen to be believed. She almost made Buffy feel old.
Guess that's why Slayers are Called at her age and don't usually live to be mine.
Dawn still didn't seem to be as strong as her older sister always remembered being, but neither sister was concerned about that just yet. It had taken several months for Merrick and the Council to track Buffy down after the death of the previous Slayer, and she was probably up to full Slayer strength by the time her first Watcher had shown up at her school.
"Okay, Dawn, last one, then we go home. On my signal, I want you to come through the door and fire at both targets as quickly as you see them. Let's see if you can be fast and accurate."
"All right. Just make sure you're in a safe place; I don't want to have any accidents with this thing." Dawn said as she went just outside the room.
"Oooh, yeah. I remember the time I was doing this same exercise with thrown stakes and almost nailed Giles. Lucky thing he was wearing armor at the time. But a crossbow bolt will go right through armor, so I'm gonna get in that little corner behind the door." She pointed at the little nook.
Then she closed the door, and set up the target dummies, about thirty-five feet apart, one thirty feet from the door, the other at nearly fifty feet. Then she went back to the door, cracked it, and peeked through to make sure Dawn wasn't cheating. Satisfied, she got into her hiding place, waited a little while to make sure Dawn couldn't predict when the signal would come, and shouted, "Now!" as she hit the button on her stopwatch.
The door flew open. Twang-thunk! Twang-thunk!
Buffy hit the button again, and looked at the watch. "One-point-six seconds. Whoa!" Then she went over to check out the targets. The first shot, at the closer target, was dead in the center of the heart-shaped target on the dummy. The second one wasn't quite as centered, but still well in the paint. "Two good shots, Dawnie. I'm impressed."
Dawn glowed at the compliment. "Really?"
"Yeah." Then she walked over to Dawn. "And to prove it, that crossbow is now yours to keep."
"Mine?" Dawn's brow wrinkled in confusion.
"You need a weapon you can use in an emergency. Something you can reach for automatically, without having to look around for it. Until Spike and Giles say you're up to the up-close-and-personal work, I want you to keep this thing," she tapped the crossbow significantly, "within reach at all times. Except for school, of course. They kinda freak out when they see students carrying weapons around."
Dawn grinned. "Thanks. I'll remember that." Then she gave her sister a roguish look, and said, "So when do I get to take this out on a patrol?"
Buffy glared at her. "Don't push your luck, Slayer Junior. You can only load two shots at a time in that thing, and it takes a long time to re-load. Too long, if you're in a real fight with a bunch of baddies. So no patrolling until you've had more hand-to-hand practice." She frowned. "Then we'll see."
As the two sisters, Willow, and Tara headed for Buffy's house for dinner, Buffy warned everyone, "Now, no telling Spike about this marriage thing. He'll either be on his knees or out the door in a flash, and neither one would make me happy right now."
"Okay, Buffy," Willow answered.
Tara added, "But if we can't find another solution to your problem, you might want to consider . . . cutting Spike off. After all, why buy the cow . . . " She winked at the petite Slayer, who almost choked as everyone laughed.
"Tara! I'm surprised at you!"
"I'm not," said Willow. "You guys just haven't seen Tara in one of her mischievous moods. She usually only lets this side of her out in private. Like this one time, she cast a spell on my notebook computer. Whenever I sat down with it, it would say to me, 'Oooh, Willow, your lap is so nice and warm.' And when I started typing, it kept giggling and saying 'That tickles!'" She glared in mock anger at her lover. "I can't even repeat what it said when I plugged in the power cord."
The four young women ate dinner together, trading jokes and stories. But as it got later and later, Buffy began to get worried. "I don't like this. Spike should've been back a long time ago."
Willow shrugged. "He's probably just taking one last look around the old crypt. You know, for old times' sake?"
Buffy glared at her. "Spike is not moving in with us . . . yet." she finished hesitantly.
The other three girls just gave her knowing looks. "Right, Buffy," Tara said with a wink. "Tell us another one. I'll bet that for the next two months, Spike doesn't spend the night anywhere except your room."
Buffy snorted, "In his dreams."
Suddenly Dawn gasped. "Dreams! Oh my God! I never told you about my dreams!"
Buffy turned to her. "What? You had the Slayer dreams? All confused and warning-like?"
