Primitive

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xx. TEN .xx
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When I open my eyes, I'm laying in Buffy's bed. Kennedy is sitting in a nearby armchair reading a comic book, but Buffy's nowhere in sight. I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a rasping sound. She looks up immediately. "Well, look who's back among the living." She tosses the book aside and comes over, sitting on the edge of the bed and grabbing a cup of water. She bends the straw a little and I suck it in greedily, closing my eyes for a minute. It feels like ice cubes sliding down my throat. "Your neck and your throat are probably gonna hurt for a bit. You really got fucked up."

I open my eyes and struggle to sit up a little. "Buffy," I rasp.

"She's fine," Kennedy says quickly, pushing me back onto the bed. "She's sleeping it off in Dawn's room while everyone else tries to figure out what the hell happened."

"The demon," I mumble, my voice still incredibly hoarse. "The demon they put in her, gave her more strength. She's like.. super-Slayer."

Kennedy frowns. "The strength part I get. What's with the cave-girl act, though?"

I shrug a little and look up as Dawn comes in. "When they put the demon in the first Slayer, she became less than human. The Shadowmen, they created a monster. She had no thoughts but to hunt and kill." She sits on the opposite side of the bed from Kennedy, crossing her legs Indian-style. "She could barely even communicate any more, and she became so destructive that the village that created her in the first place cast her out. They were afraid."

"Senaya," Kennedy offers. "That was her name, right?"

Dawn nods. "Before she was chosen, anyway."

"Even with her crazy strength," I force myself to sit up again, knocking Kennedy's hand out of the way. "She can't fight them all. What are we supposed to do, ask the Turok-Han politely to form an orderly queue, and we'll slay them just as soon as we can?"

Downstairs, the front door bangs closed and a voice rings out. "Where the bloody hell is everyone? I've got news!"

I roll my eyes and Kennedy smirks as Dawn jumps off the bed and heads out. "I take it you're not crazy about him?"

"If by 'crazy about' you mean 'totally annoyed by', then yeah," I croak, resting against the headboard. "Hey, Ken. Do me a favor."

"Does it involve a sharp wooden object and a bleached blonde vampire making his way onto the end of it?"

I manage a smirk. "No. Just check on Buffy real quick? I know she's probably fine, but.. she gets freaked out real easy, yunno?"

"Sure." Kennedy slides off the bed. "I'll find out what Vampire Barbie's talking about, too."

"Thanks."

She's barely been gone a minute when half the people in the house burst into the room, all talking over each other excitedly.

"Yo!" I yell out, and they all go relatively quiet. "Do you think you could all try to scream at me one at a time?"

"I found something at the mission," Spike offers. I try to focus more on the information he's giving me and less on the fact that his face looks like a carved out turkey carcass with wax paper stretched over it.

"The mission?"

"Yeah," he says impatiently. "Rupert thought he found a connection between the First and an old mission south of here and sent me to check it out. By the way," he turns to Giles and holds out a receipt. "I'm getting comped for the petrol, yeah?"

Giles closes his eyes. "Just tell her what you found, Spike."

"Right then," he looks back at me. "The place was fairly well thrashed, but there was a survivor. Filled me in a bit. There's a preacher, calls himself Caleb, working for the First. He about tore the place apart looking for this." He holds out a photo and I take it. It's a wall with some kind of weird carvings on it.

"They look like hieroglyphics."

"Close enough," he agrees.

I hand him back the photo. "What do they mean?"

"It is not for thee, it is for she alone to wield. Best I can tell, it's describing some kind of weapon. Slayer thing, you know?"

"Tell her what we saw," comes a whisper from the back. One of the potentials--I think it's Vi--raises her hand.

"This isn't school," I point out, grabbing the glass of water off the nightstand. "If you got something to say, speak up."

Vi shuffles forward slowly, with Amanda nudging her lightly from behind. "We uh--we were out doing recon, and we saw one of those guys. The ones with the big x's where their eyes should be."

"Bringers," Amanda pipes up.

"Yeah," Vi glances at her. "A Bringer. So we followed it, to see where it went."

"They've got a headquarters, the old vineyard at the edge of town," Amanda takes over the story, and Vi looks relieved as she steps back. "There were a whole bunch of them milling around, going in and out."

"They had guards," comes another voice. The crowd parts a little and Caridad blushes a little. "Three on each door. We.. we think they're protecting something."

"The weapon," I say, sliding out of the bed. "Okay, here's the deal. Buffy's out of the game for now, which means I'm in charge. Will, you and Xander are in charge of Buffy. Keep dosing her with the Benedryl so she doesn't freak, and try not to let her realize I'm not there. Giles and Dawn, you guys keep up the studying. See if you can find anything else about this Caleb guy."

They nod agreeably. I glance over the girls and point to them one by one. "Kennedy, Caridad, Rona, Molly, and Spike. You guys are coming with me." Spike looks pleased and Molly looks terrified.

"Where?" Caridad asks.

"The vineyard. If they've got a weapon hidden there, we're gonna take it away from them."

"That's a suicide mission," Molly cries out. "They'll tear us to pieces in a heartbeat. You can't bloody well expect us to walk into the lair of the people who are trying to kill us!"

"Fine," I nod. "Amanda, you game?" She nods, setting her jaw. "Okay. Anybody else got objections?" Silence. "Good. Let's move out."