Once It Begins

“HERE.” The deep sonorous voice stops Cordy and all eyes turn to the back entrance where the two vampires stand side by side.
....


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09 Connections


Buffy runs into the main room of the Magic Box when she hears Angel’s voice. She follows her instincts and stops only a foot away from the vampires. “Angel!” she sobs, sighs, then after a dramatic pause, she throws herself at... Spike.

Willow makes a strangled sound and Angel suppresses a chuckle. Spike though, looks kinda disturbed down at the blond girl clutching at him in desperation. “You’ve lost weight.” Buffy says and it’s the last straw for Tara, she starts giggling rather loudly.

“Oh, oh, I can see again!” Buffy squeals joyfully and looks up at the person she’s holding on to. Who is Spike. “GAH!” She splutters and jumps back. Maybe she would be embarrassed about her faux pas but the happiness about her returned sight overlays every other emotion. She turns around, screaming out: "I can see again. There is Giles and Cordelia? And Willow and Tara and this time they are not having hot, sweaty, lesbian sex!" Tara’s face flames up again, embarrassed beyond reason, she retreats a few steps in an attempt to make herself invisible.
“Oh no! NONONONONONO! Take it back! I didn’t do anything this time! Willooooow!” Buffy whines and everybody looks at her when she spreads her arms wide, trying to get a feeling for her surroundings.

Spike chuckles... "Hot, sweaty, lesbian sex?" he waggles his eyebrow at his sire, the pink tip of his tongue rubbing over a sharp canine tooth sensually. Angel shivers, when this little motion sends a tingle to his groin, he knows immediately what Spike is referring to, thinking back to long gone times when he watched Darla and Dru entwined on a bed, more often then not with the fledgling William in the middle; when the girls were either asleep or had gone out hunting and only his boy remained on the silken sheets, wantonly spread out for him... naked flawless body, baby blue eyes begging, cock purple and leaking... violently Angel tears himself back to reality, adjusting his hardness as subtly as possible. He focuses back on the people in the room. "Where is Xander?"

*** *** ***

Darkness.
Coldness.
Numbness.
Hunger.
Sire???

*** *** ***

Stephen is wandering aimlessly through small alleys of the town. He keeps to the shadows, not wanting to be even more visible to the many eyes he feels travelling over his body again and again. He moves almost noiselessly, the pounding heartbeat is the loudest sound emitting from his body. Suddenly he feels something resembling a sharp nudging nst nst the back of his spine. The sensation of a thousand bugs crawling up his neck makes him whimper and arch his back. The ‘pull’ he felt before, the need to get somewhere fast to… help or something, is back. He just follows his instincts and starts running in the direction of the outskirts of the town.

*** *** ***

Buffy squeaks suddenly and slumps down to the ground. When the watcher rushes towards her, Angel and Spike catch a whiff of underlying arousal, sharing a look, needing nothing more to know what the other thinks right now.

Willow comes forward, coming to a halt before Angel, cocking her head while looking deeply in his eyes, then smiling brightly. Waving Tara over to confirm what Willow found out and Tara nods,
shyly smiling at the bulky vampire. Spike looks questioningly at Angel but the older vamp pretends not to notice it.

Suddenly the front door flies open and slams into the wall with a loud crash. Cordy lets out a high-pitched scream. Buffy jumps to an upright position and people scramble for things to use as weapons. As if sharing one body, three vamps duck their heads and scrunch up their faces.

“Daddy!” The woman in the black dress shouts, jumping in joy and dances over to the other members of her family. About halfway there, she stops directly in front of the slayer, whose senses are on total overload with the close proximity of three vamps of such an age, who are all related. Her slayer senses prove themselves useless when confronted with three signatures so similar, they merge together, alarming her in turns to the presence of one, two or three vamps, sometimes all around her, sometimes backing away. Dissed,sed, Buffy launches forward, gets hold of rustling fabric and uses her bodyweight to bring the Vamp down with her. “Stake! Stake! I need a stake!” she screams frantically until she becomes aware that the body under her is not moving.

“Ooooh poooor slayer… all dark. Frightened little lamb… Has the light lost you or… did you lose the light?” Dru whispers, only loud enough for superiorly sensitive ears to hear and Buffy herself. Hastily hiding the helplessness the slayer feels behind a wall of anger, she spits out one word “Drusilla!”
Drusilla’s face melts into sweet smiling innocence, one hand comes up and caresses the slayer’s cheek tenderly. “Yes, my lamb…” She murmurs “It’s me.” before she twists the slayer’s neck.