"Yeah, Saturday night. I meant to ask you about it, but you told me about starting training with Spike, and I completely forgot about it! There were a couple of things I didn't understand at the time," she explained, "like seeing myself fighting with Spike. Now I know what that meant. But there was something else. I saw Drusilla."
Buffy whispered, "Oh, no! I've got to check on Spike! She'll be after him!" And she raced for the door, calling out, "Grab some weapons, call Xander, and we'll meet up at the old mansion; that's the last place Drusilla used as a base here in Sunnydale! I'm heading over to Spike's crypt to see if he's okay."
Dawn started to follow her, "I'm coming with you!"
Buffy shouted, "No, Dawn! Stay with Willow and Tara! Keep each other safe! I'll see you at the mansion!" And then she was gone.
When Buffy got to Spike's crypt, the door was ajar and there was no sign of the vampire. And then her heart nearly stopped beating when she saw the note -- a black rose laid on top of it -- on the sarcophagus Spike sometimes used as a bed.
My darling William,
I've missed you so. Won't you come and visit Miss Edith and me? We'll be waiting for you at the mouth. It's been whispering such wonderful things to me. I can't wait to tell you all about them.
Oh, I've got your little friend here with me. We'll be playing some games until you get here.
Eternally Yours,
Dru
"The mouth?" Buffy said to herself. She must mean the Hellmouth. What's she doing there? She frowned. No "little friend" of Spike's was missing. That crazy bitch sent him off on a wild goose chase! Then she thought of something. If Spike came here right after I went to the Magic Box . . . she looked at her watch. That was four hours ago! He'd've gotten back to me by now! She must've laid a trap for him! He could be hurt, or . . .
"Spike! Don't leave me! You promised!" And with that cry, Buffy was out the door and running toward her old high school as fast as her legs would carry her.
The first thing Spike noticed was the smell. A flat, stale smell of smoke and ashes.
The second thing he noticed was that he was chained to a wall.
And the third thing was Drusilla, standing next to Buffy with a knife in her hand.
The Slayer was also chained, to a post that had been driven into the floor. He looked at the chains that held him; they were anchored by rings driven into the wall. The post was about ten feet straight in front of him. She must've spent a long time setting this up. How long has the crazy bird been in town, hiding right under our noses? And where are we, anyway?
He looked around. They were in a burned-out wreck of a building. He had his suspicions almost immediately, and the crack in the floor about twenty feet away from the post confirmed them.
They were in the old Sunnydale High Library, at the Hellmouth.
"Oh look, my Spike has finally woken up!" Drusilla stepped closer to Spike, running a finger along his jawline, but never taking her eyes off Buffy.
Buffy looked sadly at Spike. "Sorry Spike, I blew it. She left a note at your crypt, addressed to you. Made me think she'd lured you into a trap, and I came running to the rescue."
Drusilla laughed and clapped her hands. "Oh, yes you did, you did very well indeed! You ran right over to rescue Spike from the awful trap! But the trap was for you, wasn't it dearie? And all the wonderful things that Spike had hidden away made it possible!" She pointed, and Spike noticed a pile of his stolen Initiative equipment, including tazer and tranquilizer guns.
He groaned. Drusilla was mad, but she had never been stupid. She had played them both perfectly. "What are you doing back in Sunnyhell, Dru?"
She walked away from Spike, and circled around Buffy, never once taking her eyes off the Slayer. "I was reading the cards, and they told me I was in danger. A little girl who loved my Spike was going to kill me, unless I got to her first. I thought she," and she pointed with the knife at Buffy, "might be the one, but I wasn't sure." She giggled madly. "After all, she spurned your charms last year. I couldn't understand it at all. I would have fallen for you in an instant if you had done for me what you did for her."
Buffy growled, "Stop looking at me like that, you psycho bitch! Why do you keep staring at me?"
Drusilla gave her an intense look, and said, "The mouth told me all about you, girl. It said the Slayer who loved my Spike couldn't kill me as long as I saw you first. I always listen to what the mouth tells me to do."
"The mouth?" Spike asked, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"That." She gestured toward the crack in the floor. "It's been telling me things all week. Wonderful things." Her smile got even bigger. "It said the Day is coming!"
"What day?"
