Vices of My Blood
Chapter 23
Author's Note: Warnings: Torture, Extreme Language, Sexual Situations, Violence.
Chapter 23
"Did you follow Kendra like I asked?" Giles questioned Oz, as the Watcher pulled him aside. They knew sooner or later the newer Slayer would feel obligated to call the Council on the events occurring in Sunnydale.
"Yes, I did and you were right, she went straight to her hotel and called the Council," replied the werewolf, his eyes darting around to make sure they didn't have any eavesdroppers.
After Kendra had left the school library the previous night, Giles pulled the werewolf aside and asked him to follow the Slayer and keep tabs on her activities. Oz hadn’t trusted the foreign girl anymore than Buffy did when she was around. If memory served him well, this wasn’t the first time Kendra had tried to kill Buffy while mistaking her for a vampire.
Oz had followed Kendra through the shadows to her hotel room. He stayed outside her window and watched her drop her bag in one of the room’s chairs before going over to the bedside phone and dialing a number. He pressed his ear up to the cool glass and prayed that his wolfy hearing was excellent through double-paned windows.
Inside, Kendra sat on the edge of the bed with her back toward the window and dialed a number that her watcher had made her memorize should trouble ever arise. She put the receiver up to her ear and waited for someone to pick up on the other end.
“Quentin Travers here,” a gruff voice on the other end answered.
“Mr. Travers, I’m Kendra the Vampire Slayer,” Kendra introduced herself.
“We know who are you, my dear. You were called the second Miss Summers died and was resuscitated,” Quentin understated. “What can we do for you?”
Outside Oz listened to as much of the conversation as he was able to stand while getting enough information to alert Giles to what the foreign girl was up to. He had run back to the library as fast as he could on two legs. Now he was being pulled aside by Giles and asked the question of what he knew.
"She told Travers everything, Giles, absolutely everything. Well, everything that she knows. She told him that Buffy's now a demon of some sort and that you are falsifying your records," replied the stoic werewolf. "A retrieval team will be here in a week to fire you and kill Buffy and any of the Aurelian vampires that they can."
Giles groaned as things seemed to be going from bad to worse. This news coupled with the phone call about the death of the museum curator, and the theft of the stone obelisk, that he received while waiting for Oz to report back caused Giles’ ire to once again surface. Much like it had when he found out Angelus had Buffy at the factory, causing him to torch it, and then again when he found Jenny dead in his bed and went after the vampire with a baseball bat, intent on beating him to death in his grief. Buffy and her mate had to be protected from the Council. Giles knew this. He also knew there was only one person who could help him conceal the Slayer's presence from her enemies.
At some point Spike and Buffy climbed out of the pond and had sense enough to move the wheelchair back into the mansion when they retreated to their bedroom for a much needed hot shower and nap. Spike lay over Buffy’s smaller body protectively while they slept. That is how Angelus found them when he came in to rouse the pair for his little show and tell. It had taken him and Drusilla nearly an hour longer than he anticipated lugging it to the mansion due to the lazy bunch of minions he had chosen for the job. Their laziness was rewarded with a good dusting once they set the obelisk up in the living room.
The blond couple sluggishly got out of bed at Angelus’ feigned eagerness to show them the pressie he had brought home. After dressing herself, Buffy helped Spike dress and into his wheelchair. He was getting tired of the contraption but with the plan he and Buffy had discussed during the mutual shower, he still had to work the helpless angle. She wheeled him out of the room ahead of Angelus and they waited in the living room for the big soulless poof’s grand entrance.
Angelus and Drusilla walked hand-in-hand across the marble floor to where Spike sat in his wheelchair with Buffy behind him. All eyes were trained on the obelisk set in front of the huge fireplace.
Buffy simmered in her anger that had been building toward Angelus. She hoped the plan she and Spike came up would work to stop whatever her ex boyfriend’s demon had planned. She would hate to have to kill one of the vampires that could help her discern her own demonic change. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Angelus moved closer to her and Spike.
Upon hearing his grandsire enter, Spike quipped dryly, “It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big.”
Angelus squeezed Spike’s shoulder in a punishing grip that drew a small irritated growl out of the younger vampire. “Spike, my boy, you never did learn your history.”
“Let's have a lesson, then,” Spike said sardonically.
Angelus released Spike’s shoulder. “Acathla the demon came forth to swallow the world.” He strolled slowly to the obelisk. “He was killed by a virtuous knight who pierced the demon's heart before he could draw a breath to perform the act. Acathla turned to stone, as demons sometimes do, and was buried,” Angelus turned to face his childer, “where neither man nor demon would want to look.” He walked away from the obelisk. “Unless of course they're putting up low-rent housing. Boys . . .”
The two remaining minions scurried around, reaching up with crowbars to pry open the tomb. The lid crashed to the floor and stirred up plenty of dust. Inside sat a tall, horned, stockily built stone demon with a sword protruding from the right side of its chest. Upon seeing it Drusilla closed her eyes, raised her hands to her temples and began to loll her head back and forth.
“It fills my head,” Drusilla said dryly. “I can't hear anything else.”
Spike cocked his head at his sire and flicked his eyes at the statue. “Let me guess. Someone pulls out the sword . . .”
“Someone worthy . . .” Angelus corrected his grandchilde in an annoyed voice.
“Mm hmm,” Spike mumbled and then went on, “The demon wakes up, and wackiness ensues.”
Drusilla opened her eyes, lowered her arms and stared adoringly at her sire. “He will swallow the world!” she cried out softly.
“And every creature living on this planet will go to Hell,” Angelus amended with a smirk.
Angelus walked up to Acathla for a closer inspection, and turned to face the minions and his childer. “My friends . . . we're about to make history . . . end,” he announced with an evil smile.
“That was your show and tell? You’re kidding, right?” Buffy blurted out. She gestured toward the statue. “You’re going to end the known world with that?”
Angelus growled in frustration at the blond girl. She didn’t understand the meaning of this whole situation. She had no clue how huge the event was that Acathla was brought here to Sunnydale. Angelus understood. He may have been caged when Angel met Whistler but he was listening, biding his time, waiting for this moment. The glorious instant when he would unleash hell on Earth.
Angelus prowled over to Buffy and stared her down with his chocolate eyes. “Could you survive a hell dimension, sweetheart?”
“I’m surviving you aren’t I? What can be worse than having to live with the notorious An-gel-us tormenting your mind?” Buffy asked, meeting his glare and not backing down.
Spike knew he should curb his mate’s tongue, but this was just too . . . delicious to watch. He sat back with a curve to his lips forming a small smile as he watched Buffy give it right back to Angelus. It was all part of the plan they had come up with, certainly. But to see his mate's eyes flare turquoise with her anger was riveting.
“There’s demons out there a lot worse than me, Buffy,” Angelus replied.
“Somehow I doubt that,” Buffy said dryly.
“Spike, take your prideful mate and be gone from my sight,” Angelus growled softly.
Spike smiled as he wheeled the chair out of the room. He missed Buffy flipping her hair at Angelus and flouncing off behind him. Had he seen it, he would have really laughed at the ways she tried to get under his grandsire’s skin. Buffy was starting to come out of her shell around the older vampire and, although respectful of the elder’s position, she still was defiant enough to try his patience with her.