Two screams mingle into one when Drusilla pulls away violently, long fingernails leaving deep angry scratches on Buffy’s neck.

Angel groans and Spike crashes down onto one knee gasping for unneeded breath.

Giles sees his opportunity and tackles the keening Drusilla, holding her to the ground. He has no stake and he wouldn’t risk trying to get near her with one. Giles is not dumb. He sees the change in Angel and knows he would tear him apart if he were to try to kill one of his childers.
Wesley rushes to Drusilla who is now struggling to get away from Giles, wailing out her frustration.

Spike’s hand comes up and clutches onto his sire’s underarm. Angel just nods and grips Spike’s wrist, pulling him up and of thf the shop whilst all eyes are on the brawl around his only female childe.

“Are you okay?” Angel asks when he shoves the dazed Spike into the passenger seat of his GTX.
“Yes, I think I will be. Soon. It’s just…” Spike trails off searching for the right word.
“Overwhelming? Amazing? Painful when a new childe is connected to the bloodline?”
“All of the above?” Spike offers weakly and then gets serious. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” Angel looks over at Spike whose expression holds earnest concern for both parties in the Magic Box. Distracted by his own musings about the changes in his boy which he seems to discover every other moment, he goes around the car and seats himself behind the steering wheel. Then he answers: “Sure. They have a slayer.”
“Who is blind.”
“Against a slightly crazy vamp.”
“Hey!”
“Hush Spike, I made her, I love her like she is. I’m not always patient but…” Spike interrupts him,
“And two watchers…”
Angel groans and adds: “One drooling all over an incapable slayer and the other enthralled by a psychic vamp…”
Angel chuckles and Spike continues with his list.
“Two witches, one powerful…”
“But weak minded.”
“The other even more powerful but too…”
“Embarrassed to use it…”
“I was going for shy! Never mind. A cheerleader with visions and the street fighter who hates vamps.”
“But works for one and now follows one without even being enthralled…”

Spike cocks his head and looks at Angel with a long sideways glance.
“You’re enjoying this!” He exclaims finally, waiting for the answer with uselessly held breath.
“Of course… Who wouldn’t?” Angel flashes Spike a very Angelus-y smirk – amusement with just a hint of fangs - and starts the engine of his convertible.
“The mansion?” Spike sighs, chiding himself for not thinking about that location sooner.
“For sure. My mansion.”

*** *** ***

Slowly now Stephen creeps closer to the old, towering building. It looks abandoned but not derelict, left behind but not forgotten. The cramping feeling inside his belly that something majorly important will happen soon increases and makes his breath come in short intervals.
The thick wooden door is ajar, so he pushes it open, hiding behind the door frame just in case someone is inside, just waiting to attack.
When nothing happens he tiptoes inside the hall, his senses on alert, trying to figure out where the ‘pull’ he feels comes from.
Upstairs.

Without further inspection of the lower room he cautiously sneaks up the wide staircase to the first floor. All doors are closed but one, so he goes directly towards it. He comes to a stop in the threshold, his heart speeding up when he takes in the still form on the bed.
A man.
Tied to the bedposts.
Not moving.
With a harsh intake of breath he rushes over to him, shaking the unmoving person.
No reaction.

As trashy as if in a cheap horror movie, Stephen thinks, the clouds move and silver moonlight shines through the decayed curtains onto the impassive face. He raises a hand to the man’s forehead and the next second he is in the corner farthest away from the bed, trembling from shock.
Cold. Cold. Cold. coldcoldcoldcold….

The blood rushes so loudly in his ears that it overlays all other sounds, except the pounding sound of his heart pumping in top speed. He feels dizzy and helpless. Routines fail him.
What do you do… whatdoyoudowhatdoyoudowhatdoyoudo…

Mobile phone!
Numb fingers search in his pockets until finally they collide with the hard plastic cover and he gets it out, his shaking fingers dialing the three numbers that promise help.
The silence between the beeping tones, uselessly unaffected by his panic, seems to stretch forever, until someone takes up the receiver and answers: “Sunnydale Police Department…”

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