The Gift, Take Two

Title: The Gift, Take Two - Chapter 19: In The Blood
Author: Dafmeister
Email: Dafmeister"hotmail.com
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse is owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox and a bunch of other people who aren't me. No infringement of copyright is intended blah blah blah...
Pairing: Buffy/Faith
Spoilers: Anything up to the end of Season 6 Buffy/Season 3 Angel
Distribution: Ask and Ye shall receive.
Rating: R
Feedback: Have you ever heard of a fanfic author who didn't want all the feedback they could get their grubby little paws on?
Summary: Buffy and Faith's personal problems are suddenly put on the back burner.
Author's notes: Huge thanks to Kaz, beta extraordinaire

*****

The Saturday after Buffy returned from Los Angeles, Faith brought the bike home.

Dawn was sitting at the dining room table, trying to concentrate on her trigonometry homework, but unable to keep her attention from wandering to her sister. At the other end of the table, Buffy was reading one of her history textbooks, but her mind clearly wasn't on topic. Every few pages she'd come to a halt, not turning a page for minutes at a time before backtracking and re-reading the same section again. The notepad beside her on the table was unmarked after more than two hours. As Dawn watched surreptitiously, pretending to feed an equation into her calculator, Buffy's eyes yet again lost their focus on the page in front of her, gazing off into a vista that probably existed only in her head.

Why won't she talk to me? Dawn asked herself for what must have been the fiftieth time since her sister returned home. I know something's wrong, and it's not just the 'Angel Blues' again. Maybe I should call Willow, I bet Buffy would talk to her.

Before she could give the idea any more thought, Dawn became aware of a snarling engine approaching up the street, the sound very different from the family cars and SUVs that populated Revello Drive. She was about to push the distraction from her mind again when the engine noise quietened, just in front of the house. Dawn got up and looked out of the front window in time to see a blue racing bike pull up beside the Jeep. Buffy got up and joined her, Dawn's activity having broken her out of her reverie, and they watched as Faith took off her helmet and shook out her hair. By the time Faith had dismounted and walked up to the front door, the Summers sisters had recovered from their surprise and were there to meet her.

"I didn't know you could drive," Buffy said as she opened the door.

Faith just shrugged. "I knew enough to stay on the road, I just didn't have a licence. I figured I might as well learn how to do it legally, so I started taking driver's ed a couple of months ago."

"You never said anything."

"Didn't see any reason to," Faith replied, ignoring the faint accusatory note colouring Buffy's voice. "I just wanted something to do while you guys were off getting educated. Besides, my own set of wheels could come in handy."

"Sure it's not about wanting something hard and throbbing between your legs?" Dawn asked, smirking at shocked look on her sister's face. "Oh, you were so thinking the same thing!"

"I was not!" Buffy tried to inject some outrage into her voice as Faith laughed, but all she could feel was the sudden ache in her chest. She's getting ready to leave. How long do I have? What do I do?

*****

Dawn and Buffy weren't the only ones studying that afternoon. Willow was immersed in writing a psychology paper when the phone rang in her dorm room. "Hello?"

"Willow? It's Giles." In the background Willow could hear Anya, apparently trying to persuade a customer to invest in a fertility idol.

"Hey, Giles, what's up?"

"I'd like everyone to come over to the shop this evening after closing, and I was hoping you could do some research for us beforehand."

"Something Hellmouthy going on?"

"Possibly, I'm not sure as yet. There's a report in today's paper about a pair of so-called animal attacks that took place over the last few nights, both on homeless people. Could you take a look at the coroner's report and see if you can find any salient details?"

"Sure, no problem." Willow closed down her word-processing program opened the Web browser, an anticipatory smile playing across her lips. "I'll see you tonight with gory details."

*****

"Thank-you for shopping at the Magic Box, please do come again," Giles said with his best salesman's smile as he held the door open for a pair of wannabe witches, then closed and locked it behind them. Flipping the sign over to 'Closed', he muttered, "Bloody customers, I thought they'd never leave."

"Now Giles, remember: the customer's always right," Willow teased from her seat at the research table with the other Scoobies.

Anya snorted. "Customers are morons. Slow, stupid, time-wasting, stingy morons."

"So, Giles, what's the big bad for this week?" Xander asked, trying to nip Anya's rant in the bud.