"The Last Day!" she said happily. She bit her lip in excitement "It told me how it was all going to happen, and how the humans would try to stop it. Although," and she made a quizzical face and scratched her head with her index finger, "I wonder how twenty-eight duckies could stop the end of the world? Or was it doxies?" She giggled. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. I don't want to stop it, after all. What I want to do right now is show you the new game I invented!" She smiled gleefully at Spike.
"What kind of game?" the vampire asked fearfully. He was sure he knew the kind of thing Dru had in mind; after all, she had learned torture from the best.
She giggled. "Oooo, it's going to be so much fun! I'm going to play with your little girl," she said as she stroked Buffy's cheek with the flat of her knife, "and you're going to watch. And watch. And watch!" She smiled happily, like a little child. "You see, I'm not going to let her die, not until you tell me to. And so the last thing she sees and hears will be my darling Spike telling me to kill her!
"And when she's finally gone, I'll start playing with you, for as long as you let me play with her. And then I'll decide whether you're ready to be a good boy again or not." She smiled, and her smile encompassed total innocence and pure evil at the same time. "Doesn't that sound like a wonderful game?"
"Actually, I prefer Scrabble."
Drusilla turned at the sudden voice . . . and there was a twang-thunk! as a crossbow bolt buried itself in the middle of her chest.
The last thing Drusilla saw before she collapsed into dust was the hard blue gaze of Dawn Summers as she stepped out of the shadows.
Dawn lowered the crossbow she was holding and sighed. "God, I thought I was never going to get a clear shot." She looked over at Buffy, who was staring at her in disbelief. "I know the Slayer's supposed to have this colossal struggle with the villain when she comes to the rescue like this, but I figured I'd skip the fight and just save your butts."
"After we all went to the mansion and realized it was a dead end, I told the others to go back to our place and wait to hear from me," Dawn explained while she unlocked the chains around her still-stunned sister. Luckily, metal objects like keys could survive the dusting of the vampire that held them. "I told them I was going to do a recon at Spike's crypt and meet them at home."
"So why didn't you? Meet them, I mean," asked Buffy in a daze. She couldn't believe this.
"I found the letter at Spike's and guessed what had happened." She glanced over at Spike. "I don't think Spike would have fallen for that 'little friend' line, not without checking in to see just who was missing first, and calling on the rest of us for backup." She looked at him.
Spike nodded. "She's right, luv. Last year I might've gone haring off by myself, but since then I've learned how much easier it is to fight with someone watching my back. Even Xander is better than no backup at all." He grimaced.
Dawn continued. "So I figured Drusilla's trap had to be for you. I called the others from a pay phone," she said as she gave Buffy an aggravated glare, "and then came here. They should get here any minute now."
Buffy rubbed her wrists as the chains came off, to get the circulation going again. She sighed, "I'm sorry, okay? I panicked. When I realized how long Spike had been missing, I thought . . ." She looked up at Spike, and there were tears glistening in her eyes. "I was afraid she'd killed you," she whispered.
Spike half-smiled at her as Dawn started to work on his chains. "Silly girl. Can't get rid of me that easily." Then he asked Dawn, "But why'd you wait so long to kill the crazy bird? You cut that one too damn close, Niblet!"
Dawn frowned. "I was checking things out from around the corner over there." She pointed. "The way she was circling around Buffy, always keeping her eyes on her, the only time I had a good view of her was when Buffy was in between us. I figured I would only get one shot at her, so I waited until I could surprise her into turning towards me." She grinned. "With that white lace thing in the middle of her blouse, it was just like target practice."
Spike rolled his eyes and chuckled. "That's my Li'l Bit."
It was at that point that the Scoobies arrived, and Buffy and Spike had the embarrassing experience of telling the others how Dawn had saved them.
Xander grinned and high-fived her. "Way to go, Dawnmeister! Your first official Slayage!"
Dawn added happily, "And my first rescue-of-my-sister-and-her-boyfriend-from-certain-doom, too!"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this, am I?" she groaned.
Dawn gave her an insufferably smug grin. "Not for a long, long time, sis." Then she paused. "Do you hear something? A voice?"
Everyone stopped and listened. "All I hear is my stomach growling," Spike said.
"And all I hear is my voice saying it's time to get out of this place," growled Buffy.
Xander pouted at her. "Awww, is the poor Jedi Master embarrassed at being rescued by the lowly Apprentice?"
Buffy swatted him. Hard.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