"Actually, I've no idea. I take it none of you have taken much interest in the newspapers over the last few days?" Receiving only shaken heads in response, Giles picked up a couple of newspapers from the counter and brought them over to the table. Each one had a story circled in red. "Two homeless people were found dead this week. The authorities are suggesting that they died of natural causes and the bodies were then fed on by feral dogs or coyotes, but the man who found the first body told a reporter that it looked more like a cougar attack. I've asked Willow to look at the coroner's report. Did you find anything?"

Willow pulled a folder from her bag and handed it to Giles, who opened it and began laying the papers and photographs inside on the table. "Definitely not a coyote. The bodies were slashed up by some kind of claw, then a lot of the muscle tissue was bitten away, presumably eaten. The coroner said that the bites were all wrong for dogs or coyotes, or a cougar. They look more like shark bites, lots of big, cutting teeth. Also, the claw patterns are wrong. See here?" She indicated one of the photographs. "All the claw marks occur in sets of three. Cats and dogs have four claws on each paw."

"So what are we thinking? Werewolf?" Xander asked.

Willow dismissed that idea with a brisk shake of her head. "The last full moon was on Halloween, a week before the first death. Besides, it's still the wrong number of claws."

"So, we're looking for a werewolf with a finger missing on each hand, who's learnt how to break the moon cycle." Xander joked. "Or maybe, possibly, it's something else."

Buffy looked up suddenly from the photograph she'd been studying. "Were the victim's brains missing?"

Willow gave a slight shudder. "No, why?"

"I thought maybe it could be a hellhound."

"What's a hellhound?" Faith asked.

"Something we had to deal with while you were being evil." Willow's reply lashed across the table like a whip, leaving total silence in its wake. Everyone looked at Faith, seeming to duck slightly in their seats as though expecting a bomb to go off, while Tara laid a restraining hand on her girlfriend's arm.

Faith flinched at the venom in Willow's voice, but after a moment she looked over at Giles again. "Okay, if it's not a wolf or a hellhound, what is it?"

"Er, yes, well, at the moment the list of suspects is rather long." If Giles noticed how tightly Faith's hands were clenched on the table, he didn't show it. "Hopefully, with the information Willow has brought, we'll be able to narrow the field a bit."

"Okay, you guys hit the books, Faith and I'll do some legwork." Buffy said, hurriedly rising from the table. "We'll check out the scenes, maybe hit Willy's."

*****

"You're just about ready to go, aren't you?" Buffy asked quietly as they walked through the park late that night.

"Don't start with me now, B."

"I'm just saying." Buffy's voice dripped with false sincerity. "You had the attitude, now you've got the bike, you're all set to ride off into the sunset."

"We're on the West Coast, B, you want me to ride off a cliff?"

"Jokes. I'm trying to tell you how I feel and you're making jokes."

"Didn't you see what happened at the magic shop?" Faith stopped walking and grabbed Buffy's shoulder, turning her around until they faced each other. "That's how it's always going to be if I stay. It doesn't matter how either of us feels."

Buffy suddenly looked very small, very young to Faith's eyes. "I know. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight you, Faith, I just keep... Can we at least be friends again?"

"When were we ever friends, B? We were getting there, maybe, but then I screwed up and killed someone, remember?" Faith turned away and started walking again.

"And what about after you came back?" Buffy called after her. "That didn't mean anything to you?"

"It was too late, Buffy." Faith replied, turning back to her. "It's always been to late for us, we're- B, get down!"

Following Faith's line of sight, Buffy looked back over her shoulder and saw a winged shape plunging down at her from the darkened treetops. She tried to duck out of the way, but it was too late, and an outstretched claw ripped through her leather jacket and carved lines of fire into the back of her shoulder.

Faith managed to dive out of the way as the demon swooped past and rolled to her feet in time to see it arc up into the trees, looping around to grab a branch and perch there, looking down at them. It took Faith's eyes a few seconds to penetrate the web of shadows cast by the trees, and more for her brain to make sense of what she was seeing.

The demon had large, feathered wings and the legs of a bird of prey. It lacked arms, and its head and torso were those of a beautiful human woman, her face twisted into a snarl that revealed rows of sharp, triangular teeth.

"What the hell are you?" Faith pulled a stake from her belt, readying herself for another attack, but after a final snarl the demon launched itself upwards and disappeared into the darkness. Faith watched it go and then, keeping a wary eye on the sky, she ran over to Buffy. "How bad is it?"

Buffy lifted a hand to the wound and it came away slick with blood. "Damn it, I liked this coat."

"B, this isn't the time to embrace your inner prom queen." Faith tore the bottom from her T-shirt and pressed it against the wound. "Come on, we've got to get you to the ER."

"No," Buffy said, gasping with pain as she tried to move her right arm. "No hospitals, just help me get to Giles' apartment."

"Are you crazy, B, you're bleeding all over the place!"

"Fine, don't help, I'll do it myself." Buffy stormed off, one hand clamped over the wound.

"Buffy, wait!"

*****

"How the hell did Andrew summon that thing?" Warren griped as he watched the Slayers walk away on the van's video system.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "He probably started thinking about breasts in the middle of the ritual. I'm just glad we made him do it outside the Lair, I hate to have been stuck inside with that thing."

"Good thing you're asthmatic, Shortround. He can forget about setting up his incense burner indoors ever again." Warren switched off the monitor and scrambled into the driver's seat. "It's not the demon we wanted, but it should keep the Slayers occupied for a while. Let's go see if the Demon-Lord's come out from behind the couch yet."

*****

A tired-looking Giles opened the door. "Good Lord, what happened?"

"Demon," Buffy hissed through gritted teeth as she stepped into the apartment, helped by Faith, who held a bloody rag to Buffy's shoulder. "Flyer, came out of nowhere."

"Is it dead?" Giles asked as he retrieved his medical kit from a cupboard.

"No," Faith replied, an angry look on her face. "Bitch flew off when it realised we were going to fight back."

"Right, well, we can try to identify it later. First thing's first, Buffy, would you please take off your jacket and sit down?" Giles handed her a pack of painkillers.

Buffy complied, biting back a groan as she pulled the jacket from her shoulder. The back of her shirt was a bloodstained mess, tattered strips of cloth hanging from he ragged holes torn in the shoulder. She sat down straddling Giles' desk chair and tossed back a handful of pills. "Might as well cut it off, Giles, this shirt's had it."

"Yes, yes, quite. Faith, would you do the honours while I prepare some antiseptic?"

"Sure." Faith picked up a pair of scissors and made a series of cuts, until she was left with a patch of reddened cotton stuck to Buffy's skin with half-dried blood. This she gingerly peeled away, wincing in sympathy with every gasp of pain. The bra strap beneath had been slashed in two, the ragged ends lying across the three deep gashes running in parallel over Buffy's shoulder blade.

"Oh my..." Giles whispered as he came back from the kitchen with a bowl of antiseptic and boiled water. "Buffy, you should be at the hospital, I don't think you realise how deep these wounds are."

"Giles, believe me, I know." Pain was breaking through into Buffy's voice. "I've been through this once with Faith, okay? If I go to the hospital I'll be there for hours and Dawn'll freak. Just stitch me up, okay? I'll heal."

"As you wish. Faith, would you bring the desk lamp over here?"

Opening a pack of sterile gauze, Giles began cleaning the wound. He could feel Buffy tense up, forcing herself to hold still as the antiseptic burned her torn flesh. Standing beside him, Faith held the lamp up to get the best illumination of the wounds. As the cleansing went on, Buffy began to whimper, almost inaudibly.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Giles saw Faith gently place her hand on Buffy's uninjured shoulder, her thumb stroking the skin. At once, the whimpers subsided and Buffy seemed to relax. Glancing up to Faith's face, he saw that her attention hadn't wavered from her examination of the cuts. Good Lord, does she even realise what she's doing? Could they be...

As though she'd suddenly become aware of his scrutiny, Faith eyes flicked over to him. Giles hurriedly look back down at what he was doing. "I-I think that should do it. I'll get started on the stitches."

Giles worked quickly, putting a series of small stitches into each cut. By the time he'd finished, the bleeding had almost completely stopped. Once he'd covered the wounds with a sterile dressing, Giles stood back. "How does that feel?"

"Better, I think. Thanks."

"Of course. I'll go and find you something to wear instead of..." He waved a hand at the rags that had been Buffy's shirt.

"Are you okay, B?" Faith asked once Giles had gone upstairs.

"It'll be fine."

"That's not what I meant. I'm mean about earlier, what you said about us."

"Can we not talk about this tonight, Faith? Right now I just want to go home and get some sleep. Then tomorrow, we find this thing and kill it."

"You will do no such thing," Giles said from the stairway. He came down into the living room, carrying a button-down shirt, which he held out to Buffy.

"Giles..."

"No, Buffy. I'm your Watcher and for once, you're going to listen to me." Giles voice was sharp and determined. "Those wounds go deep into the muscle. If left alone they'll heal, but if you aggravate them you could cause permanent damage. You might never have full use of that arm again, and need I remind you that you're right-handed?"

"He's right, Buffy, leave this one to me, okay?" Faith said, a hint of pleading in her voice.

Buffy looked from one to the other, searching for any sign of willingness to compromise and finding none. "Okay, fine, I'm benched." She put on the shirt and sat down on Giles' couch to button it up.

Giles breathed an inner sigh of relief as he seated himself in his armchair. "Good. Now, tell me what happened."

The Slayers looked at each other for a moment, then Buffy began. "We didn't find anything at either of the two death sites, so we headed out on a regular patrol. We were in the park when it hit us."

Giles nodded. "Go on."

"I didn't see it coming. Faith... Faith spotted it and tried to warn me but I wasn't fast enough. I didn't a good look, I just saw wings and claws."

"Faith?"

"I never saw anything like this one, Giles," Faith replied. "It didn't have arms, just the wings and legs with big claws on the end, and its body looked like a woman."

"Good grief..." Giles went over to his bookcases and pulled out a battered volume. After rifling through the pages to find the right place, he handed to Faith. "Is this what you saw?"

Faith examined the picture, an ugly, wrinkled figure with bat wings. "No, ours wasn't this ugly. The wings had feathers, and the human part... the thing looked like a cross between an eagle and a porn star."

"Are you sure?" Giles asked before he could stop himself. "I'm sorry, of course you are, it's just that this is one of the few creatures I was certain I'd never find in Sunnydale."

"Uh, Giles?" Buffy asked. "What is it?"

*****

"A harpy?" Anya scoffed at the meeting Giles called the following day. "Have you been drinking?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Giles, we're eight thousand miles from the Aegean, why would a harpy travel this far?" Anya ploughed on right through Giles' protests. "And even if one did, there's no way it would attack two healthy young humans, Slayers or not. Taking a sick sheep is about as adventurous as they get."

"Yes, thank-you Anya, I am familiar with the dietary predilections of the ordinary harpy. Unfortunately, it would seem that we are not faced with an ordinary one."

Anya's scorn vanished. "Wait a minute, are you saying the Three Sisters are here?"

"One of them, at least, judging by Faith's description of what attacked her and Buffy last night."

"Hello?" Xander cut in, waving a hand as he tried to break open what had become a two-person meeting. "For those of us who can't remember the Crusades, what's a harpy?"

Xander had addressed the question to Giles and Anya, but it was Tara who answered first. "It's a creature from Greek myth, the head and body of a human and the wings and claws of a bird or bat. I think they were supposed to be agents of the gods."

"Quite right, Tara," Giles said, removing his glasses and reaching for his handkerchief. "In the earliest writings, they were said to have the bodies of beautiful women and the wings and claws of birds, but in later accounts, they were described as being hideously ugly. They were occasionally used as agents of vengeance, but their primary role was as servants of Hades, the ruler of the underworld, who sent them to retrieve those who failed to die at the appointed time."

Failed to die...Buffy shivered and wiped the film of sweat from her forehead. "Okay, that's the hype. What's the truth?"

"Harpies are one of the lesser demon breeds that were left behind when the Old Ones lost their grip on our reality. They are generally small, ugly-"

"Think of a ninety year old bag-lady who's been dead for a month," Anya cut in. "Except harpies smell worse."

"- and, as Anya so eloquently put it, they are virtually harmless." Giles continued, pretending to ignore the interruption. "They're scavengers, feeding on carrion or taking old, injured or diseased animals. Encounters with humans are very rare; harpies have never been reported beyond the eastern Mediterranean and they're normally confined to a handful of rocky islands in the Aegean Sea, between Greece and Turkey."

"Wait a second, if harpies are supposed to be small and ugly, what attacked Buffy?" Xander asked.

"As I said, most harpies match the later Greek descriptions. However, there have always been sporadic reports of three that are rather more impressive, and are very likely the source for the earliest accounts. No one is sure where they come from, only that when one dies another appears. They are known collectively as the Three Sisters, after the three harpies of myth. They are very rarely seen. Some accounts suggest that they only make themselves known when their lesser kin are under threat, usually from human encroachment. What seems certain is that they are strong, aggressive and highly territorial, and it seems that one of them had found its way to Sunnydale."

"I just don't get it." The disbelief was plain in Anya's voice. "Why's it here? No-one's even seen one in centuries."

"I'm at a loss to explain, Anya. However, the creature is in Sunnydale now, and as long as it remains it will continue to attack and kill. It sees us as trespassers."

"So how do I kill it?" Faith asked quietly.

"From what I've read so far, there are no special methods required," Giles replied, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "I suspect that the real challenge will lie in finding it and bringing it to battle, since it seems to favour surprise attacks and withdraws when the advantage is lost. Most likely, we will need to locate its nest."

"Research. Yay." Xander spoke for them all.

*****

"Okay, it's official," Xander tossed the book back onto the research table, hours later. "I've been hanging out with you people for way too long."

The others, spread out around the shop with their own books, looked up at him. "Excuse me?" Giles asked from the office nook by the counter.

"I just read a paragraph in Latin, and I understood it." Xander explained, rubbing his temples.

Giles couldn't suppress a slight smile at that. "Perhaps we should take a break and compare notes before Xander's brain liquefies completely."

There were a few muffled laughs at that, and everyone began to congregate around the table again. Willow dropped into a chair beside Buffy and whispered, "Are you okay? You're looking kind of pale."

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, I just didn't sleep much last night," Buffy insisted. "Couldn't lie on my back."

"Ouch." Willow winced in sympathy. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"It's not bad, it just kind of burns sometimes."

Giles was the last to join them at the table. "Would anyone care to begin?"

No one spoke for a few moments, then Xander broke the silence. "I didn't find anything much, just the basics: harpies nest in high spots, cliffs or mountains, and the nests tend to be pretty gross."

Anya snorted. "Well, so much for my big revelation."

"Yes, I'm afraid I had no more success either." Giles said, irritation colouring his voice. "Did anyone find anything else?"

"Just some links back to the old myths," Tara replied apologetically. "All the books seem to go over the same stuff."

"Damn it!" Buffy shoved her chair back from the table and began pacing.

"Chill out, B, we'll find this thing."

"Yeah, at least we know the kind of place to look for," Xander added, a little alarmed by Buffy's reaction. "We'll get some maps out, start looking for nest sites."

"What about magic?" Faith wondered, looking across at Willow and Tara. "You know, a locator spell or something. It worked for those gladiator demons a couple of months ago."

"It won't be that easy, Faith," Tara explained, a worried look crossing her face as she watched Buffy suddenly stop pacing and grab hold of a bookcase, her eyes staring at the floor. "Back then we had that horn to work with, if we're looking for a specific demon type we need something connected to it."

"We could do a general demon-detector, but that'd give us dozens of hits," added Willow. "The more precise you try to be, the more you need to work with."

"Okay, so I hit the park again, maybe it lost a feather or something. Point is, B, we're just getting started." Faith got up from the table and walked over to Buffy, who was still holding onto the bookcase, her eyes screwed tightly shut. She didn't respond. "B? Buffy?"

Buffy toppled over sideways. Instinctively, Faith reached out and grabbed her arm, her right arm, stopping the fall with a jerk. For a moment Buffy hung there, and then Faith lowered her gently to the floor as the others clustered around them. Buffy's skin was deathly pale and drenched with sweat.

Anya covered her nose. "God, what is that smell?"

Faith had a flash of insight. Rolling Buffy onto her side, she saw fresh blood staining the back of her shirt. She ripped the fabric away and peeled back the dressing. Buffy's stitches had been torn open when Faith grabbed her arm, and blood poured from the wounds, mingling with streams of stinking, yellow-green pus. "Giles, call 911!"